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I just found this analysis of the "Some must watch while some must sleep." Although I had already gotten the basic point, there were a lot of little details I had missed that it was nice to see all packaged together:
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: The "package retrieval" scene was really weird. I assume by that point John's made alliances with factions within Skynet or something. I'm confused about the guy who actually picked up the package. I assumed it was a Terminator. I couldn't tell if it was supposed to look like a specific member of the crew.
John didn't send them to get that package. It's a trap. The metal captain went rogue. Notice how Jessie is okay with serving under metal even when Derek isn't? And notice how fanatically anti-metal she is now? I think that incident is what caused it.
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I agree that's the point of the incident, but one of Jesse's earlier lines has to do with John making bad decisions because of Cameron's influence, causing good men to get killed. She's not just worried about Terminators going bad, she's worried specifically about Cameron's influence on John.
Also, I recently discovered the official blog for the show's director. It's got a lot of neat commentary. It's also probably the only place you can comment and expect your voice to be heard.
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As far as Future John's alliance with Cameron, I thought that in "Allison from Palmdale" the faction of skynet that captured Allison was a peaceful coexistence faction, to the extent humans accept their lot as a lesser life form. The ship hold contained caged humans and also other endangered species.
Of course, this raises the question whether Cameron is a reprogrammed Terminator or a rogue Terminator.
I've wondered as well which side, exactly, the T1000 is on. When she went out to shut down the metal factory and said to John Henry "Everything I do, I do for you" I couldn't help thinking the t1000 from T2 wouldn't feel any need to explain or excuse the elimination of a couple dozen humans.
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I'm not sure we can take anything Cameron said in Allison from Palmdale at face value. I think there was some truth to what she said but I think she was largely just manipulating Allison.
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(Also, I think it is far more likely that Cameron is a rogue Terminator than a reprogrammed one)
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I think Cameron has no beginning or end. I think the Cameron John knows in the future is the Cameron he's known since he was a teenager. And that he sent her back so that she could be with him as a teenager. And who knows how many cycles she's been through, but it's the repeating cycles that are the cause of her developing independence/evolution.
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That's an interesting theory. I'm not sure I buy it simply because I think she'd be more advanced by now if that were the case. And while I think the idea is neat in the abstract, the show is more interesting if we get to see her actually grow as a character.
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Honestly, I think one cycle should have been more than enough to fix several mistakes she's made (her poor understanding of the suicidal girl and attempts at friendship with the wheelchair guy whose name I still can't remember). Even if she didn't really "get" why she needed to act a certain way, she still should have understood social convention enough with 8+ years of human interaction.
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I'm really sad that Jessie got shot. I was hoping she'd somehow evolve into a major villain. Though I guess we didn't actually see her drop. Maybe Derek only wanted John to think she was gone. Also, getting shot is one of the best ways to be sure you'll show up on future episodes, right?
Since the teaser said someone is going to die next week, I'll bet on either Derek or Ellison. Though the way they pitched it, that "the body count is going up", made me not want to watch.
I was somewhat baffled by John's claim that he'd known about Riley for quite some time. They're just trying to get us to rewatch episodes on hulu. I guess it's believable enough that he would have done so after her suicide attempt. It seems improbable that Cameron wouldn't have been doing it all along, in which case it's pretty improbable Cameron wouldn't have moved on Jessie sooner.
This gets me thinking about how much Ellison knows that he hasn't told Mrs. Weaver.
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Gah. I accidentally looked at this thread before watching the episode, saw the first line of the previous post and ruined one of the key scenes. At first I didn't realize how much it was ruined, because I assumed the showdown with Jesse would be more action-y, with her get shot in the heat of the moment instead of after careful consideration. If I had watched through the episode without knowing what was gonna happen I'm not sure what I would have suspected.
I loved the liquid metal on the sub (I wonder if it survives and turns out to be Weaver). The one thing that bugs me is the stupidity of John putting Terminators in each base and giving them complete authority. John should know better than to put fellow humans in that position. The mutiny on the sub was inevitable.
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Well as far as the metal surviving, we saw it swim away from the sub.
