Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: "The Turk"

"Average"
Is the series stretching thin?

This episode started on an interesting note with Sarah seeing the scientists of the US Manhattan project developing the A bomb, shooting them, and then seeing them morph into Terminators with weapons that they aim at her.

Sarah wakes up and sends John and Cameron off to school, while she begins sussing out other people who could've carried on Dyson's work after he died.

The main stories in this episode were: Sarah investigating a former intern of Dyson's, Andy Goode, for signs of whether his homemade AI, The Turk, had the capacity to become sentient, John and Cameron finding their niches in their unnamed high school, Cromartie coopting a molecular biologist into growing synthetic skin on his metal exoskeleton, and Agent Ellison bringing up the rear as he investigates the murders of the unknown Resistance team.

I felt that Sarah's time with Andy was filled with lots of good moral angst as she decided whether to kill Andy or not in order to stop Skynet's development. Along the way, she was being trailed by an unknown survivor of the Resistance cell, who is waiting for some unknown reason to make contact. It was a good twist resolution to see Sarah set Andy's home on fire, hopefully destroying the Turk, in place of putting a bullet in Andy's forehead.

It was puzzling to see Cameron lose the human touch she had in the pilot and channel a semi-lobotomized River Tam from Serenity instead. It would've been interesting to see what classmate relationships Cameron and John could've developed, but it didn't happen. Instead things focused on a girl whom River--er, Cameron talked to in a bathroom, who was upset over a hallway painting of a door with the letters "IDAN." The girl was so upset she jumped off the roof of the school gym. Without knowing her or the context, getting involved with her death was a bit tough. John tried to climb up the building to talk her down, but Cameron kept him rooted to help keep their low profile. It was nice seeing John begin to want to take action to help others, but I wondered what the first day of school established? I expect John and Cameron will be too busy with Cromartie and the other Terminators to get caught up in on-school dramas, though.

Cromartie steals several units of plasma from a hospital, goes to the apartment of a molecular biologist, and writes up a complex biochemical equation on the scientist's wall. It's apparently for skin generation. At the end, Cromartie sits up in the scientist's bathtub, which is full of blood, and he's swathed with new skin. The scientist cuts open the eye socket linings, letting Cromartie show us his bright red eyes. Thing is, we were shown an earlier scene in which Ellison and the police arrive at the scientist's apartment to find a guy (the scientist?) with his eyes removed. Was the bathtub scene a flashback? Also, why should Cromartie care so much about maintaining cover as a human? I'd think that his overriding imperative would be to continue seeking out John--and inform Skynet that John has jumped to 2007 to bring more Terminators into the hunt.

We see Agent Ellison playing catch up to Sarah and company. The police wonder why he's so interested in what they think is a drug bust gone bad. Ellison learns that one of the dead Resistance fighters has finger prints that match up with a 4-year-old boy living in Ohio. Interesting. It seems to me that Ellison is being set up into becoming a believer and ally. I wonder if it'll matter down the road?

Charlie was completely absent this time around. I wonder what role, if any he'll play in future episodes? I still don't see the purpose he played when John visited him in his apartment in "Gnothi Seauton."

Lots of dangling threads in this episode which I'm beginning to suspect aren't getting woven into a smooth tapestry.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: "Gnothi Seauton"

"Character Development"
Quieter than the pilot, but a solid series arc setup for all that.

Being used to the breakneck speed of the flicks and the series pilot, I had to dial down my internal clock in order to stay with the pace of "Gnothi Seauton" ("Know Thyself" in ancient Greek).

I like the way how the title was used to reinforce this episode's theme, adding multiple layers to the story.

The central problem this go-around for Sarah and company is getting new IDs for themselves. We find Sarah and John "time-lagged" in a home they're likely squatting in. Looks like John's cobbling together a portable hacker computer interface.

Cool.

John's going stir crazy from being cooped up for 3 days, though. He wants his new ID already. Sarah tells him to be patient when Cameron walks into the living room and asks about new IDs. LOL.

John suggests Sarah track down Enrique, the "best fake paper guy ten years ago." Cameron lets slip that future John sent better ones into the past.

In no time flat, Sarah has Cameron taking her to a safe house manned by resistance fighters from the future with weapons, money, fake IDs, etc. Only when the ladies show up, they find some guys riddled with bullets. Sarah and Cameron set to examining the poor stiffs, but one stops playing possum and tosses Cameron around like a rag doll. This episode's Terminator.

