Demon Hand

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 1 Episode 7 - Plot: Sarah attempts to track down the missing hand of the T-888 that was recently destroyed. Meanwhile, Agent Eliison's investigation in to Sarah leads him to Dr. Silberman.

Ellison & Sarah

First of all, we find that Ellison has hidden the T-888's hand in his freezer box. As I think a lot of people expected, he's starting to buy in to Sarah's prophecy and he eventually finds himself at the door of Dr. Silberman. Silberman is here played by Bruce Davison, having been portrayed by Earl Boen in the film trilogy.

Ellison and Silberman sit down to tea. Ellison is drugged by Silberman, who reveals that he needed to be certain that he wasn't a machine. Silberman clearly believes Sarah and realises the danger that someone asking questions about her might pose. Most interestingly, he tells of his encounter with Schwarzenegger's Terminator and the T-1000 as a religious experience. Saying how The Terminator reached out the hand of God to John Connor, 'Come with me if you want to live, like the Sistine Chapel.

Silberman douses Ellison in petrol and sets the cabin on fire around him. As he escapes, he runs in to Sarah, apologising for not believing her. Sarah knocks him out, takes the hand and rescues Ellison.

John

During the course of her investigation in to the whereabouts of the hand, Sarah finds herself at Ellison's apartment, where he has tapes of Sarah from her time in the mental hospital. She takes one away with her, which John watches. It shows her signing a form to relinquish parental responsibility over John. John is understandably upset at this, but Sarah explains how it was on the day that they found each other and that she needed it to give herself the strength and the necessity to break out and get to him.

Cameron

Cameron sets to work in finding The Turk. She ends up at the dance studio of the sister of Andy Goode's partner, Dmitri. She eventually finds Dmitiri and learns that he messed with The Turk's end game protocol to make it lose the chess match in order to sell it to someone. She gets an address in exchange for money, though Dmitri and his sister are soon killed by Russian mobsters, to whom the money was owed. Scarily, Cameron did nothing to help them, as it was out of her mission protocol.

Very interestingly, Cameron shows a very keen interest in ballet while conducting her investigation. She's seen at the very end practising some moves. A voice over from Sarah explains that the machines cannot appreciate beauty, they cannot create art. If they ever learn these things, they won't have to destroy us. They'll be us.

The Review

Certainly interesting to see the characters going off in different directions. The links back to T2, especially relating to Dr. Silberman provided some very intriguing scenes, especially in the cabin as he explained his encounter with the 2 Terminators.

I think The Turk has played a much bigger part in this season than I originally anticipated. The initial set up of the show made it seem as if Sarah, John and Connor would be off systematically taking out key components of Skynet. Instead, it's been a lot more complicated. There are more players in the game and even removing one component has proven to be a challenge. It's a show of great plot depth and a show that patience will be key to stopping Judgement Day and enjoying the show.

Cameron again proves to be a very interesting character, not just relating to her dancing, but also to an exchange between her and Derek Reese, where they both reveal that they know who each other is. I'm guessing there's more to Cameron than we know so far and I wouldn't be surprised if we find out what that is in next week's 2-part season finale. I've also got a slight suspicion that she might not make it out of that finale alive. I've really enjoyed Cameron as character, but I'm not sure that she necessarily needs to part of the show long-term. There were just a few very subtle hints in this episode that suggest to me that something might happen to her.

I guess we'll all find out next Monday. :)

8 out of 10

Dungeons & Dragons

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 1 Episode 6 - Plot: As Charley and Sarah fight to save Derek Reese's life, Derek recalls the events that led to him travelling to the past.

The Present

Sarah fills Charley in on the details of Judgement Day, Skynet and the machines. He accepts the story fairly well, but is rather freaked out by Cameron, especially as she works to destroy the exoskeleton of the machine that tried to kill them in the last episode.

Derek's condition is grave, as his lungs begin to fill with fluid. John is able to help by donating some of his blood. Derek has a rare blood type and the fact that John is a match allows Charley to fill in the blanks that the pair are related. He's not John's father as he originally suspected, but his uncle. Knowledge of the fact that Kyle Reese is John's father is a very closely guarded secret, Sarah won't even let Derek know. This is understandable as it puts Kyle at risk in the future. If Kyle is killed before he's sent back to protect Sarah then John is never born.


