Five Reasons Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Is Actually Good

I can hear it now. "But Bradbury! Terminator is a good but fairly mindless action movie that can't possibly be translated into a coherent, enjoyable television show! This is on the same level as Flash Gordon! It doesn't even have Schwarzenegger!"

That's exactly what I thought going in. I was fully expecting campy sci-fi action with a robot-of-the-week plot mixed in with whiny, soap opera characters. You know what? I was wrong. Mostly. I'm afraid I've only seen up to the episode Heavy Metal (the fourth one), but it does seem to be slipping into the robot-of-the-week plot. Even though it hasn't slipped into a tired formula yet, it still takes the impact out of time travel and has the potential to introduce some nasty plot holes.

But even with these downsides, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is actually worth watching. I'm not claiming it's fine art, but it's one of my favorite shows right now. There are five main reasons why.

1. SARAH CONNOR

In a lot of fiction, the story begins with the main character learning that they're destined to be the king or that they have magical powers or there are robots from the future coming to attack them. They proceed to whine, bitch, and moan about it for much too long. It is annoying.

This is not how Sarah Connor works. She's a seasoned veteran who's lived with her sucky life for years now. She's used to it and has responded by becoming a paranoid badass. That's not to say that Sarah has no internal conflicts—like I said, she's paranoid and has issues with how far she can or should go to prevent the rise of the machines, plus she just found out she died of cancer in an alternate future. But she's also competent, proactive, clever, and really good with a gun.

Even without the Terminator tie-in, I'd watch this show for Sarah Connor. In one of my favorite scenes with her, the show's good Terminator, Cameron, is about to kill a police officer. Cameron was waiting outside a house with their car while Sarah meets with gang members to get fake IDs. The cop goes up to her and explains how gang members will hide their drugs in a stolen car with a guard loitering nearby. He prepares to take her in for questioning and she prepares to snap his neck like a twig. Luckily for the cop, Sarah is a great improviser and liar. She comes running up, starts ranting at her "stepdaughter" for hanging out in gang territory, and saves the day single-handedly using her powers of lying without hesitation.

The only bad thing I can think of about her is that she monologues every episode. Still, compared to Heroes' Mohinder monologues, hers are Shakespeare. They're usually relevant to the episode, are accompanied by interesting visuals and are about Oppenheimer or the original golem story instead of crap like the 10% brain myth.

2. JOHN CONNOR

John Connor isn't a warrior like his mother. He's still a teenager and he doesn't like his destiny. He goes to school and angsts about things. I think I recall him using a gun a few times, but he uses them fairly infrequently.

But even though he's not a warrior, John is more proactive than his mother in some ways. She may shoot at the Terminators, but usually while running away from them. He's the one who pushes to fight the future and keep Judgment Day from happening. In the first few episodes, he said this in a way that sounded an awful lot like "Mom, make it go away!", but he's starting to want to become the leader he's supposed to be—even if he's not sure how to do that yet.

He's an idealistic boy trying to become a hero while his two cynical companions try to keep him alive. Handled well, this arc of growth and coming of age could be truly epic.

One interesting aspect of John's story is what's going on in his high school. Mysterious murals began to appear on the walls. They're drawings of a door that gradually gained more detail, until it showed the door slightly open with blonde hair showing and a bra on the knob. Apparently, this revealed a secret that some blonde girl had. She has a breakdown in the bathroom with Cameron. Later, Cameron and John join a crowd in the parking lot and realize they're looking at her on the roof of a tall building. As Cameron holds back a horrified John, the girl jumps to her death. I was surprised the show had the guts to do it—they even had a student sarcastically yelling "Jump!" moments before her suicide.

In the next episode, John is seen thinking about it and he risks his life to strike a major blow against the Terminators. The secret of the girl and the murals is still up in the air and will clearly be a continuing subplot. I, personally, love this take on the high school hero. The events at his school are dramatic but not fantastical and they seriously impact his character without consuming the show.

3. ACTION

Apparently, one of the best ways to identify Terminators is that they don't look both ways before crossing the street. The few robots that appeared have been hit with a truly ridiculous number of vehicles in just four episodes and I love it. In one scene, Sarah steals a motorcycle, rides it towards a Terminator, and turns it sharply to the side while jumping off. The bike skids several yards towards the Terminator and hits its legs in a shower of sparks and shrapnel. The show doesn't have the relentless chases of the Terminator movies, but it's still full of gunshots, explosions, fistfights and the occasional car chase.

