‘Sarah Connor Chronicles’ blogging: “The Tower Is Tall But the Fall Is Short”
(previous: Episode 5: “Goodbye to All That”)
I find myself moved to snark on the robots from the future and the impending doom of the human race. Hey, it’s the way I roll. Feel free to discuss more in-depth in comments, should you be moved to do so.
[spoilers after the jump!]
Okay: How the hell did Cameron get the folded-up lady Terminator out of the elevator and home without anyone seeing? This really bothers me.
Okay: Why the hell has this show descended into everyone moping about hard it is to save the world from the machines? The Connor family in therapy? Pul-eeze. Can we maybe start to see some saving of the world going on, and not just some talking about how the saving of the world makes us feel? If that’s not too much to ask. I don’t want to threaten anyone’s emotional fragility or anything, but, you know, therapy is a luxury of a safe and indulgent culture: it’s not something you have time for when you’re out to save the world.
And if there is time enough for therapy, then why the hell isn’t Derek Reese enjoying this nice clean unnuked world some more? His girlfriend from the future rags on him for eating pretzels, which appears to be his one indulgence, but look at her in her fancy hotel. Obviously, she knows how to live in the unnuked past. (And hey: if it occurs to Derek so readily that she’s AWOL, why aren’t a helluva lot more soldiers from the future going AWOL into the past? If it’s that easy to do, when isn’t future-John Connor preventing it from happening? Are time machines just lying around?)
And why does the redhead Terminator care about the kid being freaked out by her not-mommy? I understand that Cameron has an incentive to try to appear more human and fit in with the humans, but apparently only the kid has any inkling that the redhead Terminator isn’t human. So why not just strangle the kid and tell everyone else she was sent to a private school in Europe or something? Why should the redhead Terminator care about learning to be a mommy?
(Oh, and turns out the redhead Terminator is from Edinburgh, so I retract my earlier statements about her being Irish. Though she does still sound more Irish than Scottish to my ear.)
For everyone who suggested that SCC was on the verge of cancellation -- which appears to have been true -- the show has just gotten a full-season order. I’m at the point of giving up on it, though: I’d like it to be more science-fictional than it has been so far this year. I care about how John feels, but not to the point that I want to hear about it for an entire freakin’ episode.
Lesson for the week: Don’t let John mope too much, or else he’ll feel the need to remove the electronic bug from the office of the therapist you send him to, and then you’ll miss the one vital clue you need to stop the machines. Doh!
(Need a complete episode recap? Check out Fox’s official site for the show.)
(next: Episode 7: “Brothers of Nablus”)
[buy at Amazon (Region 1)] [buy at Amazon (Region 2)]viewed at home on a small screen
rated TV14-LSV
official site | IMDB
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comments
posted by C. David Dent (Tue Oct 21 08, 4:11PM)
While I agree with you on most of the above points, I need to point out that John's suffering was real to him. And the reveal at the end (no spoilers) informed me that he really did need to talk to someone.
He's not an adult and lacks the coping mechanisms that adults have. If he's going to survive to be the leader everyone expects him to be he needs some emotional guidance, and his emotionally repressed mother and his shell-shocked uncle, and his robotic sister aren't helping.
I think he needs a real friend who he can be frank with. I hope that will be Charlie, but after what happened a few weeks ago, I don't see that coming to pass.
Oh, and I though of a way that Cameron could carry the terminator-ball-woman...She would have had to wrap it in a blanket and pretended it was laundry. (We didn't see that part naturally).
posted by MaryAnn (Tue Oct 21 08, 4:48PM)
You're not wrong, C. David, but that doesn't mean that has to be the focus of an entire episode.
posted by Roger BW (Wed Oct 22 08, 4:48AM)
This is what I was hoping the half-season order would avoid - too many time-filling episodes. I'm still enjoying it more than most other shows I'm watching, though.
Why is she keeping the child? Because she finds it fascinating, just as she finds the experimental AI fascinating, and for much the same reasons. It's, sorry, she's expendable at a moment's notice, but she may be able to help Redhead Terminator learn how to make her own AI-child better.
(And while you obviously wouldn't be an evil pirate and download the leaked DVD-screener pilot of Leverage, I'd recommend that you take a look when it's broadcast in December. Rumour has it that it's a good old-fashioned caper show, like the BBC's Hustle before it ran out of ideas in season 4.)
posted by Jim Mann (Wed Oct 22 08, 2:03PM)
I've been assuming that the red-headed terminator has a reason for keeping the child, that it is somehow tied to the future of Skynet. I'm assuming (hoping) that more will be revealed as we move on.
What I want to know is why the other terminator (the one Cameron beat up in the elevator) was going after the psychologist. The clues about the psychologist we have so far is that he's going to help in the development of Skynet. If so, why was the terminator going after him? Was she sent back by the resistance (if so, it would explain why she stopped fighting when others got in the elevator, though that may be giving the show's creators more credit than they deserve for thinking that through)? If not, is she part of a different faction from the red-headed terminator?
Jim
posted by Michael (Wed Oct 22 08, 4:53PM)
How do you know it's Skynet that the G-1000 is developing? Maybe what we heard in a previous episode is true and there's a faction of the machines that oppose Skynet's policy of killing ALL the humans, so they sent her back to create a Skynet-level AI that agrees with them before Skynet itself gets created. (It would explain why she didn't just come back in time with full technical designs.) :)