Danny's Weblog
Review: TV: Terminator -- The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Presumably you are already aware of the Terminator movies, on which this series was based (although time travel allows it to wipe out the events of the third movie).
This series was cancelled months ago as a result of mediocre ratings. However I quite enjoyed it and want to comment on several aspects. I've been mulling over these comments until now, having just had a chance to see the second series again in recordings.
I'm going to refer to it as TSCC, to distinguish it where necessary from the movies.
Wikipedia link: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_connor_chronicles]
As usual, this review contains many spoilers, so if you haven't seen TSCC yet, you may prefer to stop reading here. Anyway, much of this review will be hard to understand until you have seen the series.
SPOILER ALERT
1. Many people have already commented on the peculiarities of the creative process applied to a TV series, but I'll mention some:
-1. There is a huge commercial incentive to continue a successful series even if the original situation has already been played out. A good example is Stargate, where the creators ran out of ideas, believed the show to have been cancelled and made the charitable decision to wrap up all the threads, and then were told the show had been signed up for another season.
-2. On the other hand, the creators may plan a three-season arc, but the show gets cancelled prematurely. That seems to have happened with TSCC: the whole situation was left unresolved by the final episode.
-3. For these and many other reasons, many successful series are written so that the situation basically resets at the end of each episode. I think "Hill Street Blues" was the first major series to be planned with an arc, and it is still somewhat unusual. However, I enjoy as a viewer being able to appreciate plot and character developments more fully than can be squeezed into 45 mins.
-4. A series which is planned as an arc is distinguished from a soap opera because the latter is consciously planned *never* to end: there is never a true resolution. Not only that: events which *appear* to provide some sort of resolution to one of the story threads are frequently annulled when we discover that the person who died was actually an identical twin... etc,etc. I think you can tell that I do not approve of that format and the resolution of a story is very important to me.
-5. In a lengthy series, the actors are not always able to maintain their roles as required. This is particularly a problem in fantasy series where they are supposed to be immortal: a good example is Angel, where the actor playing the titular vampire aged and put on weight very noticeably over the several years from his first appearance on Buffy. Also of course, they may just die, quit, get pregnant or become drug addicts.
2. TSCC had the additional problem of trying to fit in with the movies. As well as having to introduce new actors in the roles we were already familiar with, it needed to be compatible with the general situation of the movies, which thanks to the muddled picture of time travel in the movies was very hard.
OTOH the most recent movie, released since TSCC began, does not seem to fit in with TSCC at all.
3. Because the show was cancelled we will never know, but I believe the show was struggling towards some sort of resolution for the entire situation of all the Terminator stories.
I think one reason why the show was cancelled was that the planned resolution was too close to the (horribly flawed) resolution of Battlestar Galactica: in other words, some sort of alliance between Skynet, or at least a faction of the terminators, and humans.
This was foreshadowed in several ways:
-1. There has always been a mystery about the future John Connor, but he was repeatedly described as surrounding himself with metal, including the Cameron-class terminator. (Although it's not clear that the Cameron we see in the future is the same physical unit that was sent back to protect John in our period.)
-2. In the final episode Ms Weaver, a liquid-metal terminator who has been shown killing several humans during previous episodes, saves John Connor from death and reveals that "John Henry", an AI she has been developing, may save all of humanity. In other words, she killed humans as Cameron does, in order to achieve the goal of preventing Judgement Day. (It may also be that she sees this entire timeline as transitional, so their deaths have no lasting significance.)
See also point 9 below.
4. I think a major reason why the show was cancelled was the overall structure. I believe it was planned to extend through at least three seasons, so major developments occurred very slowly.
The first time I watched most of these shows was on TV, and somewhat out of order – probably the same as most viewers. The impression I got was that the plot was moving far too slowly. The Wikipedia article seems to agree.
5. A secondary problem was that very major plot points were not underlined, and I missed them until a second or third viewing. For instance, Derek realizes that he has changed his own future when "his girlfriend" (Jesse Flores) comes back from the future and tells him that he was tortured by someone who never tortured him in his original timeline. In other words, she is not the same girl as the Jesse that he left in his own timeline. This seems like a major, major issue which affects everything our heroes – and Skynet – are doing.