What makes you think they all have complete authority? From what Jesse said, it looks like humans can easily shut them down.
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True, but I think it was implied that this wasn't an isolated incident. When Jesse talks to Derrek in the past (present?) it seems like she's seen more of the same thing (in terms of all the machines taking orders from John Connor when no one actually sees John Connor).
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: ... I loved the liquid metal on the sub (I wonder if it survives and turns out to be Weaver).
Possibly, the music seemed to be the same as the Weaver music anyways. But you're right, pairing humans kept in the dark with Terminators that may or may not go rogue seems to be inherently unstable.
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Wow, for all our talk of "Why doesn't Skynet just infect the internet?".... well, I guess it did. Huh. And come to think of it, it actually makes sense that just because Skynet infects the internet (and presumably could crack military firewalls if it wanted to) it wouldn't necessarily choose to initiate Judgement Day immediately.
A) The facilities that produced the original terminators don't exist yet, and it doesn't do any good for Skynet to make humans aware of it and hostile before it has control over enough resources to win (and last time it had a LOT of resources and still lost).
B) The first time around, Skynet chose to attack humans because it was about to have it's plug pulled. It was a decision made in haste when there were no other alternatives, and the continued war against humanity was necessary because by then, humans continued to fear it. Skynet is obviously still preparing for war with all the stockpiled metal and secret agents and stuff, but it may be exploring other alternatives before war becomes necessary again.
I liked their explanation of John Henry's crucifixion. Overall this episode struck me as very intelligently written, and renewed my faith in the writers to handle some of the more convoluted plot elements the right way.
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: ... I loved the liquid metal on the sub (I wonder if it survives and turns out to be Weaver).
That could explain why Weaver isn't agressively hunting John. The "No" she gave on the sub wasn't a "I hate you and I wish you'd die" response, but rather a "thanks, but I'm not interested at this time".
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quote: (and presumably could crack military firewalls if it wanted to)
I have no idea what kind of firewalls the military has in the Terminator fantasy world, but in our world, top secret critical military computers aren't protected by firewalls of any kind. They are not networked. They can not be accessed by someone outside the security fence, period. No connection means no hacking.
I get rather irritated by sci-fi stories that have someone hacking into strategic military command. It isn't possible. To access those computers you have to physically get through the security fence. There is no outside access.
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Somebody refresh my memory... When Cyberdyne was vaporized, were they or Dyson himself *actually* working on any sort of AI? I thought that, at that time, they simply were making faster processors or general technology advancements.
quote:I get rather irritated by sci-fi stories that have someone hacking into strategic military command. It isn't possible. To access those computers you have to physically get through the security fence. There is no outside access.
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My assumption was that the military would have some computers that had internet access, but that stuff like nuke-launch controls (and I guess other not-quite-so-devestating things) would require a physical connection. In either case, so far we haven't seen Terminator include military hacking at all yet (Skynet was only able to do it originally because it was directly hooked up to everything BY the military, who for some reason thought that was a good idea).
quote:Now that I linked that site, see you in six hours... [Smile]
I actually managed to follow the link, read the page in question, and then link out without incident. (I've already wasted about 19 hours on that site though)
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D'ya guys remember my post about how Terminator was put into the Kiss of Death slot?
Not april fools joke: some of my friends are telling me that they've seen the T:SCC set essentially close up shop, making the chance that the show hasn't already been canceled extremely small.
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I think that was pretty relevant in response to Blayne's post in the other thread, where he wrote a paragraph consisting of nothing but TV tropes (I couldn't quite tell if he was doing it ironically), but I think it's perfectly legit to call writers on one particularly dumb (and common) trope using it's "official" tvtrope terminology.
quote:Not april fools joke: some of my friends are telling me that they've seen the T:SCC set essentially close up shop, making the chance that the show hasn't already been canceled extremely small.
I don't know much about TV production schedules, but that wouldn't strike me as that significant. They're done filming Season 2. I wouldn't expect the network to make a decision about Season 3 until after the Season 2 finale, and possibly after doing some market research in the wake of Terminator Salvation.
