"TERMINATOR: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" Season 2 Thread (1 Viewer)

[Zack Gibbs]

John got laid? I had some dropouts in tonight's airing so I could have missed it...

I was impressed with last weeks T-1000 effects but noticed this weeks weren't as good and that they oddly didn't use a shape-shifter to impersonate the plant employee. I only bring it up because I had thought at the time "Gee, they've reached the point where they can do that on a weekly basis with a TV budget," but I guess that's not quite true.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I agree. I thought for sure that the plant employee would turn out to be Garbage, since they've never before shown Skynet to be able to send back a matching terminator clone of a target on the fly. My guess is, they made the choice they did because they weren't ready for the Connor clan to know about the T-1001 yet. Had they encountered the liquid metal, it would have been a "holy crap" moment for our protagonists that they want to save for sweeps.

 

[Will_B]

He at least got to second. But on a more serious note, the story had major problems. First of all, never has it ever been suggested that T-800 series Terminators can take on the appearance of living people. It makes hardly any sense, though one could imagine that in the future, Skynet uses his ID badge at work to make a good rendering of him, builds a T-800 with a custom skin of him and sends him back in... No. It was absurd and the showrunner must have been asleep at the wheel. Second major mistake: Sarah asks Cameron if her run-in with the nuclear plant was what caused her cancer in the earlier time-line. Even I can easily say "no", since she would have been dead for a couple years before that nuke plant ever went online. Her fear of radiation and concern that she might get cancer is sensible, given what Cameron told her earlier, but she is not so stupid that she'd get confused about what could have caused it.

This episode was close to being real good but it had those big failures, and that is just weird, to have those kinds of mistakes only two episodes in to the new season.

Oh, also, what was that scrawled on the wall at the end? I got the impression it was supposed to be a detailed explanation about what they had to do at the nuke plant -- making their entire investigation a waste of time -- but it looked like random text to me. I really missed a narration from Sarah to tie things together here. They need to bring her narration back.

 

[Zack Gibbs]

Will, we've already seen "traditional" terminator impersonation in season 1, when Cromartie kills and assumes the life of his human mirror. That's no different from what happened here. It was made clear that "plant scar-arm guy" was an important and known figure in the future, hence "dying resistance fighter with a message guy" naming him with his last words.

And Sarah wasn't questioning if that's how she got cancer in the alternate time line, she was questioning this future, asking Cameron;

"Am I still going to get sick?"

"I don't know"

"Is today how it happens?"

"I don't know"

"What am I supposed to do, just wait? ...Like a time bomb I'm just going to go off someday?

"I don't know... am I?"

I liked that bit actually. As for what was written at the end, I can't be sure and did have the same comical conclusion that you did, "Oh, THAT's what we were supposed to do..." lol. But realistically I concluded it was a probably larger list of objectives that they'll need to deal with over the season, perhaps dealing specifically with Garbage lady.

 

[Will_B]

Oh come on, that took the Terminator forever and a half, and involved finding a scientist who could create skin, another surgeon who could sculpt his face into the other guy's face, etc. It was a one-off, difficult accomplishment on the part of Cromartie -- and even the choice of who he impersonated was dependent on whether the shape of the guy's head was close enough to the 800's own metal head (remember he ran through all the pics in the doctor's database until he found one that would fit).

 

[Zack Gibbs]

It sounds like you concluded the terminator just took his form earlier that afternoon or something? Logically the terminator would have been sent back already in his doppelganger form. Conceivably this could even be the sole reason dead future guy mentioned him by name, and that Plant-Guy's only real significance was that he was going to be replaced.

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

- I saw a list of larger objectives on the wall at the end.

- I saw Sarah asking about the new future, not the old one.

- I did not see John getting busy with his new friend that he just met that day. In fact, I didn't even see a "morning after" scene, as they took off from school and the girl ends up saying that she needs to get back for English class. Same day.

- We've already seen imitation T-800's.

So far, I'm still watching.