I actually did catch that one, but a more subtle point – that Derek was rescued from suicide by different people in the two timelines – went right over my head.
Similarly, Derek, having realized that Jesse is not "his" Jesse, kills her for murdering Riley. But he is still stunned by the revelation that Cameron gives him: that Jesse was pregnant by him when he left her, but lost the pregnancy. This seems a little strange. He cannot even be sure that Cameron is from his own timeline, or from that of either of the Jesses. And the one thing he does know is that the Jesse he killed, even if she had been pregnant at all, was pregnant by a Derek from another timeline. Perhaps he is reacting to the probability that *his* Jesse had also been pregnant; but now *his* Jesse is lost on a no-longer-accessible timeline, which *he* destroyed.
What exactly is Derek reacting to? This was not made explicit at all. Are we supposed to stack up all these mysteries with zero current emotional payoff, in the hopes that the final resolution will illuminate everything that has gone before? Sometimes I get irritated when a show makes the points too obviously, but with TSCC I started to wonder if the makers had forgotten to make plot points clear at all.
...Hmm: the Wikipedia article suggests that it is not certain that Derek actually killed Jesse. It's true that the camera does not cut to Jesse after Derek fires at her. I have to say I would feel that it was a cheap trick, reminiscent of a soap opera, if Jesse turns out to be alive. (Nothing against Jesse, btw: if a Jesse *from a different timeline* were to show up, that would be fine.)
6. I was happy with all the actors. Lena Headey (Sarah Connor) was solid, but could do little with scripts that gave her no character development. Thomas Dekker (John Connor) was irritating for a long time, but mainly because of the script. In the last few episodes, where he was given much more powerful scenes relating to several deaths and Sarah's imprisonment, he was impressive.
Richard T. Jones (James Ellison) was especially irritating because of the poor writing. He kept seeing a terminator hand or whatever and then doing nothing whatsoever about it, and thus personified the sluggish plot development. Also, despite being a powerful-looking guy, the show never used that. For instance, we could have had a scene where he doesn't realize Cameron's a terminator, so he pushes her around, and when Cameron decides the time is right he gets a big surprise.
Derek had an oddly soft voice for what was supposed to be an action hero type, but then again, Derek was in that capacity because of Judgement Day, not because of his character. Also, I knew several guys in special forces who like him did not *project* what they could do.
7. I want to discuss Cameron (Summer Glau) separately for several reasons. One is that the "character" is *supposed* to be emotionless, so as an acting role it can't be compared to the others. Glau seems to have had a succession of such roles in her career, so that I can hardly evaluate her acting generally. What I can say is that the few occasions when Glau had an opportunity to show extra depth in TSCC, it really worked. For instance, when Cameron goes haywire, attacks John, and he is about to destroy her, she pleads for her life with oddly human desperation, crying out that she loves him.
Of course one reason why the scene is powerful is that none of the humans observing her were inclined to believe that the robot was capable of loving anybody, so it seems like an utterly crude final tactic that the robotic mind picked as worth trying despite the fact that it would only work if the humans were fools.
Another episode where Cameron/Glau is allowed to show a much wider range of emotions is "Allison from Palmdale". In fact, this one episode changed my opinion of the entire series. In this episode, Cameron's mind goes haywire, and she reverts to the personality of the human on which her design was based, "Allison Young". We see flashbacks of Allison's capture by the terminators, and of a Cameron-model terminator finishing the process by killing Allison.
This is the first time we have direct knowledge of Cameron's thoughts. Previously Cameron's motives/programming have been unknowable. Now we see, or at least glimpse, her own experiences. That entire personality had always been inside her. Perhaps Cameron herself, rather than a similar unit, had killed Allison, and that would have been a part of her memories too.
For a time, Cameron almost *was* Allison. When Cameron's main programming recovered, Allison was lost.
All through that episode, simple details were intensely poignant. Although there are very few action scenes, at least in the present, far more seems to happen than in most other episodes. For instance, Cameron, still remembering herself as Allison, calls the home number that is in her memories, but the woman who picks up says there's no Allison there. Cameron is disappointed and fearful. But we see that the woman is pregnant, and as she puts the phone down she says that Allison sounds a nice name. So Cameron has in effect provided the name for the as-yet unborn girl who will live through Judgement Day only to be simulated and murdered by the terminators. In a moment, we feel the entire tragic arc of Allison's life.
