Sarah Connor Chronicles

[ourchair]

What's fictionmani...... JESUS CHRIST! WHERE THE **** DID YOU JUST SEND ME?

This should be the new internetisseriousbusiness.com

 

[Hellsbuttmonkey]

Did anyone see the season 2 premiere? I thought it was quite good.

The new character that Shirley Manson is playing is the CEO of a big corporation.

Spoiler

In the end you discover she is also a T-1000 who then performs the classic finger-spike thing...

 

[Random]

Did anyone see the season 2 premiere? I thought it was quite good.

The new character that Shirley Manson is playing is the CEO of a big corporation.

Spoiler

In the end you discover she is also a T-1000 who then performs the classic finger-spike thing...

I saw the season two premiere and she did some of the worst acting I've ever seen on tv

 

[Jaggyd]

I think this episode gave me cancer, it was sooo bad...



Oh Shirley why must you break my heart so...


and seriously... Golden Showers?

 

[moonmaster]

Haha!! Urinal.

 

[ourchair]

Based on Twi's recommendation, I decided to pick up the entire first season on DVD (for five dollars).

It actually is pretty good. It's not exactly the best TV show I've seen this year, but it has room to grow and it puts a lot of focus on themes and concepts that were never the focus of the original movies.

More on that later.

 

[ourchair]

FOX has approved an order of the remaining episodes necessary for a full second season for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, reports the Hollywood Reporter:

The pickup makes "Terminator" the first 13-episode sophomore series this fall to receive a full season order. Most second-year shows have struggled mightily in the ratings recently, particularly those that were disrupted by the writers strike. Having concluded its first season in March, "Terminator" was off the air for less time than many other returning shows.

More from this link.

 

[SSJmole]

Starts up again in the uk thursday at 9pm on Virgin 1

 

[ourchair]

I just saw season 2, episode 4, "Allison from Palmdale," which was terribly awesome. I think this series is really under-rated. There's a lot going on in the series, thematically, that I think it really extends the Terminator mythology in a very meaningful fashion.

My brain is so overloaded that I really don't have much brainy things to say about the whole series at the moment, so don't expect a Heroes' HRG and 24's Jack Bauer: A Binary Theory of Bad-*** or a Functional Deconstruction of Jericho just yet until I can process it all.

Also, who ever thought that Brian Austin Green would suddenly become an MVP on a sci fi TV show? He didn't do much in that episode, but he was definitely one of the coolest parts of the first season.

 

[ourchair]

I was considering participating at the forums for FOX's official Sarah Connor Chronicles wiki...

...but I decided against it once I read a thread devoted entirely to people who want minor characters with no development become recurring love interests and the flamers who hate them.

*runs back crying to UC*

 

[ourchair]

I just caught the mid-season finale, "Earthlings Welcome Here."

God damn it! WTF!?!

What was that three-circle ship thing? Was it aliens? A prototype of a Hunter-Killer, four to eighteen years ahead of Judgement Day?

God damn cliffhangers!

Now I have to wait till February 13 at the earliest --- depending on how quickly the next episode gets torrented --- for the season to resume!

Also, this show is brilliant and terribly under-rated. It plays with your head in crazy ways by introducing alternate timelines, factionalism in the SkyNet camp and Human Resistance... and it's got some 90210 kid being awesome.

Also, wicked scene featuring Agent Bible Negro talking to John 'Beastwizard' Henry:

[youtube]B09lJa6Vv8w[/youtube]

ECHOES OF BATTLESTAR GALACTICA!

 

[Hellsbuttmonkey]

I totally agree my Creepy Asian Friend. TSCC is VERY underrated. Season 2 especially has been VERY good.

 

[ourchair]

I totally agree my Creepy Asian Friend. TSCC is VERY underrated. Season 2 especially has been VERY good.

One of the things that has always bothered me about fandom's relationship with the Terminator universe is that they're all really obsessed about either a) the Biblical evocation of an ordinary maiden who births the savior of mankind or b) trying to sort out the entire timeline in attempt to make it make sense.

Let me address the latter.

I've never really understood why people say, "Time travel gives me a headache," but maybe my Creepy Asian Brain is wired to not sweat so much on those things.

Regardless, what TSCC does is it thickens time travel historiphysics by making the future a highly mutable thing. Yes, they're trying to change the future, but every change to the future doesn't negate the existence of other things --- which is why Derek remembers the future differently than Jesse does --- but it doesn't cop out by saying alternate timelines because if they did then changing the future would be meaningless because the unchanged future would still exist.

Instead, it's like Back to the Future folded onto itself. The year 2027 can be changed, but it doesn't mean that 2027A exists or that going back to 2007 is can PERFECTLY retcon things that happened in 2027, because 2027 affects 2007 differently.

In effect, TSCC just goes and EMBRACES the predestination paradox. Derek gets saved by a teenage girl so that he can travel back in time to save her. Charles Fisher goes to jail and that allows him to survive to the future to incriminate himself to get in jail in the first place. Cameron is sent back in time to protect Teen Connor who develops an affection for machines that allows him to trust her enough to send her back.

It's beautiful and wondrous and totally awesome, despite the fact that it messes with your head.

 

[Hellsbuttmonkey]

Yeah, the best thing to do with time travel heavy stuff is generally ignore the heavy stuff and roll with it. As I think I mentioned in the T4 thread, Skynet sent back the original T-800 first. That should have instantly changed everything so that Connor couldn't have existed to send back Reese in the first place, making the entire premise for the Terminator films flawed from the start. But if we just ignore and enjoy, then everything is gooood.

