The Sarah Connor Chronicles: apparently I has an opinion!

[beccatoria]

Look! I have some thoughts on the Sarah Connor Chronicles. I suppose it's quite good that I'm actually moved to write something about a show other than BSG here since BSG will soon be gone and I'll either have to turn this into the Star Wars blog which might drive y'all insane or...be one of those people who goes on forever about a show that's cancelled until I'm the only one left at the bar. Stupid TV failing to immediately provide me with a new obsession.

Anyway, TSCC. I've caught up with this season and...it's okay. I don't love it yet, but it has the potential to make me love it. I think the chief reason I don't love it yet is that I don't trust it. My initial instinct is that it will keep on doing things I find entertaining and interesting but not the things I think it ought to do to make full use of itself? I know that sound snobby and I'm not trying to put that forward as anything other than objective. To compare with BSG (cus all roads lead back there eventually), I thought season 4.0 was uber-awesome even the weird bits and that the show is really exploiting it's themes and situations and characters in interesting ways but I know that there's a large contingent of fandom out there that thinks it really lost its edge and went off the rails this season. I can't really understand that point of view but I can understand that it's a valid one.

Not all shows are made for all people and I'm worried that TSCC is too similar to BSG for me to really bond with it because I'll jump onto it as BSG methadone and then be disappointed its not exploring the techno-religious angle the way I want it to.

Example: OMG HOW BORINGLY OBVIOUS IS IT THAT JOHN CONNOR KILLED THAT MAN. *le sigh*

Now, this isn't even a case of me hating John for being a whiny emo boy. Because, well, he's probably my least-favourite except Derek (I know *hides from rotten vegetables* but I just find him...boring), but I don't actually dislike him. Sure occasionally I wish he would try to talk to his mom or be less whiny, but I also think that he actually has a reason to feel as terrified and trapped and confused as he does and I really liked the idea that um, yeah, he needs therapy. And can't get any.

The reason I'm bored by the decision to have him kill the guy is actually my desire not to turn him into a walking cliche of a lead character. I was disappointed when I heard that one of the things they were going to try and do in the second season was turn John into more of a leader. I know that the character has to get there eventually, but I liked that he wasn't that guy, that he was still eight parts scared kid, one part resistance leader, one part smart. I like that it's called the Sarah Connor Chronicles because I think she's an infinitely more interesting character. They pointed out last season that Sarah had never killed anyone. Personally I'm as interested in seeing her work through her first kill as I am in seeing John work through his, (more, in fact, because I like her character more, but objectively I think there's as much story value in each), but by giving John that storyline, they can't really ever give it to Sarah without reminding us that John's already done it. They've put John "ahead" of her in some way. He's moved beyond her sphere of protection. I understand why they wanted to do that or felt they needed to, but it makes him more important while rendering her more obsolete and doing so after only eight episodes is...*le sigh* Sarah Connor Chronicles, people.

I suppose there's also the fact that as soon as Sarah claimed credit for killing the guy and we didn't see it happen it was kind of blindingly obvious that it was really John which also puts me at odds with the 'reveal' because I feel a bit like I'm supposed to be impressed with it, when actually a bigger reveal was that Sarah was the one going for psychiatric help.

Also, I would watch a show just of Cameron's therapy sessions.

Also, while I don't feel that the reveal of Jesse's character keeping tabs on Derek was anywhere near as 'meh' as the OMG JOHN KILLED THAT GUY! reveal, I was mildly disappointed because I really, really, really, really loved the idea of a damaged soldier going AWOL into the past, so near the end, in some live-in-pretend-ignorance-eventual-suicide-attempt. I mean, I just love that. I was less crazy about her claiming it was so she could die with Derek - in retrospect that seems much more like part of her 'cover'. But the idea of wanting to go back to before the crash not to stop it but just to die with everyone else there really resonated with me. Probably because at the moment all roads lead back to BSG with me and how many people in the Fleet would go back and stay at home that day and ask for a swift death if they could? Not all of them, no, but probably a bunch.

So I was sad not to get that as the arc of the character.

Either Shirley Manson is improving as an actress or I'm getting numb to her because she doesn't bother me as much as she used to. Though I still think that awful and awfully written monologue about people crossing the street as her introductory scene probably didn't help her. I'm presuming she keeps the kid around because she couldn't get rid of her without blowing her cover, but given the levels of sophistication she employs around her company even though her demeanor is emotionless and cold, I'm surprised that she didn't have the intelligence to hire a nanny to take the kid since she really should have worked out that she's not capable of doing so. That said it's kind of creepy watching her learn how to interact with a child.