 

[Tom Kirk]

Goofs:
In Texas it's pronounced "EL-gin" with a hard G, not "EL-jin".
Also, Elgin and Corpus Christi are over 200 miles apart, not close even by Texas' lengthy standards.
With these two errors in one sentence I thought perhaps someone was being tested, but no, it was just a screwup.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I vote no on John getting laid. They woke up in their same clothes as the day before. They simply fell asleep while looking at the stars. Now Riley does have some mechanical abilities that will help John and his understanding of robotics in some way. Whether Riley is from the future is to be seen.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Based on the episode's chronology, I'm assuming that Riley had approached John at the end of the day after he'd skipped a few classes. It was his first day at the new school, and the English class in question had already happened as a topic of their first conversation. They spent the night laying on the bed and chatting, which Sarah begrudgingly permitted. The next morning, John wakes up in bed and sees Riley already up, which she explains as being an early riser.

Hopefully the list of objectives written in blood will give the Connor clan some forward momentum. Up until now, they have been almost entirely reactive.

 

[Will_B]

Well despite the new ideas introduced into the Terminator universe, I did enjoy the episode.

But is anyone else wondering how the girlfriend will die? I'm thinking, if this were cable, Cameron would decide she's a liability and kill her. Since it's network, I'm thinking, Cameron will decide she's a liability but she'll get killed by someone else.

 

[Stephen Orr]

I, too, vote no on John and Riley sleeping together. There really was no indication of it from the next morning. He was fully dressed when he woke up. Something is up with Riley, though. Interesting that she could spend the night away from home on a school night and no worry about parental concern.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

Good catch!

There is definitely something "fishy" going on there. And I wonder why John wanted her to always provide the date when she calls his cell?

I, too, miss the Conner "narratives" at the beginning and end of the episodes. After all, these are supposed to be her "chronicles".

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I realize that the show is ignoring T3 but I just assumed that the terminator who took the plant guy's form was a T-X.

Sure it appeared to be a T-800 model, probably was, but it's easy to assume that Skynet simply upgraded the T-800's to be able to do this.

I bet the new girl is part of this somehow, I would say that she's a Terminator like Cameron but surely Cameron would have knew that when she scanned her. Cameron playing pool and triangulating her shot was hilarious.

Oh, and they didn't have sex, didn't pick up on that at all.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Sarah and Reese were doing it to; it appears to be a simple way to confirm that the person on the other end of the line is who they say they are and not under duress.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

It's not that they've ignored T3 — Sarah Connor wouldn't have been threatened with cancer if they had — it's that the events of the pilot splintered off and created a new timeline. Cameron is from the T3 timeline. But her getting sent back along with Cromartie threatened that timeline, and when they jumped forward through the time machine in the bank, it basically meant a total split.

 

[Greg_S_H]

She was evasive when John asked her about her parents.

 

[mattCR]

This is when the show loses me though. The problem with a show where people come from the future is that the actions of the current most assuredly can change that future.

With a rebel base taken out of the picture now, wouldn't that change a great deal about where they would go in the future, who might survive, etc.?

Skynet coming back to meddle and then John Connor trying to counter it is almost like a chess game. And it's interesting. But when they announced the automation of numerous plants, it was like: pawn take rook. It wasn't just one plant or base that changed in the future, it was that now SkyNet would have vast reserves in the future it didn't have before.

So, you have to feel as though there needs to be counterbalance episodes where Sarah & John do something that will negatively impact SkyNet's resources in the future to offset that, if only to keep somewhat status quo.

The whole thing is way too messy still.

 

[seanOhara]

According to T3, Sarah died in 1997; the pilot for TSSC takes place in 1999 and Cameron says Sarah would die in 2005 if not for the time jump. The writers are ignoring everything about T3, and the cancer is just a coincidence.

 

[Will_B]

"This is when the show loses me though. The problem with a show where people come from the future is that the actions of the current most assuredly can change that future. With a rebel base taken out of the picture now, wouldn't that change a great deal about where they would go in the future, who might survive, etc.?"


Indeed, one could well ask, when they were faced with this latest news that a nuke plant was relevant to the resistance, why didn't they say "screw it, we're going to prevent Skynet from coming online in the first place, so none of that future occurs at all. Let's go get donuts!"

That would be more in keeping with their intent. At this point though it appears that they are planning on losing -- they are planning on Judgment Day actually happening -- so they're willing to just improve the odds for the resistance rather than actually preventing Judgment Day.