 

[ourchair]

Yeah, the best thing to do with time travel heavy stuff is generally ignore the heavy stuff and roll with it. As I think I mentioned in the T4 thread, Skynet sent back the original T-800 first. That should have instantly changed everything so that Connor couldn't have existed to send back Reese in the first place, making the entire premise for the Terminator films flawed from the start. But if we just ignore and enjoy, then everything is gooood.

Exactly.

Never mind the classic predestination paradox: It seems patently ridiculous to go back in time to save someone as she ensures that she gives birth to someone who sends you back in the first place.

I think the function of time travel in Terminator is supposed to be a poetic license to drive events forward not a scientific license, much like how one story argues that Flash is the very speed force that gave him his own powers. My problem is that people unwittingly focus on the latter, and TRY to make things resolvable. That there is an end and a beginning.

Also one of the things that the series does I like so much is show that SkyNet also has to ensure that it gets created. Its not said, but if SkyNet altered history too much it would annihilate itself. It can't just simply go back in time and destroy the entire Connor line, but can only meddle with the recent history.

That explains why Myron Stark in "Self-Made Man" couldn't just kill mankind but had to wait until 2010 and why SkyNet hasn't just gone back in time and beaten up mankind in the Dark Ages... nevermind the fact that it hasn't really been established how far back the TDE can send things back in time.

 

[Victor Von Doom]

Don't you dare tempt me to get back into the show with your fancy lil Pinoy words of praise.

My Yanqui brain is far bigger and I won't be fooled by your gibberish.

 

[ourchair]

Don't you dare tempt me to get back into the show with your fancy lil Pinoy words of praise.

My Yanqui brain is far bigger and I won't be fooled by your gibberish.

I need no fancy Pinoy words to pull you:

Summer Glau beats up grown robo-men and has robo-senses and robo-vision.

Also, Brian Austin Green crawls out of his dead career to play your twitchy Vietnam vet uncle from the future.

And finally, Lena Headey graduates from over-educated college hottie to gun-toting MILF.

 

[ourchair]

The Sarah Connor Chronicles Drinking Game, by io9's Charlie Jane Anders:

Take a swig of beer every time:

• Summer Glau tilts her head to one side and stares intently.
• Thomas Dekker looks at the ground like a whipped puppy.
• Brian Austin Green punches a wall or some other surface.
• One of the high school kids looks at Summer Glau funny.
• We see Lena Headey exercising.
• Someone mentions "The Turk."
• Lena Headey has a bad dream. (Three swigs if she decides to take action based on it.)
• Someone tells John Connor that he's not the heroic "Future John" yet.
• Summer Glau repeats something someone has just said to her, in a robotic monotone.

Drink a whole shot every time:

• Sarah Connor has a voice-over where she quotes from literature or history, or talks about wise old sayings.
• Summer Glau says something dorky, like "Thank you for explaining." Or tries to talk like a cool kid and fails.
• FBI Agent Ellison reads, or quotes, from the Bible.
• A Terminator other than Summer Glau is in a scene, and doesn't commit any violence.
• John Connor has a surrogate-dad moment with Brian Austin Green or his ex-step-dad.
• John Connor decides to prove he's a hero by doing something completely half-cocked.

Drink a healthy swig of beer and a whole shot whenever:

• Another Terminator gets its skin ripped off, or actually gets deactivated, but Summer Glau walks away without a scratch.
• There's a discussion of whether Summer Glau has a soul.
• Sarah Connor screams at her son, or cries.
• FBI Agent Ellison starts acting like he believes in the Terminators.

 

[TwilightEL]

I love that everyone talks about Summer Glau. It took me forever to learn Cameron's name.

Summer Glau completely dominates this show. She doesn't just act like a robot, she acts like a robot acting like a human. All the Terminators are really well cast, actually. Cromartie (and now John Henry) is great, I wasn't sure about Garbage singer but she's rockin' as Weaver-1001, and most of the one-shot Terminators work well. I loved the crappy Terminator that was sent after the child psychologist, just because she was so visibly inferior. The hair! It's all about the hair! But none of the Terminators are as good as Summer Glau.

I want to see Summer Glau play someone peppy, well-adjusted and stupid. It would blow all our minds.

 

[ourchair]

I love that everyone talks about Summer Glau. It took me forever to learn Cameron's name.

I knoerait?

It's fairly easy for people who've seen her in Firefly to think she's just doing another River "My mind was exploded by science and now I'm a schizoid ninja dance-assassin" Tam but she's not. I like how they've basically made her into a robo-owl. "Thank you for explaining," and "It's a tight present," are now my new catch phrases.

And her whole human-pretend thing isn't yr typical "Why can't I cry? Where is my heart and my soul?" schtick. She's not learning how to be human because she has some secret desire to be human, she's doing it because she's genuinely intrigued and curious on a very rationalist level.

The comedy is different too. Most wannabe-human robos make the funny by speaking coldly or being callous. But Summeron makes the funny by trying to cleverly incorporate human behavior to FAIL effect. I think my favorite example of this is in the first season when Sarah picks her and John up to go on another fight:

JOHN: I call shotgun.

SUMMERON: I call nine millimeter.

The actor they chose to play Cromartie/John Henry is great. I love how in "Brothers of Nablus," halfway-house hobo-girl tries to teach him the value of being sociable to get along with people. And he proceeds to make the most awkward looking smile ever and parroting, "Thank you for your time," all over the episode.

I'm not AGAINST Weaver-1001 --- awesome nickname, Twi --- but she's not my favorite part of the show. They give her some fairly interesting subplots, but she's not a character that makes me get all jazzed up like Cromartie and Cameron.

I loved the crappy Terminator that was sent after the child psychologist, just because she was so visibly inferior. The hair! It's all about the hair!

Best fight scene ever.

Also, Myron Stark was hilarious.