4. TERMINATORS ARE ACTUALLY ROBOTS

I find Cameron, who is as close to a good Terminator as Terminators can get, awkward and literal without being unbelievably naïve. In her first appearance, she had a brief conversation with John while posing as a human student. I've seen people on some forums complaining that she sounded much too human in this exchange compared to how she talks later. I disagree. In that scene and later ones, she only sounded marginally better than Alice. I'd also like to take this opportunity to share with you all a quote from one of my favorite forums:

"Rather than being like Buffy, huddled in the dank and dusty library with her trusty cohorts every day, I think it would be hilarious if Cameron inadvertently ended up becoming the Cordelia of the school: her tactlessness and thoughtlessness would probably be interpreted by high school girls as confidence and bitchiness, two qualities that any queen bee must have in abundance. After all, the loner-girl-as-superhero has pretty much become a cliche; the idea of the most popular girl in school being, in reality, a robotic assassin sent from the future to save the world--this I have not seen. And this I would like to see. If only to see John and Sarah's reactions."
--tze

But I digress. In one scene, the heroic trio were looking around an apartment inhabited by a team of humans from the future. The time travellers had been trying to find Skynet and all but one were killed by a Terminator. Cameron tries to rip open the safe, but they'd set a trap and she's knocked out. Terminators take fifteen seconds to reboot, but John and Sarah don't have that time because the Terminator that killed the hunting party is clomping up to the apartment. John starts trying to carry Cameron out to the fire escape. Sarah stops him, puts Cameron on a rolling office chair, and launches it out of the window. Whether it's moments like these, gratuitious displays of Terminator strength, awkward ways of speech, total lack of ethics or the fantastic acting of Summer Glau, Cameron is a robot from artificial skin to metal skeleton, and this show never lets you forget it.

The same goes for the villains. This show is exploring the different aspects of Terminators that the movies never got the opportunity to. What happens when a Terminator completes its mission? What if it needs to hide, but its skin was destroyed? The answer to that last question is particularly good. The main Terminator antagonist, Cromartie, loses his entire skin and his head is separated from his body. His body gets up and disguises itself from head to toe. It sticks a decapitated head on its shoulders and puts on a motorcycle helmet over it. Yes, that actually happened. Disappointingly, the head and body were shortly reunited and Cromartie went on to get his skin. He gives a formula for artificial skin and blood to a scientist who has the equipment to make it. After getting the skin, Cromartie resembles a hideously disfigured human. He kills the scientist and takes his eyes.

I've heard people complain about why he would do that to someone who would create the technology Terminators would need. I'd like to remind those people that when the scientist saw the formula, he muttered things like "[My colleague] was close… [other guy] was closer…". The scientist wasn't the best man in his field.

Anyway, Cromartie also needs to get plastic surgery to make his skin presentable. It's fascinating watching him create this new identity and serves a purpose: it creates a trail for the FBI character to follow. This show has a lot going on and it's all tied together.

5. TERMINATOR III HAS BEEN RETCONNED OUT OF EXISTENCE

That movie sucked.

The Beginning of the End

Lost Season 4 begun last night after months of waiting and problems resulting from the writer’s strike. Was it worth the trouble? I’m not sure.

“The Beginning of the End” begins with a pile of fruit. There’s just a pile of fruit, innocently sitting there, minding their own business. And then a speeding car runs through them. Poor pile of fruit. Their life was so short.

Police cars chase the speeding Camaro through the streets. We see a man watching the car chase on the news… and it’s revealed to be Jack, who seems annoyed. Minus the beard. He looks better without that freaky beard.

The police eventually catch up to the car and order the driver to get out of the car. We slowly see the person emerge… and it’s Hurley. The police tell him to get on the ground, but he makes a run for it. As you can imagine, he doesn’t get very far before he’s pushed into a wall and handcuffed. As they pull him away, he shouts, “Don’t you know who I am? I’m one of the Oceanic Six!”

And then the LOST title appears.

Okay, small interruption. What exactly is happening here? It’s obviously not happening on the island, because of all of the cars, the police, Hurley running away from the police, Jack watching the car chase on the news… it’s definitely happening in the outside world. But it’s not a flashback. Jack knows its Hurley in the car. This means that the two have met. Where did they meet? They were both survivors of Flight 815, a plane which crashed on a mysterious island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

This scene is a flashforward. And we better get used to them.

The idea of a flashforward on Lost first appeared during the Season 3 finale. Throughout the 2 hours, we kept flashing back (or forward, I guess) to Jack back in the “real world,” who was addicted to drugs and trying to cope with being a “hero.” At the end, we see Jack meet up with fellow survivor Kate, and it’s revealed that this is taking place AFTER they get off the island. This was a big burst of excitement in the fan community, because let’s face it; the flashbacks were getting quite old. Did we really need to see how Jack got his first car?

Flashforwards are going to be everywhere in Season 4, and possibly in the further two seasons. In fact, I think they’re going to be more important than what’s currently going on at the island.