The Future

It's important to note that this is actually Derek's past. Derek, Kyle and a group of other freedom fighters are holed up in a bunker in a ruined city. Intelligence reports reveal that the machines have a secret weapon, this transpires to be the device that can send people through time. While on an offensive, Derek is captured and held in captivity with other freedom fighters and Andy Goode. Andy confides in Derek that he helped to create Skynet.

Derek and the other captives are inexplicably let go after being tortured. They return to the bunker where news of the capture of the secret weapon is passed around alongside news of the missing Kyle Reese. He had been sent back to the past, but Derek doesn't learn this until he himself is briefed on the device by John Connor.

The Past

Derek Reese and three others arrive in the past to work to stop Skynet from being created. In an effort towards this, we see Derek killing Andy Goode after the chess tournament.

Sometimes they go bad

In the present, Cameron discusses the fact that captured and converted machines have their memories scrambled. She says this is to help prevent them from turning bad.

In the future we see Cameron and Derek meet. Derek assumes she's bad, but is informed that she's been converted to join the freedom fighters. Later on, she helps to stop another convert that has gone bad. It seems that the process of converting the machines to fight for the humans was not and may still not be perfect.

It's assumed that Cameron's memory was removed after she met Derek Reese, so she does not believe she has met him by the time he turns up in the present.


The review

So it's all a little complicated, but works really well once all the bits fall in to place. Not much really happens in the scenes set in the present, but they do help to make the future scenes more intriguing.

We never actually see Derek being tortured, but his demeanour after being taken down to a mysterious basement room suggests that it wasn't a pleasant time. Honestly, I couldn't guess what actually happened and there was a lot about the machines that was 'odd'. For starters, the one that watches over the captives doesn't appear to be particularly advanced. His skin job isn't perfect, nor is his mobility and dexterity. On top of that, a flying machine regularly blasts a high intensity light in to the room in which they are being held captive. At a guess, I'd say that it was to check up on them, but then what were the other machines doing in the make shift prison?

What's more curious is that the machines just let them go. It could've been a ruse gone bad, but I sense that the machines aren't the cohesive force that we might've expected.

Finally, we never actually see John in the future. This may just be because Thomas Dekker isn't old enough to really play that part. Or, it may be because something is yet to happen to John in the series that will effect the way he appears, or the way we perceive him in the future.

The scenes set in the present didn't really contribute much to the episode and were mercifully short. This allowed a tantalising glimpse of the future to play out in intricate detail. It all fit together perfectly in the end, helping to make this one of the better episodes so far.

8 out of 10

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

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Gnothi Seauton

Plot: Sarah enlists the help of an old friend to secure new identities for herself, John and Cameron.


While this second episode of the series isn't quite as thrilling as the first, I still found it to be a thoroughly engrossing hour of television. The plot has quickly become engaging and in that sense, this is probably a better episode than the premiere.

The old friend that Sarah tracks down is Enrique Salceda, the man who taught John how to shoot and gave Sarah some special forces training. He was played by Castulo Guerra in T2 and has done some TV in recent years, including playing Jean Briault in Alias and General Zavala in this season of Prison Break. Taking that in to account, it seems surprising that he couldn't be tempted to reprise the role in The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Still, we can probably forgive them that as Tony Amendola, friend of The SG-B, played the role in his stead. That's right, old master Bra'tac was there representing and doing a fine job of it. It was all happy families for a while to, until Sarah found out that Enrique was considered to be a snitch and may have sold them out. Cameron was unwilling to risk him doing that and promptly executed him. She's ruthless when she needs to be, it seems.

We learn quite a lot more about Cameron in this episode. Specifically the fact that she's under the orders of John from the future and won't necessarily do what present day John tells her. John himself has an idiotic five minutes as he leaves the house to go scouring the internet in public, as well as paying a visit to Sarah's former fiancee, Charlie. It's the kind of behaviour that'll lead to him being found. Charlie has gotten married since the trio disappeared from 1999 and I'm delighted by the fact that his wife is played by Sonya Walger, the same actress as plays Desmond's Penny in Lost, which is pretty awesome.

We see some more standard Terminator behaviour from Cameron in this episode. The awkwardness around other people, the mimicking of their actions to try and fit in, it all worked well. One thing that Summer Glau can do well is awkward and distant and I really think she's perfect for this role.

We didn't see much of FBI Agent James Ellison in this episode, except in investigating Enrique's death. I'm sure he'll have his chance to be properly introduced soon. For now, though, there's plenty of things for John, Sarah and Cameron to get straight as they bid to start a new life.

