Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Queen's Gambit

Plot: Andy Goode is killed for his computer, The Turk. This leads Sarah to the final resistance fighter, who is being chased by a model T-888.


I think 'patiently paced' is a polite way to describe this episode. It wasn't bad, it just lacked any real spark for the first 30 minutes or so. This was seemingly caused by the Andy Goode plot only serving as an opener to the main story. Andy shows up after seemingly spending the weeks that have passed since the fire re-writing The Turk. He's entered it in to a computer vs computer chess tournament where the winner will receive a military contract. Andy loses the tournament and Sarah decides to let him in on what they're trying to do, with the hope that he'll stop pursuing this perfect AI. She's too late though as he's dead and the computer gone. She chases after the person that she believes was responsible but he's caught by the Police before she can get to him.

The man is Derek Reese, the fourth resistance fighter. He was there to kill Andy and take The Turk, but someone beat him to it, meaning that the AI is still at large. Most interestingly, Derek Reese is the brother of Kyle Reese, Sarah's former lover and John's father. This makes Derek John's father.

John, Cameron and Sarah launch a ridiculous rescue mission to free Derek. He's being transported in a Prisoner Transport Van. Cameron climbs on top of it, rips the driver out of the cabin and pulls the back door off its hinges, freeing Derek. And there I was thinking they were supposed to be keeping a low profile. Cameron also has to battle the T-888 that had been chasing Derek. She subdues it, but not before it shoots Derek. Derek is taken back to the Connors' house, but his injuries are grave. Rather than let his new found uncle die, John gets help from Charley Dixon.

The action sequence with Cameron battling the T-888 was pretty good fun, I do just fear that those encounters will begin to get a bit tired and over done after a while. Surely there are only so many ways that she can kill them. On the other side, bringing Charley back in to the fold works pretty well for me, especially after he was visited by Cromartie earlier in the episode.

I think this episode mostly suffered from feeling like it was the end of one episode and the start of another. Neither of the plots really had time to breathe and I think this may have done better spread across two episodes.

7 out of 10

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Heavy Metal

Plot: While hunting for Cromartie, the Connors and Cameron get on the trail of a Terminator that is stockpiling Coltan, a metal used for the assembly of machines after Judgement Day.


This is certainly a step down in pace from the last couple of episodes and I really think we're starting to get in to the nitty gritty of what this show is going to be about. It's becoming clear that there are many, many elements that are all working, often independently of each other, towards making Skynet a reality. In this case, a Terminator model has begun stockpiling Coltan, keeping it safe in a fallout bunker, ready for Judgement Day.

John had been seperated from Sarah and Cameron after finding the Coltan, getting locked in a truck with the shipment, which leads them to the fallout bunker. Sarah is a little beside herself, but Cameron is able to bring her to her senses. John has a little more to worry about, especially during one particularly tense scene where he must sneak past the machine that has gone in to stand by mode. Cameron explains that it'll take him fifteen seconds to boot up, but the fact that you won't know he's done this until he's back to full capacity really makes for an intense scene. They make it away eventually, leaving the Terminator stuck in the fallout shelter, ditching the Coltan in the ocean.

Of the Coltan, Cameron remarks that it's being stockpiled in the place where the factory that she was made will eventually reside. She says that Coltan is in short supply in the future, following all of the bombs going off on Judgement Day. It was interesting to see that the machines aren't just working to make Judgement Day happen, but by planning for future eventualities, they're trying to make a more secure future for themselves. It's all quite fascinating.

Meanwhile, Cromartie gets a plastic surgeon to make him a new face before killing him off. The face he takes is of an actor, played by Garret Dillahunt. Dillahunt is best known by me as playing Matthew Ross in The 4400. More recently, he appeared in the Coen Brothers' sublime No Country For Old Men. His performance in that showed me that he has a great range of characters in him and it's great to see him playing both the washed up actor, and the murderous machine in this. I think he's in a similar vein to Robert Patrick and expect that he'll be a regular for the time being, as Cromartie gets back to chasing the Connors.

The murder of the plastic surgeon gets Ellison involved. He's finding it difficult to put all the pieces of the case together, but definitely feels a connection to the case that, he thinks, resulted in the Connors and Cameron Phillips blowing themselves up in a bank vault. I like the character, but he's not doing anything particularly thrilling for the moment, just following up in the Connors' wake. I'm sure he'll come in to his own throughout this season.

I did really enjoy seeing John go it alone in this one, even if it was against his own will. He's headstrong and eager to remind his mother that they're fighting a war. I do feel that he might regret being too cavalier at some point. He won't necessarily get himself killed, but he could hurt someone else.

This was a fun and tense episode, but it was just lacking a little bit of tightness. A couple of scenes involving Ellison just didn't quite come together and made the pace drop a little.

7 out of 10

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - The Turk

Plot: Sarah tracks down one of Skynet's creators, as John and Cameron begin school. Meanwhile, the Cromartie Terminator enlists the help of a scientist to create a new skin for him.


Again, another very enjoyable and engrossing hour of television. I think what works so well is that we know what's going to happen, so it's all the more exciting to see the characters work towards preventing it. I think in a lot of ways, it's very similar to what made Heroes such a good watch. The fact that Peter and Hiro can travel to the future means that they can then work towards preventing disaster. It's quite a subtle change in the set up of the plot, but it seems to work really well.

The Skynet creator in question is Andy Goode (Brendan Hines). He interned with Miles Dyson, but left college due to family problems, becoming a cell phone salesman rather than a Cyberdyne employee. Still, he had a strong Computer Science background and began work on a chess AI that he says has since developed moods of its own. Apparently the first signs of sentience, amid a backdrop of narration from Sarah about the scientists that worked on the Manhattan Project. It's clear that Andy has no intention of taking over the world, but it may be too late by the time he realises what he has created. Sarah torches the place. Her scenes with Andy worked well and it was good to see her away from the day to day business of protecting John and doing something that resembled letting her hair down, by going on a couple of dates with Andy.


Cromartie tracks down a scientist that has been working on some form of skin generation. The Terminator delivers him a new formula that will help him complete his work and develop a new skin for Cromartie. While the results were pretty gross, it looks like it worked reasonably well. Cromartie finishes the job by stealing the scientist's eyes and killing him, possibly in that order. Cromartie had been clothed and masked up until the point where he had to get in to the blood bath. It was actually quite frightening to see him stood there as a naked machine and I can only imagine what was going through the scientist's mind. Creepy stuff.

We see a bit more from Agent Ellison in this episode. He's one step behind the Connor's and Cameron, investigating the murder of Enrique and the deaths of the men that had been sent from the future to investigate Skynet. He seems to be juggling more pieces than will fit the puzzle at the moment, but I can't imagine that it'll be long before he's able to figure out what's going on.

Finally, John and Cameron start the new school. A girl commits suicide on the 2nd day after someone had been painting murals in the school that seemed to refer to an affair that she had. They were rather creepy and I'd like to have seen them tie in to some Terminator action, rather than some high school bullying. An interesting plot device though. Cameron gets more and more awesome. She's awkward around the other students, but has something of a sense of humour and Summer Glau plays it really well.

So as I said, enjoyable and engaging again, even if it did lack any particular action. That's not a problem though because these are some strong and interesting characters.

8 out of 10