But of course we expect Cameron's programming to return at any time. Cameron is like the bomb under the table; the audience is in suspense over everything that happens while that bomb is ticking. A somewhat obvious general point is that the Cameron model is a slender, attractive young girl. (Glau is in her twenties, but is believable as a high-school student.) As well as providing eye candy, this works well as a counterpoint to the Schwarzenegger model in the movies. Also, it adds something to the general weird menace of the terminators. In the final episode, Cameron approaches John while he's sleeping, then removes her shirt and bra, climbs on the bed and makes him cut her abdomen open and insert his hand under her "breastplate", apparently to touch her atomic power unit to double-check that it is not leaking radiation. (I would not have guessed that this procedure would work, but I do not represent myself as an expert on micro-shielded reactors.) John is straddling her, with their faces close together. We are not told what he's feeling, but it has to be quite a mixture of emotions.
Very incidentally, that scene reminds me of a repeated problem with the depiction of all the terminators. We are repeatedly told that they are considerably heavier than humans, which is why they can't swim. I can't remember what Cameron is supposed to weigh, but I think it was probably over 100 kg (whereas Glau probably weighs less than 55 kg). But we never see objects reacting to that weight. When she lies on the bed, her narrow, heavy little body should press deeply into the mattress. When she gets in, anybody lying next to her should be bounced. Likewise, when she gets into a car or elevator it should bounce noticeably on that side. I don't think it would have cost very much to throw in that special effect, and it could have been used as a plot point once or twice. (Also, I think the show was inconsistent on whether terminators maintain human body temperature or not. Presumably they would be capable of it, as we are shown one male model who apparently sleeps with his duplicated victim's wife over several weeks.)
Another issue is Glau's appearance. As a terminator, her appearance presumably should not age, but I suppose it could, just like a Buick's. However, flashbacks, and time travel, mean that she, *and the other characters*, often need to be shown in younger forms, and I'm guessing that her beautifully-slim appearance may be more vulnerable to boring old-fashioned one-year-per-year time travel than some of the other characters. When we see her in the future, in the final episode, Glau looked distinctly older for some reason.
8. The final episode introduces several new threads. By the end, Cameron's chip has been removed, and her body is left slumped in the present as John Connor flees to the future. We are told that John Henry must have taken the chip, but why? It would have made more sense for him to do the opposite: dump his programming into her chip. (But he managed to leave all his hardware behind, even though we had previously been told that even disconnecting a fan would be a problem for him.) Presumably Cameron's chip, being from the future, was so advanced that it was easily able to upload the John Henry AI, so that the John Henry body would no longer need to be tethered, but why use that body instead of Cameron's? Perhaps Cameron's hardware was breaking down. We don't know what loading the AI would have done to Cameron's original programming or vice versa. If John Henry were to cry out "I love you, John!" it might not have the desired effect.
Also, we see that in John Connor's timeline, this future does not contain an adult version of him; also his father (Kyle Reese) is alive, having apparently not been sent back (which would make sense if there were no adult John Connor to be his commander); and a Cameron model is very obviously attached to Kyle.
This seems very odd. It would surely be very difficult to get back to the timeline where Cameron is together with John. Perhaps John has to make a decision to erase this timeline, and his own father. It would have been great if the show has used this opportunity to make clear what it thought was actually happening when the timelines were being changed. Or perhaps the Cameron of this future is the *same* unit who had been with John, and *never had to be reprogrammed*, but *has never told Kyle*, because she knows he will have to be erased again from the timeline.
Right at the end of the episode, we hear the characteristic crackle and see the blue flash of an arriving time traveller, and we hear Sarah's voice. It would seem that Sarah has travelled separately to join him. But I wonder whether she can logically be assumed to be from the same timeline. John, apparently by absenting himself over the intervening period, has created a totally different timeline, and one which would have "already" sent back *different* expeditions into the past (one assumes this timeline would have involved battles over Kyle's past instead of John's). So Sarah's original timeline would "already" have been wiped out, or at least disconnected from the one we see.
9. I didn't think the picture of time travel was very solid in the first movie. It got worse in the second, and the third movie seemed to be saying that the events of the first two were pointless.
