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 - 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