'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles' visits a sleep clinic
I think we can all agree that last week's Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles wasn't the greatest episode ever. Fortunately, this week's was far better, not wholly original, but far better.
Sarah told us tonight that the demons come after midnight, in the first three hours of the new day... "if you believe in that kind of thing." I kind of bet that Sarah does, after all, she's got metal monsters from the future after her, why not vampires, ghosts, and goblins too. The ghosts and demons -- whether real or imagined -- were certainly taking Sarah's sleep this week. She had checked herself into a sleep clinic for it... or had she? Perhaps, rather than being in a sleep clinic she was actually being held hostage by persons unknown, persons affiliated with the metal works that Sarah was visiting until someone tasered her.
Fine, only I instantly thought the tasering was perhaps reality and the sleep clinic a dream (you know, like that Buffy episode). Admit it, whether it was original or not, you instantly thought it would be great to do the episode that way.
But, back at the sleep clinic, every time Sarah fell asleep she saw Winston, the security guard she killed at the factory. He was holding her in a van and was not amused with Sarah having killed him, nor her having found the metal works. Even the dreamcatcher Sarah had in her room at the sleep clinic didn't seem to prevent the Winston nightmares.
Our Sarah though, she doesn't take anything lying down, even her dreams. She fought back against Winston, getting Winston to accidentally stab himself with a hypodermic meant for Sarah. Then, she woke herself up in the sleep clinic, yanking off the electrodes on her head. She's a fighter.
Honestly though, the way I see it, if the sleep clinic had electrodes on Sarah and were monitoring her sleep they would probably have had a pretty good idea that she was awake and running around as soon as she yanked the electrodes. The wasn't actually the case. Sarah wandered around the clinic and stalked the nice nurse who was supposed to be taking care of her all the way to a locked door in the basement. If the clinic was in fact an evil place and they had Sarah under surveillance (as we were led to believe), I can't imagine that no one would have checked on her until morning, which is exactly what did happen.
On the other hand, Sarah's roommate, Dana, nearly burned to death in her sleep (that was the fear that kept popping up in Dana's nightmares and caused her sleep issues). That definitely argued in favor of the clinic being evil, as did the nurse forcing Sarah to take sleep meds even though Sarah had made it clear she was anti drugs.
On the third hand, any evil sleep clinic that injects patients with something and then leaves the syringe with the patient isn't being run by a brain trust. Sarah, whether because of her history or her lack of sleep, was wholly convinced that the locked room in the basement (which had a computer database with brain scans in it) was some sort of Skynet data gathering operation.
How wrong she was.
She had John delete all the data on her in the locked room, but no sooner did that happen than the nurse came in and dispatched Sarah and John with some well-placed bullets (Sarah tried to shoot her first but it didn't take). It turned out that Sarah was really being held by Winston in the van, just as we all kind of figured from the very beginning of the episode.
No worries though, she put a bullet in Winston's brain and escaped just as the episode was drawing to a close.
Just as an aside, the best of bit tonight (and I can't dream of a world in which you don't agree) was clearly Cameron smacking a vending machine forcing out tons of food, including John's stuck potato chips. Those Terminators, they've got physics all worked out (even if it never really happened).
Okay, it wasn't exactly like that Buffy episode, but it was similar, right? And, can we at least all agree that it was better than last week and certainly sparked some interesting possibilities about Winston. What do you think his deal is? Are we going to see him again?
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I thought I'd share the comments of the show's producer, Josh Friedman, on the future (end?) of the show http://www.terminatorchronicles.com/tscc-producer-josh-friedman-on-the-future-of-the-show/ . A part of this indicated his decision to focus more on Sarah Connor and he wasn't kidding. So far, the entire spring season has been concerned our lead character's aggressiveness. I can't say the title of the show hasn't warned us. With the exception of John, most of the characters have faded into the background. This is not the type of balanced presentation one expects in a serial show with an ensemble cast. The viewer loses perspective of events going on in parallel and forgets the numerous threads in progress.