Also her ability to hide what she is seem very inconsistant. She displays a very high level of humanness in her interactions with Agent Ellison (or, I suppose, Mr Ellison now) but doesn't understand that "cow's blood" is a weird answer, or that a child will want some level of attention? Partly her weirdness in her business persona can be put down to her coldness as a business woman, but it still seems odd to me that she can manipulate James so well because she really seems human in those scenes, and be clueless about her "daughter" to the point of not understanding that young children require physical contact which is something you'd pick up from like...thirty seconds of observing a parent-child interaction.

I'm picking here, and it's not something that seriously bothers me so much as makes me casually interested in others' opinions. I guess that I feel they could have done the same storyline just as well and perhaps more creepily if she really was trying a lot of the right "surface techniques" with Savannah and they used the storyline as a way of showing how inadequate those techniques really are in a relationship with any depth?

Anyway.

AGENT ELLISON.

When he first showed up I was vaguely disinterested in him, but by the end of season one he was one of my favourites and he just keeps getting more awesome. Please, please, never die.

Also I would not be averse to Charlie Dixon returning in one way or another.

And there's that. :)

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I was surprised by the John killing the guy thing. I thought the reason they cut away from it, and didn't show us, was because Sarah had been raped while John was forced to watch, but then Sarah had killed the guy. That was my instinct for why we didn't see exactly what happened.

So it was a surprise to me.


I think Jesse is something more than just keeping an eye on Derek... that big wound on her back? The Terminators couldn't send metal back unless it was cased in flesh... I think Jesse has something that has been put inside her. Perhaps a Terminator device, or a bomb that will go off unless she does what the Terminators have sent her back to do. Something like that.


Also, Shirley Manson isn't grating with me as much either. I do think she was awful the first few episodes though. I think she's just getting a bit better now.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's...something I hadn't considered, actually. And, had it been well handled by later episodes, might even have been better. Basically because it turns the character development back onto Sarah, and because it kind of gives a reason for John to refuse to talk to Sarah and not know how to process what happened. While I actually still understand why he's feeling so weird about it because killing a guy is not at all easy, I'm a little less sympathetic toward his inability to speak to Sarah about it. As in, I understand it, but also think that given his life and the expectations of such talking to her is a choice he could make if he were willing to just...be braver and confront it?

Gah, I hate not having the words for this. Basically while I understand why John's behaving the way he is and have sympathy for it, I also think that he has the choice to be more honest and open and braver about how he's feeling with his mother and that he has the intelligence to see that that would help and that he is instead choosing to be more self-destructive and depressed as an internal method of being angry because his life doesn't allow him to actually get angry and because while he resents the life his mother gave him he also understands that she's actually right?

So him not talking to her about the incident with him killing the guy comes across to me as a choice John is making, whereas had he been forced to watch that sort of violence against her and then watch her kill someone, I would feel less like it was a choice he was emotionally equipped to handle making?

But basically I think that considering it's a Fox show, they'd never go there.

I totally agree about Jesse. In fact it never occured to me that she was keeping an eye on Derek, my first thought was that she was looking into John because he was in the picture too.

My theory was that she's one of the Terminator replicas like Cameron's a version of Allison, but I'm hoping that's not true as it's not that interesting and would be an example of my above fear that the show will just...not deal with the questions I want it to ask in the way I want it to. Plus she's too good at camoflaging herself and I got the impression that Cameron's regression to "Allison" was an awesome weird screw-up philosophical fluke or Terminators wouldn't be so bad at pretending to be human in the first place? Jesse's too smooth to be a Terminator unless they've seriously improved along the line.

But I love your idea of the metal encased in flesh thing. That's...hella creepy. I'm still disappointed she's not just a deserter, but...that's at least more interesting than what I was thinking originally.

I hope I don't end up needing a TSCC icon: I don't have the space! Also, a Middleman icon if that show gets renewed. Unlikely as that seems. :(

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

In support of the rape theory, I thought the rough choppy editing they'd done around the flashbacks, and around the episode itself where it happened, was evidence of the Fox Execs being too scared to go there. Because as you say, they'd never do a real interesting rape story. So I had kinda figured that this was what happened, that Sarah ahd been raped, or attempted rape, but scenes had been excised to save fewers sensibilities.

