"TERMINATOR: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" Season 2 Thread - Page 14

Re: "TERMINATOR: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" Season 2 Thread

While there were some wild gyrations in the characterization of Cameron early on in the first season, she has become far and away the best rendered Terminator so far. Both the way the character is written and the way Summer performs her. I absolutely love the idea that she spends her nights at the library, pursuing the topics that interest her. It's such a human impulse from an inherently inhuman machine.

Ultimately, I think the key to Cameron is that she is both extremely empathetic and eminently practical. I believe that she really did grow to care about Eric, at least so far as to be grateful for the avenues of knowledge that he opened to her. The suicide question, while horribly impolitic, undoubtedly came out of genuine curiosity from trying to reconcile the frustration of damaged functionality from the vantage point of someone used to being physically perfect. It might even have been a solicitation for advice; she knows her own chip is damaged, so perhaps she is considering commiting suicide herself rather than risk the mission should she go rogue.

The final scene subverts our desire to humanize Cameron, but it does not negate everything that has come before. If I had to guess, I would say that Cameron was "sad" that Eric did not answer the door. But though conditions were not ideal, proceeding with the replacement (even violating their special ritual in the process) remained the most practical course of action I think the largest objective of the storyline was to bury the pipe about the three dots; my guess is that the mark on the wall in the basement is a timestamp for a particular date in time.

However, I also like it being a one-off on a thematic level. If Sarah and John have no knowledge about this particular episode, who's to say that Cameron hasn't been stalking the night the whole series, putting out little brushfires and keeping history on track? It's a nice little idea to be playing with. My guess is that her storage capacity is functionally unlimited. Considering that two decades ago we were counting in kilobytes and today were counting in terabytes, I find it plausible that storage capacity continued to improve until it was no longer a matter of consideration.

I do wonder whether her constant collection of emotional data will culminate in an "emotional singularity", much like the "technological singularity" that made Skynet self-aware. Will there be a Helen Keller water moment where Cameron's processor finds gets its head around emotions? Not the best Skynet could do. But it did not send this terminator back to 1920. It sent this terminator back to 2010. Just because he landed in 1920 doesn't change his mission, which was to assassinate the governor of California in 2010. The complex chain of consequences that resulted all were set into motion so that that terminator could assassinate a particular man in that ballroom at a particular time.

As for why Skynet doesn't sent itself back to before the technology existed to put up a meaningful resistence: my guess is that it needs the infrastructure to be in place to take root. That's why it must develop naturally; only by developing naturally will the necessary infrastructure be in place to support it. The best they can do is nudge the process along, much like Garbagebot is doing.[quote=Greg_S_H]Excellent. I love how this show is determined to take things in an unexpected direction, from the Johnny Cash to the Wizard of Oz to this 1920s episode. I was starting to think Cameron had a little humanity in her after all until the cold way she began a relationship with the new library worker. I actually think this episode took the first steps to addressing this criticism, by introducing the idea that time travel isn't perfect. The advanced astronomy programming in each terminator for dating tells me that the terminator featured here isn't anywhere close to being the first one who was dropped off target. In fact, I doubt they even knew about the back-nine order when this episode went into production. For all they knew, the midseason finale was going to be it.

Re: "TERMINATOR: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" Season 2 Thread

Yeah, I'm assuming it would be a university in the LA area, since the Connors are based out of LA. UCLA makes a lot more sense than a college on the opposite corner of the country.

Re: "TERMINATOR: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" Season 2 Thread

Your reading is certainly just as valid as mine. I just prefer mine. The biggest argument for some emerging humanity is her curiosity. Until she happened on the photo of the terminator, she was pursuing unimportant subjects of personal interest, along with the suggestions provided by Eric. She does not emote, but I believe she wants to, or at least to understand why humans do. ...Yet. Unless she's seeking advice for her own benefit. Eric was damaged by cancer. Cameron knows her own chip is damaged. She could relate to him on that parallel level. My guess is that she has considered suicide (or rather, self-termination) and she wanted the perspective of another damaged model.

Re: "TERMINATOR: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" Season 2 Thread

Well, naturally as a killing machine she'd be interested in military history. I still doubt she's going to find herself in any musket battles anytime soon. I still believe that she cared that Eric was gone, but began working on his replacement anyway.

Re: "TERMINATOR: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" Season 2 Thread

While I thought the family in the cabin underreacted a bit, considering the impossible situation they found themselves in, I otherwise agree. Brian Austin Green is giving the performance of his career in this series. And unlike the Rashômon episode, I thought the editing device here worked beautifully, peeling back the layers of the onion at exactly the right times. Because there were only essentially three characters in the present -- Derek, Lauren and the dying mother -- it felt like a much more intimate episode than it really was. Most of our regular cast was only seen in flashbacks, and no John Connor at all. In that way, it felt more like a play than a TV episode, lack of linear storytelling aside.
I was also really glad they showed us the "Your zipper's down" scene that had been referred to in past episode. Seeing a pregnant mother and her two young children dead would be enough to send anybody over the edge. I was really hoping she'd join the cast as a regular. Fantastic character. Krutzfeldt is one of the few I've ever seen who can pull off the short, punkish hair and still look feminine. Yet despite being pretty, she gave a really solid performance and held her own against Green with her first episode.

Even though she isn't moving in with the Connors, I hope we'll see Lauren again sooner or later. Good question. We'll have to keep an eye out for the director next week and see if he's either of the two credited this week. Perhaps they had to fill holes in the editing bay and did reshoots during the midseason finale? Um, he's a terminator. As it happens, they're really strong. I just went back and checked. She nailed him in the back with the butt of her rifle. I don't think he died, though he probably wasn't in great shape, either. Roger had long hair, the terminator she was hunting had long hair. She only saw the back of him when she struck. Granted, her infrared should have detected a warm body, but the setup leaves enough room for doubt. That was my interpretation as well. The pile looked like it'd been sitting under some books or something for a while. Absolutely. I've been meaning to tell you by the way: fantastic image icon.

One other note: Anybody else pick up the parallels between Derek telling the dying mother she was going to have a daughter named Sydney and Kyle telling Sarah she was going to have a son named John? I thought it was a nice touch.