However, I think TSCC was struggling towards a resolution of the entire issue which might have made sense of many problems both large and small.
For instance, in the movies we only see Skynet using time travel against John Connor. I don't recall any explanation of why Sknet restricts itself in that way (instead of wiping out thousands of other irritants as well). I think Skynet is just very limited in its ability to use time travel for some reason. But in TSCC Skynet is running many separate operations in different times.
It's possible that Skynet is very conservative in meddling with the timeline, because it's afraid of making a mistake which erases itself from the timeline. So it's forced to choose plans which seem relatively picayune, like the episode about the nuke plant.
On the other hand, almost anything it *does* do could have that effect anyway. Can Skynet actually *predict* what effects its meddling will have? The lamentable third movie introduced the idea that Skynet *in some form* is inevitable. That seems to be what the events of TSCC are confirming: when our heroes destroy some necessary element that was to lead to Skynet, it shifts the timeline, possibly postponing Judgement Day, but not eliminating it.
The mistake of the third movie is to conclude that what we do has *no* effect. That idea would make the events of the first two movies pointless. The conclusion should be that we should *try something else*. I believe that that plan underlies all the events in TSCC. My speculations follow.
John Connor, in the future, has realized that strong AI is inevitable, but also that it is *not* inevitable that it should immediately try to eliminate mankind. So he sends back the Cameron model, so that *his own younger self* will be affected by his growing companionship with it, and perhaps will be able to build some sort of alliance with terminators earlier. And perhaps also so that Cameron will *reprogram herself*. In the final episode, Cameron agrees that her mind and body were formed with the goal of killing humans, and that part of her still "wants" to do that; only the superficial reprogramming added by John in the future is preventing her. But perhaps she too will learn and change, like John Henry.
This basic idea also explains Catherine Weaver's actions (played by Shirley Manson). Her plan is not to convert a terminator, but to build an AI from a new start, one which can value human beings, and will not only not start Judgement Day itself, but which will take over dangerous AI as it develops, and will defend the timeline from attacks by Skynet. She is perhaps the same liquid-metal model that was on the submarine (in Today is the Day part 2) and answered "no" to John Connor's offer to form an alliance against Skynet. In analyzing that response, it's worth remembering that she herself was presumably based on the Skynet codebase, so not only would her survival be a threat, but it would presumably be wiped from the timeline if her own plan were successful. It's odd that she would not accept John's plan, when the existence of her own plan is proof that terminators can decide to coexist with humans. Perhaps she feels that it's too risky. Or perhaps her goal is to wipe out all the timelines except one, whereas John wants to protect them or repair them somehow. What made *her* change her mind about humans? Did she come back and immediately murder the human whose form she took, or had she been living as a human for many years?
One wonders what Skynet's attitude is: does it know what the other groups are actually aiming at? Perhaps it has a very exact grasp of time travel and what it needs to do, but is extremely restricted because it actually sees its own existence as *very unlikely* (despite the way it seems to keep coming back). Also, what does it feel about the terminators? If it realizes that they are not just reprogrammable but can actually develop their own goals, how would it react? Is it in communication somehow with other timelines, so that it has "always" been fighting more against the other AI than John Connor?
Perhaps the development of time travel has made the timeline extremely *unstable*. So terminators (and perhaps humans) from one far future – way after Skynet – are trying to create a stable timeline that will lead to them, and the only way to create that stability is to create a non-murderous AI, which will remove the incentive for subsequent timeline-changing travel. (It's worth pointing out that when a timeline is changed, all those people are effectively dead, just as much as if they had been nuked.)
Overall then, the resolution would be surprisingly similar to that of Battlestar Galactica: that the robots and humans are tired of war, and decide to make a new start. Let's hope it would not be as full of ridiculous errors and lapses in logic as BSG's.
10. Viewing TSCC as a product, I think the basic mistake of TSCC was worse than the sluggish development: we simply never got to see the heroes having and enjoying any successes. It's very wearing to get a constant stream of downer episodes where our heroes are put through hell and the payoff is bare survival. The first movie worked because humans apparently won at the end, and presumably the goal of the series was to end with some sort of victory, but it turned out to be too long to wait. However, I would have waited for two more seasons to see another episode as good as "Allison from Palmdale".
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