(And yes, I too am a bit disappointed that its just that John killed the man. Because killing to defend/save his mother? Not that big a deal really.)

I get the impresion this season that a decision was made to make the show much less about Sarah Connor, and more about John. Which... on the one hand is typical Fox, but... maybe they just didn't think Lena Headey could carry the show. Given there's not really that much more they can do with sarah as a character. She is who she is, and I can't really think of many changes she can go through.

Don't think Jesse can be a terminator. They had the sekx... I'd be surprised if Skynet was equipping infiltrator models with sex organs. Plus... I think you'd notice if you were boinking a metal cyborg killing machine. Probably the first time she decided to be on top, and you got crushed.

And yes, Middleman is gone. Sarah Connor is probably going to be lucky to get a full second season too. :(

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yeah - I don't want to say that killing someone to defend his mother isn't a big deal because I imagine the first time you ever kill someone is always a big deal but it's certainly strongly morally defensible. It's actually an interesting direction to take it - someone being bothered by killing someone even though it was the right thing to do given the way we so often see heroes and death treated, but at the same time, the way it was shown made it seem less like John struggling with a really difficult decision and more like...him whining about it. Which isn't fair considering I really think he does get to be upset about this, but he's doing it in the world's least productive way, or something? And the show could have shown him going through these same issues in a way that made him look less like an ass, since I don't think that him being an ass was their intention?

I totally agree that they decided to make the show more about John (I wouldn't be surprised if that was at the request of the networks), but I totally disagree about Sarah Connor. She is, apparently, the best soldier John knows, yet as of now, she's never actually killed anyone.

I think that Sarah's trajectory is probably very similar to Roslin's in that what we'd watch is what she becomes willing to do in order to save and protect her people, with the added benefit of action heroism? Plus there's the whole OMG AM I GONNA GET CANCER?! subplot and the implication that simply by surviving she's gonna help stop Skynet, since John sent Cameron back to save her because future John thought she needed to not die.

Re: the sex organs thing - I'd be surprised if they didn't have them given the attention to detail in other areas of their 'realism', and given that the Terminator whose chip they stole (and Cameron didn't destroy) was continuing to live out "his" marriage for several months.

I'm sad to hear about the Middleman: I thought it was likely but not totally confirmed as dead yet. Also I thought TSCC did get a full second season order recently?

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

As much as I want to think Cameron can have the hawt sekx... I do still think the sheer weight of the terminator endoskeleton would be a dead giveaway the second you started to snuggle with one, hence... probably no to the sex organs.

Unless Cameron is made from extra light alloys. But given the number of times we've seen them clonking around and bashing through walls...

And I heard TsCC had gotten a second season order, but there seemed to be some question on how many episodes that was. I think it started at 11, then went up to 17. Fingers crossed its true though, adn they'll get a full season.

[asta77.livejournal.com]

TSCC was renewed for a full season a couple weeks ago by FOX. FOX, like the rest of the networks, is giving full season pick ups to a lot of shows because they either have nothing to replace them with or can't afford to replace them thanks to the economy. It's cheaper for them to keep a low rated series on the air then launch a new one.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Good to know. thank you. That'll probably be what keeps Heroes alive too then.

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

Probably because at the moment all roads lead back to BSG with me and how many people in the Fleet would go back and stay at home that day and ask for a swift death if they could? Not all of them, no, but probably a bunch.

I agree! Sometime in the first season, maybe even in the mini, Adama says "were they [the dead] the lucky ones?" and I think the answer would have to be "maybe they were." (OTOH, I don't think BSG actually explores that storyline particularly well either! It seems like everyone got over their familial losses quite quickly and readily except when required for some story purpose - Romo Lampkin's cat! Like, have we EVER seen Helo mourn for the people he lost or even remotely hold that against Sharon? I think his story with her would have been a lot more powerful if we had!)

I'm surprised that she didn't have the intelligence to hire a nanny to take the kid since she really should have worked out that she's not capable of doing so

We don't know that she doesn't have a nanny - even people who are busy executives with nannies do sometimes spend time with their kids :P I think we're just seeing the times when Savannah is with her "mother" rather than all the rest of her day.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! I'd forgotten he actually said those words - though clearly my subconscious hadn't.