The baddie's logic circuits decide on a tactical withdrawal to assess the situation, so he sets to running. Cameron gives chase and Sarah follows on a motorcycle which she gets from a guy after waving a 9 mil semiautomatic.

Somehow Sarah finds the Terminator and sends her motorcycle skidding his way to take him down. Just as Cameron comes to finish the Terminator off, she gets rammed by a car. When it brakes to a halt, Cameron tells a yuppie family to "Please remain calm," pulls her head out of the windshield, and climbs off the hood and runs off like she's right as rain.

When Sarah and Cameron head back home, Sarah asks why they had to jump since she could've used the last 7 years to get John ready. Cameron says it didn't happen when she died two years earlier from cancer. Interesting.

Sarah and Cameron then go to Enrique, who's happy to see Sarah alive again, but has retired. He points them to his nephew, Carlos who's very good, but not "a true believer."

Carlos is willing to offer first class IDs--for 20 grand. Sarah gasps at the nevvy's extortion and keeps Cameron from knocking off a cop, who's trying to figure out if she's a new drug running gang banger.

Meantime, John steps out to explore 2007 LA. He wanders into a computer store, where he discovers the internet, looks himself up, and finds a listing of Charlie, Sarah's fiance. John goes to Charlie's home to....I don't know what. There he runs into Charlie, applies a joint lock when Charlie gets too close, and runs off.

And a roadside worker who found the head of the Terminator from the pilot, Cromartie, deposits it in his flat, where its eye lights flash back on. Its body then busts out of a scrap pile in a junkyard and takes out a yard worker when he comes to investigate.

When we get back to Sarah, she decides to go back to the safe house to see if they can find money or anything else they can use. John joins her and Cameron this time around.

When they see a poster of a kitten hanging on the wall, they deduce something's off, rip the poster off, and find a safe. I couldn't help but wonder why the LAPD didn't notice the poster, too, or why the Terminator from earlier didn't use IR or something to notice the safe in the wall?

Anyhow, Cameron sets out to rip the safe open. Except she's short-circuited by a live current and knocked out for 2 minutes to reboot. John opens the safe and Sarah empties. They have to hurry since the Terminator is downstairs tracking for survivors. Sarah shoves Cameron out a window onto a waiting car and ushers John out just as the Terminator walks in. Seeing nothing, the cyborg heads off to logically find another hideout.

The road worker who found Cromartie's head is trying to wind down to TV and beer when a guy with a motor cycle helmet walks in. The worker raises the visor, sees a head attached to a robot chest, and gets dispatched. The "guy" picks up Cromartie's head.

Sarah and Cameron get the IDs from Carlos, who raps with his hermanos in espanol. We then find Sarah back in Enrique's apartment with a gun to his head. She says she picked up from the nevvy that Enrique is a "rat." Will he sell her and John out? Enrique pleads very eloquently that he would never do such a thing when Cameron pumps a few rounds into him.

Cameron points out that she did what Sarah knew she had to do, but couldn't. Sarah shoots back that she didn't know what she would've done and that Cameron wasted Enrique for "possibly lying."

When Agent Ellison comes to investigate the scene, he plays a phone recording by Enrique who promises to give him some very interesting information.

John and Cameron go to enroll in the local high school. And as Sarah goes in for a CAT scan in the oncology department of a local hospital, she winds things up with a monologue on how we have to know ourselves since we're all we have in a world that's going to go boom.

This ep didn't have the intensity level of the pilot, but it did lay down the situation and set things up for Sarah, John, and Cameron as they gain their bearings in 2007.

I'm hopeful of seeing a big payoff in the episodes to come.

Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles: "Pilot"

"Series Pilot"
What a beginning! With a mega ending too.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this TV installment of the Terminator franchise, but this pilot rocked.

It starts off with a dream sequence in which Sarah picks up John at school to go on the run except cops nab 'em. Then a wooden-looking big guy comes along and blows most everyone away--including John.

I figured then something was off.

The next clue was when a mushroom cloud goes off behind the school, revealing the big guy as a Terminator, who grabs Sarah by the throat--

And she wakes up in bed with her fiance in 1999. It's obvious that she cares for the guy, which is why she cuts out on him when he leaves for work. She can't stay in one place too long and can't get close to anyone with robots from the future after John, humanity's future leader.

She tells John to get ready in half an hour. Pack one bag plus the guns. And she'll make pancakes. LOL. In an incongrous, serious kind of way.