I'm quickly beginning to love this show. This was a very, very strong 2nd episode and next Monday can't come soon enough.

9 out of 10

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Premiere

Plot: Two years after the events of Terminator 2, Sarah (Lena Headey) and John Connor (Thomas Dekker) are on the run once again.

A great premiere, really awesome fun, tense and dramatic throughout. I suppose the great thing about using an existing IP, such as Terminator is that a knowledge of the back story can be assumed. This allows the SCC premiere to skip over laborious introductions. We know that two years ago, a Terminator was sent back to protect John Connor from the T-1000. The T-1000 was on a mission to assassinate Connor, thus preventing him from rising to lead a band of rebels in a war against machines. We know that.

It's made clear that Sarah and John have been on the run for much of the past couple of years, though Sarah has seemingly made some attempt to settle down, accepting a proposal from a man. A frightening dream unsettles her though and she leaves with John to a new town. Sarah's psychosis in regards to the fate of her son is understandable. The man with a purposeful walk should always be feared, as he could be a split second away from pulling a gun on her and her son.

At the new town, John begins school and is befriended by the pretty Cameron Phillips (Summer Glau). She's not quite what she seems though, as when a substitute teacher turns out to be another assassin, she takes a trio of bullets for John. John escaped out the window and is in danger of being executed before Cameron runs the assassin down with a truck. Joyously and emphatically she exclaims 'come with me if you want to live!'. It's a great moment and brings some awesome memories flooding back. This is an IP to respect and respect has definitely been paid here.

The Connors' problems are further compounded by the fact that they're not just facing robots from the future anymore. The FBI are also on their tail, following the destruction of Cyberdyne and the murder of Miles Dyson.

In the end, the assassin forces Cameron to resort to desperate measures to protect her charge and bring down Skynet, which we discover is brought online in 2011, though it's not known who by. Cameron locks herself, John and Sarah in to a bank vault and they quickly begin assembling a weapon split in to parts hidden in a number of different safety deposit boxes. On top of that, Cameron also has a time machine hidden away. As the assassin breaks through the bank vault, Sarah fires the weapon, killing him and Cameron activates the machine, sending them from 1999 to 2007. There, they'll work to discover who is working on Skynet and attempt to destroy it.

Bringing the show in to the present day seems to be a reasonably clever move, especially considering the time line that we've been given. That allows four years before Skynet is due to become active and possibly four seasons worth of episodes, assuming one year of plot per 22 episode season. Of course, Skynet could be found long before then, but for now I think it'll work.

Now, the characters. Lena Headey plays Sarah Connor. She's probably best known for playing Queen Gorgo in last year's 300. She somewhat enchanting to watch and wears the responsibility of protecting the saviour of the world well. It'll be interesting to see how she grows in to the role over the course of the show, especially considering the character's severe paranoia over her son.

Richard T. Jones plays James Ellison, an FBI agent charged with tracking down Sarah and John Connor to bring them to justice for the death of Miles Dyson. He believes Sarah to be an extremely dangerous psychotic. We don't really learn much about him in this episode, but I can see him fulfilling a similar role as Mahone in season two of Prison Break. I could also see Ellison eventually coming round to join the Connors' fight, especially given the evidence that he sees in this episode alone to support Sarah's story.


Summer Glau, well known for playing River Tam in Joss Whedon's Firefly is given the role of John Connor's protector. Cameron Phillips seems to be a later model than Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator and I'm looking forward to seeing what tricks she has up her sleeves. Summer Glau is very cute when she's not playing a crazy person and it was a clever move to cast her. She'll certainly appeal to that male demographic that are a little too young to relate to Lena Headey.


Finally, the star of the show, saviour of the world, John Connor. He's played by Thomas Dekker who starred last year as Zach in Heroes. I'll admit, I was a little cagey about his ability to play the role for the first few scenes that he appeared in, mostly because I was seeing Zach, rather than John Connor. That quickly changes though, He's headstrong, smart and mindful of his importance. But he's also caring and you sense that he's wary of the toll that his continued existence has on those that are trying to protect him.

It was a great start to a show that has blockbuster potential. The Terminator films have always thrived on providing big budget action and big budget thrills. With a TV budget, that might not be possible, but a strong cast of characters have already proven that big action may not always be necessary. Regardless, this is surely going to be an exhilarating ride and one that I'm looking forward to being a part of. Episode 2 airs tonight, more from me tomorrow.

8 out of 10