From the first episode of Season 4, we know that there are six people that get off the island (Oceanic Six). We know they’re covering something up (they keep lying). We know there’s something else going on (the mysterious Oceanic Airlines attorney who shows up at the mental institute).

Lost has always had lots of questions. Now, with the flashforwards, I think we’re about to get some more answers. Hopefully.

Going back to Lost, after the title pops up, we go back to Hurley in an interrogation room, who is being questioned by Ana-Lucia’s old partner. We see what started off the car chase: Hurley is in a convenience store, minding his own business, when he suddenly freezes. He sees something. And then runs, destroying half the store in the process.

The cop goes on to talk about Ana-Lucia, about how she was on Flight 815, just like Hurley. He suggests that Hurley knew her. Hurley lies and says he didn’t.

He is left alone in the room to watch the video. He looks into the small panel of glass. There is water outside. A figure swims towards him, which looks a lot like Charlie. He presses his hand against the glass and it breaks. Water pours in and Hurley screams. The cop comes back in and the water disappears. He asks what Hurley is doing and that he’ll put him in a mental home if he needs to. Hurley hugs the cop and thanks him.

And then we’re back on the island. Hurley is talking to Jack on the walkie-talkie and Jack tells him how they’ve contacted the freighter and that they’re all going to get rescued. He does an awesome wink at Ben, who is still bleeding and tied to a tree.

Kate approaches Jack and wonders why Locke would kill Naomi. Jack doesn’t know, but if Locke interferes again, Jack will kill him.

Sun, Claire and Rose have a womanly chat about their partners and having babies in hospitals.

Ben whispers to Rousseau. He wants her to take his daughter as far away as possible because everyone that stays there is going to die. Rousseau hits him and simply responds by telling him that Alex isn’t his daughter. We see a shot of Naomi with the knife in her back.

We cut back to the beach, where Juliet is digging graves while Sawyer drinks beer. Hurley tells Bernard that he was a millionaire and how when they get rescued he’s going to be free. He then runs toward the ocean and does a cannonball and everyone is glad he kept his clothes on.

When he comes back to the surface, he notices Desmond arriving back on the boat thing. Desmond tells them that Jack can’t contact the boat because Naomi was a liar. Everyone questions him continuously until Hurley asks where Charlie is. Desmond says he’s sorry and calls him a brother like always. Everyone is sad because Charlie is dead.

Jack gets a call from the guy on the freighter (who has a different voice from the finale). He wants to talk to Naomi. Jack makes up an excuse because Naomi is dead, but they can’t find the body. Jack asks Ben where she is, and Ben mocks him by saying he doesn’t know.

Back at the beach, everyone questions what Charlie’s last message means (“Not Penny’s Boat”). Sayid says they can’t contact Jack because the freighter people might be monitoring their transmissions. Hurley throws the walkie-talkie into the water, solving none of their problems. He then tells them they better get going.

Rousseau tells Jack she found a blood trail and suggests they go find her. Jack wants to take Ben with him because he doesn’t trust him but we don’t know exactly what Ben did to Jack while he was with the Others so the two might be having an affair behind Kate’s back. Jack tells the rest of the people to go back to the beach and wait for rescue. Kate tells Kate she found another trail, but Jack says he’s going with Rousseau. He tells Kate to lead the people back to the beach. They hug, while Ben watches.

The people at the beach all grab guns and head off while Hurley has a flashforward. He’s back in the mental institute; taking meds and playing connect four. He is informed he has a visitor, a mysterious black man. He says he’s an attorney for Oceanic Airlines and wants to talk. He talks for a bit about how Oceanic want to put Hurley in an improved facility where he could see the ocean, but Hurley doesn’t want to see the ocean. Hurley says he’s fine where he is, but the attorney asks if he’s really fine in a creepy way. Hurley asks for a business card but the attorney says he’s left them at home. Hurley stands up and the attorney asks if they’re still alive. Hurley begins to shout and the attorney disappears.

While the beach people walk through the jungle, Sawyer approaches Hurley and asks him if he wants to talk about Charlie. Hurley dismisses him and falls behind. He’s sad. Poor Hurley. His life really sucks.

He wanders through the jungle for a few seconds and realizes he’s lost. He comes across a mysterious house which appears to be Jacob’s hut. Whispers can be heard. Hurley is worried.

Rousseau, Jack and Ben follow the trail and it’s a dead end. Ben mocks Jack again. Jack looks for the phone but it’s missing. Ben says he saw Kate take the phone and is following the other trail. Jack continues to lead Ben around like a pet. Hot.

Kate, wandering through the jungle on her own (why won’t they learn?) receives a phone call from the freighter. They ask where Naomi is and Kate says they’re looking for her and quickly hangs up. Blood begins to drip on her and Naomi leaps out of a tree and puts a knife to Kate’s throat. She demands the phone. She just spent the last three days trying to get everyone rescued and in return got a knife in the back. I’d be pissed too.

