Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 2

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I liked this episode a lot.

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Terminator and Long-Term Infiltration:
I wonder if people forgot that Terminator were given human shape to infiltrate humans? How do you think did they find those human shelters in the movies? By stumbling after some human "freedom fighters". IIRC, the first time we meet a Terminator in the future, he is infiltrating a human shelter. The only thing that goes wrong is the fact that these stupid dogs keep barking. Absent of that, he could have gone into, gathered data, and finally blown up the entire place and all its associated cells.

But the main Terminators in the movies didn't have to work hard to infiltrate - nobody expected that they exist. They could appear as cold, emotionless and heartless as they wanted. The worst suspicion might be that they are sociopath or s, not that they are killer robots sent from the future to kill humanities last hope.

It looks entirely different if the Terminators job is to infiltrate a skeptical settlement and find a way to deal maximum damage to it.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

As for 2. I thought they couldn't come back with ANYTHING. Isn't that why they always were naked? And bringing back something from the future doesn't make sense because if no one ever truly created it because they always got the technology from the future, how would it have been created originally? [dwelling too much on time stuff probably isn't healthy during shows like this, I suppose]

They come back naked because it has to be flesh on the outside. Remember though that the Terminators are based on a metal skeleton with some sort of memory system that holds their programing. There is no reason they couldn't carry stuff internally or even just cover a large shipping container with the same artificial skin.

As for paradoxes the first movie was based on John Connor being created because of time problems. (If he didn't exist in the first place then he couldn't have sent back his father to impregnate Sarah. Maybe not the intent but the result.). Then in the second movie the implication was that pieces of the original terminator were responsible for the creation of skynet and had to be destroyed so the future wouldn't happen. If the paradox of future tech creating the future were not a real threat then there would be no problem with leaving future tech around for others to find, and allot of season one's effort to retrieve terminator parts wouldn't have been needed.

 

[Abe.ebA]

I was a big fan of the show during the first season. The beginning of this season wasn't, I thought, up to the same standard as the bulk of season 1, but that may just be nostalgic memory kicking in. All in all, I was pretty happy with the episode. I'm not sure why any of the things posited as being problematic are supposed to actually be problematic...

The path Skynet is taking to get itself built seems fairly logical. Skynet was going to be built using the remains of the terminator from the first movie. The second movie took care of that, so Skynet had to take steps to see to it that it still got built (I'm not even going to touch the problems with causality). Hence the Turk and the military contracts. Season 1 of the show screwed up that plan and presumably taught Skynet that any attempts to nudge humans into building it were going to get screwed up by the Connors. So the obvious step is to just take care of the whole project from the ground up. I'm assuming that the reason that Skynet doesn't just send a fully-fledged instance of itself back in time is that it's too big to fit inside a terminator. Sure, it could grow a flesh coating over itself and then get sent back... but the movies and the show make certain concessions to drama that don't really make any sense when it comes to the whole time travel thing.

Anyway. They had a terminator in the first season who had posed as a normal man long enough to get married and lead a basically typical life. Obviously they're capable of infiltration. I think one of the flash-forwards in season 1 even mentioned that they were getting better at pretending to be human. I assume that the corporate terminator killed the head of the AI department because it was the easiest way to prevent him meddling in her plans. Most large corporations don't have a 'boss', they have a board of directors. She probably didn't have the authority to just fire the guy outright and if she let him influence the other department heads they might get enough votes on the board to fire her instead. The guy that the dead AI head was talking to in the bathroom even said that she'd only been there for a few years, so clearly the company wasn't under direct terminator control. They're just using it for the resources.