I kind of agree with you about the magnitude of the loss. It was so clearly and massively and impossibly expressed in the very quiet scene with Dualla in "33" wandering through the hallway and the sudden realisation that this isn't even a fraction of a fraction of the loss that occured. Occasionally we get glimpses of it - like the speech the prosecuting lawyer gave at Baltar's trial about how eventually you cannot measure the dead so you start to count the living, or Tyrol's rage about how everyone you loved died or turned out to be cylons which, even though it was aimed at a very different crisis, really hit home to me again the fact that everyone has lost someone.

I kind of forgave the stupid Romo Cat plot a little (okay a very little) because it raised a really good point - the fact that a significant number of the people who survived did so because they jumped on a shuttle and didn't let someone else get on board instead: they put themselves first and many of them probably abandoned their families (at least those who got into ships on the Colonies, not those who just happened to be in transit at the time). Shame it was so...awfully resolved within fifteen seconds.

I hadn't considered Helo and his holding the deaths of his family and loved ones against Sharon but it's a good point. I'm...kind of okay with that just because I think that Helo and Sharon both very consciously refuse to think about a lot of things in order to make their situation work, and he's probably compartmentalised that massively: I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks/is enabled to think by Sharon that she wasn't a "senior officer" in the invading force, but just a soldier who switched sides at the first opportunity. Even though, as we've seen, the Cylon were a total democracy and Sharon must have had her vote on the invasion issue too.

But I do remember wondering about the losses everyone else suffered, Lee in particular. We know his mother was about to get married. We know that regardless of his negative opinions about his upbringing he was more in touch with her than his father prior to the attacks. We've never heard him mention her again in the sense of grieving. We hear him talk about Zak who died years ago more than the shocking and sudden loss of his parent.

To a degree, I'm sure the mass shock was responsible for the numb reaction and lack of screen time in the first season, but at some point during the show I'd liked to have seen Lee grieve his mother and Helo grieve his family and Gaeta and Dee and the Chief grieving for the people they lost.

Oooh, I have become wordy. Sorry. ;)

We don't know that she doesn't have a nanny - even people who are busy executives with nannies do sometimes spend time with their kids :P I think we're just seeing the times when Savannah is with her "mother" rather than all the rest of her day.

Yes, true, but I meant like...more fulltime. Because we see her at work with her, for instance, not just when they're both at home. I can see the mechanical desire to maintain the status quo as part of her cover, but I would also be unsurprised if her infiltration skills (which seem reasonably advanced) covered the fact that odd human behaviour can be put down to grief, and that even if people thought it was unhealthy to foist Savannah off on a nanny, they would attribute it to numbness and grief and the negative reaction would probably outweigh the hassle of a child who's totally screwed up in the head.

But I may be attributing a level of potential problem solving that's too advanced for the Terminator model. Had she known she would have to head off that problem at the pass, a full-time nanny might well have been a solution she chose, but lacking any problems in the child at that moment, protocol was probably to disrupt Catherine Weaver's life as little as possible.

Though I still think given the sophistication of her interactions in other areas it's strange she didn't work out things were going badly with the kid and she had to do something earlier. But whatever, it's not really a point that bugs me in a big way. :)

[asta77.livejournal.com]

I hadn't considered Helo and his holding the deaths of his family and loved ones against Sharon but it's a good point. I'm...kind of okay with that just because I think that Helo and Sharon both very consciously refuse to think about a lot of things in order to make their situation work, and he's probably compartmentalised that massively: I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks/is enabled to think by Sharon that she wasn't a "senior officer" in the invading force, but just a soldier who switched sides at the first opportunity. Even though, as we've seen, the Cylon were a total democracy and Sharon must have had her vote on the invasion issue too.

While I, too, feel the series should have done more with the living mourning the dead, Helo never mourning hasn't bothered me. It's important to keep in mind that Helo, when he chose to stay behind on Caprica, believed he was going to die along with everyone else. Whatever family he had he would soon be joining and their suffering was over sooner than his.

But after he accepted the inevitable, Sharon showed up to rescue him because she couldn't leave him behind, because she cared about him more than he had hoped she ever would. So he focuses on Sharon, how the woman he loves is with him and how she is willing to die for him. Amidst all the death and destruction there is hope for him.