Sarah's jilted fiance goes to the local cops to seek help in locating her. FBI Agent James Ellison shows up to learn what he knows about Sarah. Ellison gives the fiance (and us the viewers) the low down on how Sarah broke out of a mental institution to level a high end computer R&D lab and supposedly kill a top computer scientist, Miles Dyson.

Sarah and John relocate to a "hick town" in New Mexico. John's feeling out of place in school when a hot girl, Cameron, strikes up a conversation and basically insinuates herself in his good graces. Reluctantly, John parts company with her to report home to Sarah like a good boy.
Agent Ellison shows up in town fishing for Sarah.

The next day, John tells Cameron a little about himself (without specifics) in chem class. A wooden-looking guy comes in, saying he's the sub. We know who he is and he proves it as he takes attendance, hacking a gash in his leg as he works his way to John. He pulls a 9 mil out and starts blazing away at John.

Cameron takes a few hits, though, letting John dive out a window. Motor servos exposed and grinding in his leg, the Terminator says "Class dismissed" and busts out of the room on John's trail. Didn't think this AI would care about these kinds of niceties.

He has John in his sights, pauses a hair too long for dramatic reasons, then gets railroaded by Cameron, driving a 4X4. When John stares at her, she says "Come with me if you want to live."

John gets in and takes in stride rather well that Cameron, with several gunshot hits in her body, is apparently another "good" Terminator sent to protect him.

At the local diner, Sarah cuts out the second the local news reports gunfire at the high school. She shows up to find John when the wooden Terminator somehow sneaks up on her, takes her prisoner, and lures John to the house with a flawless impersonation of her voice.

The Terminator carries Sarah home over his shoulder and props her in a chair. A figure with his jacket hood up comes in, calling for Sarah in John's voice. The Terminator calls out to with Sarah's voice and pumps a few rounds into him. Except it's Cameron again. The two smash the house between 'em and shotgun blasts from Sarah, who grabs a holdout rifle from a hidey hole in a wall. I can't help but wonder why Sarah doesn't load up on grenade launchers and other heavier ordnance considering her attackers're robots constructed from highly refined metal alloys?

Sarah and John bug out in their 4X4. Cameron temporarily short circuits the big Terminator with a power line, then jumps into the back of their truck and climbs in the cab.

Sarah takes Cameron in stride, and they hole up to plan their next move and get supplies. John and us notice how humanlike Cameron is. Apparently she's been equipped with advanced behavioral subroutines in 2027--to provide John with some pleasant company? I'll be curious to see where this goes.

John then tells Sarah that he's not the future savior of mankind and that he can't keep running. She has to try to alter the future to make things safe for him. Sarah agrees and changes her mind from crossing the border into Mexico to visit Dyson's widow in LA.

After Sarah convinces her she didn't kill Miles and Cameron lights up the blue LEDs in her eyes, the widow says all the research on Skynet was destroyed as far as she knows. No joy there. And the Terminator tracks John down again.

Sarah and company drive away and blow him up, but not before she gets a bullet in the shoulder. When she wakes up after a patch job by Cameron, they all head for a bank where Cameron has a safety deposit box reserved since 1963.

Cameron relieves a 60-year-old security guard of his revolver and gets a teller to fork over the deposit box keys and lock 'em all in the bank vault.

I found myself wondering what Cameron's exit strategy was as the police made their inevitable appearance outside. Under Cameron's direction, John and Sarah open boxes filled with the pieces of an energy weapon. Cameron lets slip that an engineer went back to 1963 to build the vault and leave them certain resources should the need arise.

Nice.

After Cameron sets an isotope solution charging to red and gives the weapon to Sarah, she unseals a few more boxes and some beyond cutting edge computer panels extend into view. The controls for a time machine.

Looking a bit battered, the Terminator shows up, ignores the police who stare dumbfounded, and tears the vault door down.

Cameron sets the temporal coordinates as the Terminator approaches. Sarah blows him away just before they all vanish in a sphere of temporal energy.

The sphere reappears in a highway that stops evening traffic, depositing John, Sarah, and Cameron sans clothing. Drivers gawk and catch them on live video with camera phones.

A highway construction sign flashes "2007" as Cameron stops a car with guys who want to show her a good time. She thumps their heads and gets them to volunteer their clothes.

We fade out with Sarah and company poised to seek out Skynet before it's created and destroy it.

I can hardly wait to see what happens. It looks like the initial 12 episode order was complete.

This pilot was filled with nods to the films that all savvy fans can't not fail to notice. The ending went in an unexpected direction, which is always good. Hopefully, things won't tank after this pilot, like they did for "Bionic Woman."