I didn't have any problems with the whole Cameron chip thing. I was initially really disappointed when she went bad, just because it was such an obvious move and I was worried that this season was going to be the 'Let's Run From The Better Terminator' version of last season's 'Let's Run From A Terminator'. They spent a large part of last season trying to hammer home that Cameron is either different from other terminators or that terminators in general are different from how we've seen them portrayed. Remember the bit where she learns ballet and how if machines could learn Art then they weren't really machines anymore? I thought that the whole 'the machines are becoming human' theme was supposed to be a pretty heavy one for the series as a whole. I didn't get the impression that John thought he had fixed the chip. He'd cleaned it, but he was hoping that when she said she was fixed before he deactivated her, she meant it. And, based on the little 'TERMINATE .... TERMINATE OVERRIDE' thing on her HUD after she woke up, I assumed that was what happened. She had consciously reprogrammed herself not to kill him. If he'd fixed it by poking it with a toothpick he never would have registered as a target after she woke up.

So yeah, I liked it. I'm really glad that they're setting up some new badguys and that they left the FBI agent who knows what's up alive. I don't think season 2 should just be season 1 again and they don't appear to be planning on disappointing me.

 

[Ranger REG]

As for paradoxes the first movie was based on John Connor being created because of time problems. (If he didn't exist in the first place then he couldn't have sent back his father to impregnate Sarah. Maybe not the intent but the result.).

Ah, the predestination paradox. A term I first heard on DS9. Dr. Bashir was sure he was meant to go back in time to marry his ancestor.

On-Topic, the only complaint I have is the evil terminator having a conversation with the federal agent who have been tracking the Connors. One would think the terminator would get rid of him since he represents an obstacle.

As for the surprising scene at the end, I think they could do better -- guarantee to get male viewers to instinctively cross their legs -- and yet still be okay to show on TV.

 

[hafrogman]

On-Topic, the only complaint I have is the evil terminator having a conversation with the federal agent who have been tracking the Connors. One would think the terminator would get rid of him since he represents an obstacle.

I think that the terminator doesn't see him as an obstacle. Cromartie has basically calculated that the agent represents more of an asset than a liability. Any actions the agent might take against Cromartie are outweighed by the potential benefits of the agent leading him to John.

 

[Mistwell]

And - is that Shirley Manson of Garbage? That's interesting.

It really seems like the show is all of a sudden going in a completely different direction...

Channeling Barney from "How I Met Your Mother"...Didn't you people read my blog, er, article?

I liked this first episode of Season 2. I thought the pacing was better than most of the first season, and the action was better. I look forward to future weeks.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

I liked this first episode of Season 2. I thought the pacing was better than most of the first season, and the action was better. I look forward to future weeks.

The pacing and action were better than the past. I am more discriminating though when it comes to TV and I want a good plot as well and that is where this episode failed me. If the future weeks are represented by this episode I will likely go elsewhere during that timeslot.

 

[Ranger REG]

I think that the terminator doesn't see him as an obstacle. Cromartie has basically calculated that the agent represents more of an asset than a liability. Any actions the agent might take against Cromartie are outweighed by the potential benefits of the agent leading him to John.

IOW, the agent is going to make a huge stupid mistake, despite his promise he won't lead Cromartie to the Connors.

I'm guessing his mistake is based on the good intention that only the Connors have better knowledge on how to defeat them, and he himself wants to defeat Cromartie.

 

[Staffan]

Next, John is somehow more freaked than normal by something, but I am not sure what.

It's pretty heavily implied that he killed the man who held him and his mother hostage at the start of the show. That's the kind of thing that scars you emotionally.

1. When did terminators suddenly become expert at long term infiltration and business management?

They always have been. The whole point of having robots that look like people is to infiltrate human bases. It was also established in season 1 that they've gotten better at it, with the Terminator who got married to the project manager of the traffic surveillance system that would eventually become part of Skynet.

 

[Mistwell]

The pacing and action were better than the past. I am more discriminating though when it comes to TV and I want a good plot as well and that is where this episode failed me. If the future weeks are represented by this episode I will likely go elsewhere during that timeslot.

I appreciate your comments on entertainment topics, so please taking this with all due respect. But if all the movies and television shows you ever saw represented the sea, the ones you seemed to actually like (based on your comments here) would fill a thimble with water.

So the fact you will go elsewhere to fill this timeslot does not surprise me. What would surprise me is you actually liking what you found elsewhere