I agree with you, Helo has chosen to believe Sharon was just following orders and, lucky him, she fell in love with him. And it's been evident since he and Sharon rejoined the fleet that he's lived in a state of denial about her, their relationship, and how that relationship would be accepted by others.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

And it's been evident since he and Sharon rejoined the fleet that he's lived in a state of denial about her, their relationship, and how that relationship would be accepted by others.

Absolutely. And season four is making it very clear that Sharon is in a state of denial too.

Although Helo was kind of awesome in a deleted S4 scene set just before Sharon leaves with Starbuck for the rebel baseship, where she's bitching to Helo that it's not right and the Kara they saved back on Caprica would never have been planning to co-operate with Cylons, and how she's changed. And my first thought was that yes, that's true, but the Athena who saved Starbuck back on Caprica would have been delighted by the thought she one day would rather than desperately grabbing onto this us vs them mentality.

What's kind of awesome is that Helo totally calls her on that and asks her if that's how it's going to be forever? "They kill us, we kill them? Is that the kind of world we want for Hera?" or something to that effect.

I think Helo's in denial about his wife's role in the attacks and how people will perceive her but I think he's much less in denial about the straight-up fact she's a cylon than Athena is these days...

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

Hee! Don't apologize for being wordy - I really agree with so much of what you say, particularly your thoughts on survivors' guilt on BSG. I feel that we really only see that expressed to a small degree with Laird (the engineer from Pegasus) and he's a minor character, not one of our major ones whom we've followed since the mini. In the case of Adama and Kara, possibly it's just that everyone they cared about is either with them in the Fleet or else predeceased the attacks. But yeah, I would have liked to see more of Lee's grief for his mother than just that (lovely) scene with her photo; and of course, I would like to find out more about Dee and Gaeta and Helo and even someone like Doc Cottle or Seelix or Racetrack mourning for the dead. I think they've kind of passed that point now - they more recent events to mourn, after all. So I agree it was a missed opportunity for BSG.

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

I am enjoying SCC and am glad you are watching it! I am quite fascinated by the similarities/differences to BSG that come from the kind of anachronistic 80s robot imaginary vs the contemporary techno-anxieties that produce the cylons... I like the development-of-robot-intelligence narrative too, and the question of whether Cameron and even Shirley Manson (Scots on American TV FTW! Even if they can't really act) are going to exceed their programming and what it means for their species alliance if they do. In my nonexistent free time over the next several months I intend to make a vid about that....

The extent of the time travel in SCC, how they're just throwing people back and forth with no concern for butterfly effects and such, is also both annoying and fascinating to me. Even if I don't think they're going to follow through whatsoever on the implications of that, I like thinking about it.

I too loved the idea of Jesse sending herself back to live and die with the rest of humanity.

(I definitely need a SCC, or anyway an all-purpose robot, icon.)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

OMG, yes, I hadn't actually considered the way that the Terminator series is still very strongly entrenched in the 80s macho robotic imagery. The way that Cameron seems to try and straddle both, or rather, update that 80s robot to something that might begin to touch on contemporary techno-anxieties is probably the part of the show that interests me most and also that I'm not sure can succeed simply because Cameron, ultimately, isn't a cylon. She's from the 80s and was constructed in the franchise's history to explore a very different set of tropes.

I think my ambivalence and worry about throwing my lot in with 'another robot show' stems from the fact that before BSG I didn't get robots. As a child I didn't like them - robots were in boring action-hero explosion filled stories that didn't grab me. As I grew older, I began to appreciate the philosophical questions artificial intelligence could raise, but still...they weren't all that amazing to me because, I think, the idea of a computer being sentient and deserving rights didn't strike me as that revolutionary. I can't explain why except that maybe I was raised with too many stories like that acting as if it was incredible when it always seemed like an interesting but not earth-shattering inevitability to me.

At which point I'm babbling, but basically they weren't in stories that combined an intellectual appreciation of their situation with an emotional identification that made me care. I suppose on a judgemental level I also just didn't want to be made out of metal and that sort of stopped me from going "OMG MACHINE AWESOME CAN I BE ONE?!" which is why cyborgs are inherently more interesting anyway.