Remember when the show started? The most important point was locating and destroying the initial Tirk computer which might become Skynet. The Connors stopped the Cromartie terminator, Ellison witnesses where the ch***is was buried with them, they return to destroy it only to find it isn't there and no one thinks to shadow him. What do they think happened to this loose end? You don't take Ellison, who was let in on the whole story at his word that he had nothing to do with it. This had to be pursued further. Instead, the story has the lead character acting on notions, following her dreams.
Let's remember Terminator is a story about a rogue intelligence. Computer gone bad first, robots act as agents for that computer second. Write with your initial premise in mind.
At least the article on the director hints at the denouement. As I've been saying all along the viewers will be cliff-hangered to encourage the show's renewal. I'm not going to ask what the story with a nuclear submarine might be (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea perhaps?). Most importantly, many characters will have their stories explained. Special emphasis seems to be indicated for Catherine Weaver who I've identified as one of the most important characters in the series.
Lastly, our blog host's favorite character Riley is featured next week. I hope he's still with us afterwards ! ;)
I'll digress here, because it continues to bug me how John, although he is getting better looking as he is still growing, doesn't need all the mascara, fergawdsake.
Put him in a tight shot, then switch to Sarah without makeup, and it's distracting.
He's hotter with makeup than Cameron, these days.
Just distracting.
i agree with cb above about john's appearance. i was so happy when he cut his hair---i swear it looked like a wig--but last night i noticed all this gel in it and thought it's getting long again. and it wasn't obvious to me that the sleep clinic was just a dream---i was confused during this episode but still love this show.
Since I watch people doing the smacking of a snack vending machine on a daily basis, I actually did LOL, which I never do, anymore, at TV.
Makes me think how I loved the Cameron gags which I foolishly believed would be inserted into every script.
Like Cameron standing in the living room of the new house, notes that it's foundation is settling at a a rate of (x), and proclaiming that "We'll need to paint next year."
That vending machine even made CHANGE.
i never watched Buffy, maybe that's why I didn't know which part was the dream until John got shot.
No one mentioned the scene where Summer Glau walks by in lingerie. Is everyone here a woman, or gay? Certainly not gay women. A lesbian would appreciate a moment like that.
I read this on another site:
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Recently, show runner Josh Friedman did address everyone's concerns about the show's creative direction. For example, he says the previous three most recent episodes are part of a "trilogy" examining Sarah Connor herself. Friedman explains that he made a deliberate decision "some months ago" to start focusing the show more on Sarah Conner herself, and what the fight against Skynet is doing to her.
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Okay I got that part. But what did we learn about Sarah from these last three episodes? What resolutions came forth?
Answer: not a hell of a lot.
This "Sarah trilogy" would have been better served in season 3 (if there actually is going to be one).
I think the two-month layoff (which I'm sure he knew about in advance) combined with the time switch to Friday at 8pm made this a VERY bad time to do a three episode "introspection" piece on Sarah.
The ratings are tanking and there's already rumors of pulling the show before all the back nine episodes are aired.
Great idea. Great show. Bad show runner.
I love Lena Headey and the character of Sarah, but there was no B story at all this week - unless you count Sarah real and Sarah drugged up as the A and B stories. It almost seems like they know there will be no 3rd season and are doing fairly cheap dramas in these last few eps. Not many big effects shots, and little actual plot development.
I loved the 1st season, patchy 2nd continues. This was an ok episode, but lets have some ACTION please - and much much more Cameron. (BTW, was her in her underwear part of Sarah's hallucination? Either she's worried about Cameron's influence on John or she's having naughty thoughts!!
Speaking about the scene in which Cameron walks by in lingerie while John is talking to Sarah, this was part of Sarah's dream, right?
If so, this may mean that subconsciously she feels that John may be developing not-so-platonic feelings for Cameron.
Another moment I found funny was during the very beginning of the episode when John first arrives at the clinic and Sarah is in her room with roommate Dana. Dana, noticing John, says something like "well, hello, tiger". John follows that up with an awkward "hello".
Oh, and did you spot that nurse/doctor use one of Cameron's phrases (thank you for explaining) which immediately told me she was a terminator and John shooting her wouldn't work! Also, Sarah's room mate was a Brit. Was that an America actress playing Brit? Would have been bizzaro if it was.