The phone rings again. Naomi grabs the phone and answers it. She talks to the guy on the freighter (George) and fiddles with the phone. She tells George to tell her sister that she loves her. She then apparently dies.

Hurley approaches Jacob’s hut and looks in the window. There’s a torch on the table and a strange painting of a dog (Vincent?) on the wall. A rocking chair begins to creak and an outline of a person resembling Christian Shepherd can be seen. An unknown face suddenly pops up in front of the window (some say it’s Locke, but I don’t think so) causing Hurley to stumble backwards and away from the hut. He drops his torch and runs through the jungle… only to come back to the hut. He closes his eyes and convinces himself there’s nothing there. When he opens them, the hut’s gone. He falls back and finds John Locke standing above him.

Locke gives him some water and asks him questions. Locke asks about Charlie’s message and Hurley says that Jack shouldn’t have called the freighter. Locke agrees and tells Hurley that the two of them are going to have to talk Jack out of getting everyone rescued. If they can’t, Charlie died for nothing.

Hurley and Locke find the rest of the people from the beach waiting at the cockpit wreckage. Sayid asks what Locke is doing there (because Locke got to eat chicken and blow up submarines while Sayid was tied to a swing set for three days). Locke says they need to warn Jack about the people on the boat. He wants support. Something approaches and everyone prepares to kill. It’s the rest of the survivors. Sun runs up to Jin and hugs him. Rose does the same to Bernard. Sawyer looks for Kate. Claire looks for Charlie. Desmond approaches Claire to tell her what happened to Charlie, but Hurley does it instead. He cries. It’s sad. Poor Hurley.

We go back to the institute where Hurley is painting a picture. Some random guy comes up to Hurley and tells him there’s a guy staring at him. Hurley looks around and sees… Charlie! Charlie tells Hurley not to run away. It’s revealed that Hurley ran from the store because he saw Charlie. Charlie slaps Hurley to prove that he’s there, and the two sit down and have a chat. Charlie tells Hurley he has to do something. Hurley closes his eyes and counts to five while Charlie repeatedly states that they need Hurley. When he opens his eyes, Charlie is gone.

Hurley and Claire continue to cry. Rousseau and Ben appear, followed by Jack who immediately punches Locke. The two fumble over a gun until Jack grabs it and points it at Locke’s head. Locke tells Jack he’s not going to shoot him and Jack pulls the trigger. It’s not loaded. Jack continues to punch Locke and is pulled away.

Locke explains that all he has ever done has been in the best interest of everyone. Jack asks him if it’s insane. They argue about Naomi and Kate appears. She hands Jack back the phone and explains that the freighter people are coming. Locke says they need to get far away from here. He plans to head to the Barracks because they’ve been abandoned and have protection (remember that cool sonic fence?). Locke tells everyone that if they want to live, they’ll have to come with him. Jack says no one will go with Locke because they’re not crazy. Hurley interrupts and tells everyone about Charlie and about how he warned everyone about the people on the boat. Hurley says he’s not going to listen to Jack and stands with Locke. The large group of people begin to separate. Claire and some nameless people join Locke. Rousseau and Ben join as well, followed by Alex and Karl. Bernard and Rose agreed that they’ll never leave the island but decide to stay with Jack. Kate watches Sawyer go with Locke and asks him what’s doing. Sawyer says he’s doing what he’s always done… surviving. It begins to rain. Locke’s group disappears into the jungle while Jack’s group watches.

Back at the institute, Hurley is shooting hoops. Jack enters the gym and challenges him to a game. The two discuss surgical stuff and reporters. Jack wants to grow a beard. Hurley says he’d look weird with a beard. I think everyone agrees. Hurley wants to know why Jack is really here. Jack says he’s checking on him. Hurley suggests that’s he nuts and that he’s going to tell. Jack asks if he is going to tell. Hurley doesn’t answer. Jack leaves. Hurley shouts he’s sorry that he went with Locke and how he should have stayed with Jack. He says that “it” wants them to go back and Jack says they’re never going back. Hurley tells him to never say never.

Jack and Kate wait at the cockpit for their visitors. They remember Charlie. Kate comments on the thunder, but it’s not thunder. A helicopter approaches. People parachute from the helicopter and Jack and Kate run to meet one. They come across a strange, bearded man who asks Jack if he’s Jack.

And then it ends. It’s a pretty good episode. Lost premieres are normally kind of weak (mainly because they focus on Jack) but this one was a bit of an improvement. However, the cliffhanger was rather disappointing. We knew people were going to land on the island. So?

But… it’s still new Lost. And that’s always good. I’m still worried about the flashforwards and how much they’ll reveal, but I can cope. Hopefully.