But...BSG kind of blew me away there because it started attacking my preconceptions of machines on a species-based and biological level. By flipping the question and asking "what is it to be human" and questioning our sentience, programming, etc., rather than asking "has this machine become a human equivalent," it really won me over. *hopes she is making sense*

Um, the point of this long tangent is that I now LOVE robots and sentient robots with a fiery love I never knew I before had, but like a toddler exploring the world, I am nervous of setting out on my own into those other fandoms where they might treat their robots boringly like those stupid programs I watched growing up. WE FEAR CHANGE!

Like you, I really don't understand their time travel, but to be honest, it doens't really bother me too much. It's fairly clear that they're trying to change the future, but yes, the butterfly effect implications of that are enormous and they seem to be operating on the assumption that things are pretty much the same in the future when really it's entirely in flux. As John Connor my first thought would be, pretty much every second, "I wonder if my life is about to change drastically because someone sent back to 1947 just dropped a quarter in a different part of the street and if I'd even notice." I mean effectively at any given second, your entire world could change and you'd never know. It could breed massive hedonism or nihilism in one. But that's not something I expect the show to address.

Re: Shirley Manson (and yes, yay for Scots people on American TV!) and Cameron and their programming, that's totally one of my favourite aspects of the show and I think that Ellison's participation in Shirley Manson's storyline is one of the reasons I find him so compelling. Not, like, Shirley Manson because, bless her, while she's getting better, she still doesn't captivate me the way the actor who plays Ellison does, but I really think that Ellison's skeptical yet religious, slow and methodical approach is fascinating as he investigates this war between evolving machines? Much better than him trying to track down Sarah Connor anyway.

I too loved the idea of Jesse sending herself back to live and die with the rest of humanity.

*mourns*

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Bah! Totally forgot to mention:

VIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID.

You have to make this, you realise?

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

I know people that still go on and on about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so you going on and on about BSG will not bother me in the least. I'll still be talking about it at least a year after it's cancelled. For me, T:TSCC was going to be my BSG hold over. It's looking more and more like it's going to be cancelled before the end of BSG, so it may end up being the other way around looking at the ratings.

Cameron is my main love in T:TSCC. Her character is the most interesting to me, followed by Sarah. John doesn't bother me the way he does many others.

I thought it was obvious that John killed Sarkissian, but many of my flist were taken aback by that reveal. I thought it was a given. They never showed the scene and John took on a marked change this season. I think his change is more due to having seen his mother weak than it was to have killed a man. He killed Sarkissian because Sarah was in danger. He had to keep her safe for a change and I think it startled him because that is what he will have to do in the future. The look they shared when Cameron busted in during the pilot made it obvious to me that John killed him and not Sarah.

I have an theory about the new character Riley, but with all the future soldiers coming in, like Jessie, I'm beginning to think I'm wrong.

I've quite enjoyed this season of BSG. I see why others are not pleased, but I still dig it.

Sarah is what changes everything. Future!John sent Cameron back to bring them forward because his mother is the best soldier he knows. Having her there when the shit goes down is supposed to make everything better. One thing Future!John may not have realized is that he's going to miss some formative years before he's forced into the leader role.

I'm still hazing on the time traveling consequences. Are they really changing things or is this the way it's always been? Sometimes it seems like they've rewritten history, like bringing them forward in the pilot, but other times it seems like they only made things fall into place for Skynet.

Also, I would watch a show just of Cameron's therapy sessions.
Agreed.

I've been wondering if Shirley Manson decided to play her character flat to bring out the robotic nature or if she's just a crappy actress. Next to Summer Glau, Manson falls short when it comes to playing a Terminator. The recent episodes have opened her character up more, but I'm thinking that's the writers trying to go in a different direction. One less sucky.

I'm a bit scared for Savannah. She will have major issues later in life if her new mommy doesn't forget that little girls have to eat everyday. She doesn't see details. She could mimic the original Kathrine from the home movies, but failed to see "cow's blood" as freaking creepy. It's the human details that escape her (and other Terminators).

Ellison's storyline needs to pick up or do something. I don't mind longer, more drawn out storylines, but he's coming off as boring and too trusting for me. There's only so many scenes of talking heads in an office shot through water that are interesting with clunky lines. He's looked straight at a Terminator and was not killed. That's the first clue that he is an asset to the creation of Skynet in some way. Same for Charlie. He's an instrument to be used.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a shame about the ratings, I keep thinking that if it just got some more time to hit its stride it could be really good. Though I thought it had at least been given a full season two pick-up?

Cameron isn't my main love although I do love her. I think that would be either Agent Ellison or Sarah (although Sarah is dropping this season so yeah...maybe now I'd say Ellison followed by Cameron). But yeah, she definitely has the most interesting character arc. With Ellison it's more of a joy at watching him doing that acting thing combined with a genuinely interesting story arc the combination of which pushes it over the top? Though, I was fairly indifferent to him at first so I wouldn't be surprised if in a few weeks I'd changed my mind again. It's a fascinating role for Glau because on the one hand my initial instinct was, sucks to be typecast, but watching her she's allowed to show an amazing amount of breadth as an actress. It's a great role for her.

You know, it's really fascinating to view John's change in attitude as down to the fact that he saw his mother vulnerable and he had to save her after a lifetime of it being the other way around which...weirdly I hadn't considered. I'd been putting it entirely down to the psychological effects of killing a guy. But your idea is much more interesting. It's the first step in his becoming the leader and protector, a role he is genuinely afraid of and resentful of and feels guilty about resenting. He may also feel angry and resentful (and feel guilty for feeling that way) that his mother failed to save him after all her talk about how she was going to keep him safe at the same time as telling him he never would be and that at some nebulous point in the future he was going to be the leader of humanity, etc.

I also love your idea that Sarah is the thing that changes everything, though being hazy on the time travel issues and the way sending things back seems almost casual these days.

I'd LOVE to hear your theory about Riley! Even if it's not true. Theories are always fun!

Re: John and missing his formative years, I know he's a computer genius and stuff but I wish there'd been more acclimitising to it being eight years later stuff. Instead he pretty much picked up a computer and knew how to make it work after a two second tutorial from a salesman about clearing a browser's history.

I think the problem with Manson is that she's both trying to be robotic and she's a crappy actress. She's much better in the flashback home movies, but the fact that we're all wondering if she's a crappy actress when we never ever wonder that about Summer Glau says something.

I'm digging Ellison's storyline at the moment, but I agree, I'm expecting it to pick up over the next few episodes and if it doesn't I'll be a little disappointed. But I'm not annoyed yet.

I'm not actually certain whether he's involved or is an asset to Skynet. I mean obviously at the moment he's unwittingly helping it, but I'm not convinced that Shirley Manson is...entirely who we might think? She may just be bringing James in because he helps her in future/it's better than having him investigating on his own and she can't kill him because he's important in the future, but the impression I get is that Shirley Manson wasn't quite certain what happened in the power plant, like...beyond even Cameron being there.

It's blind speculation on my part but I honestly think that Manson may be part of like...a different faction or something. Not the 'machine rebellion thing' that they told Allison Young about because I think that was a total fabrication, but...I don't know. Something doesn't add up. Manson seems...too distant from the other terminators and too different in her MO.

[asta77.livejournal.com]

The so-called revelation that John was the killer was not at all surprising, yet it made sense to me that they would make him the killer. Though Sarah has never killed a human being, she's been prepared to do so in order to protect John. Not that it wouldn't have some affect on her, but it would be easier for her to deal with because of an assumption that the day would come sooner or later.

John has lived with a belief that it would either be years before he'd face the prospect of having to kill someone or, if they succeeded in changing history, he'd never have to face that situation. So now he's this young kid having to deal with the ramifications of killing a person and, even though it was in defense of his mother and himself, taking a human life and what it does to you is something he had hoped to never deal with.

I'm also feeling they didn't introduce the little girl last season as just a plot twist, but to add to John's burden. He didn't just kill a bad guy, he killed a child's father and he can all too well identify with that loss.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Hmm, good point about the kid from the last season - I'd actually completely forgotten about her. Thanks for pointing it out.

I also think you make a good point about the fact that John probably coped with a lot of his upbringing by choosing to believe that they'd prevent the apocalypse and he'd never need to be that hero (and in fact, I think that could be a really fascinating angle: if they do prevent it and John never is that hero, just the belief of those around him in the fact he'd one day have to be managed to prevent that from...ever occuring?)

That said, even if Sarah would theoretically be able to deal with it better or rationalise it better, I still think that having John go through it before her is a marked shift toward focusing the series on John rather than Sarah which...disappoints me slightly as I find John less interesting than Sarah?