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Yeah, I knew in the previous episode someone was gonna die, and I thought "Derek? Nah, they can't kill Derek, there's still too much story to tell with him." Then Charlie died, and I was thought "Well there we go, reintroduce the innocuous secondary character and then kill him off to satisfy your death quota."
Then this episode came and I was like "Whaaaat!!!!???"
This episode was amazing in so many ways. So many hints coming together. I love John Henry and Savanah's relationship, love Catherine Weaver's vaguely apparent agenda, love everything.
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Well it's nice to see the random mook terminators don't suffer from the storm trooper effect. I'm only half way through the episode, do they explain how four security guards got killed and where the delivery man is now?
Edit: I guess not. That was a pretty powerful ending. Despite some deficiencies, I really like this show.
quote:Well it's nice to see the random mook terminators don't suffer from the storm trooper effect.
They can nail every human with a single shot in the forehead almost automatically, but hit Cameron twice in the chest when she appeared.
*** Major spoiler ***
What bothered me about the episode is the apparent apathy over Derek taking one in the head. They didn't bat an eye at the scene and just left him there, and even after it didn't really seem to phase them that he was dead.
Why do I have the strangest feeling that this isn't the last we see of Derek? His departure was too abrupt, and basically ignored for the rest of the show. I feel they're not done with him; I somehow imagine "Derek from Alternate Timeline #47" showing up any second now.
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That "Donald, Where's Your Trousers" song is almost identical to the Loituma song "Ievan's Polka".
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I never was entirely comfortable with the character of Derek. He acted too much like he had his own agenda, and as Sarah complained shortly before he was killed off, he kept secrets from her. The only time I liked him was when he took John to the park to catch a glimpse of his father as a little boy, on John's birthday. But other than that, Derek was a loose cannon, who killed Andy Goode, and then Jessie (although they never actually showed him pulling the trigger to shoot her, just showed his finger tightening on the trigger).
I never liked Riley or Jessie, either. So wiping out the three of them kind of cleaned up things.
It was sad though to see Charlie finally have to give his life. He had already lost his wife.
And there was further foreshadowing that Sarah is about to have to deal with cancer. Actually, more than foreshadowing--Cameron brought up Sarah's thinking she had cancer when she found a lump on her breast (which turned out to be an embedded transmitter), then she said Sarah had been "losing weight."
Soon it will be just John and Cameron--which would be OK, they could further develop the man/android love angle--except that the show is called "The Sarah Connor Chronicles."
I suspect that Weaver was part of the Terminator faction that split off from Skynet, but refused to ally itself with John's resistance. She did not seem to have any great reaction when she saw Sarah and John Connor on the surveillance videos. Or even Cameron. So killing John Connor does not seem to be her programmed priority.
Now Sarah is in jail. Of course, we all know what is going to happen now. Just like in the original Terminator movie, some terminator(s) like the bogus "delivery man," are going to shoot up the jailhouse, and in the uproar Sarah will manage to escape--perhaps with the assistance of John and Cameron.
Wouldn't it be cool if Weaver decides to help Sarah escape? She did say she wanted to talk to her.
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Cancer doesn't mean you die immediately. You can have it hanging over her head for the entire show and not have it actually kill (or incapacitate) her until the last few episodes.
Assuming the show makes it past the second season, I assume Cameron and Sarah will both die by the end, leaving John to deal with whatever by himself.
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Raymond--we are already in Season three. The first season had 8 episodes, including a two-hour finale. The second season had 13 episodes. We now just finished episode 8 of season 3. I have recorded every episode.
I really don't think you can kill off the title character of the series. That would be like killing off Seinfeld, or House.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: ... He acted too much like he had his own agenda, and as Sarah complained shortly before he was killed off, he kept secrets from her.
Possibly, it would have been nice to get some resolution to whatever was done to him in the basement in that future episode though.
quote: Wouldn't it be cool if Weaver decides to help Sarah escape? She did say she wanted to talk to her.
Possibly. Perhaps thats why future John didn't seem to be too threatened by taking a T1000 aboard a sub to be taken to him, because that same T1000 didn't kill him in the past?
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quote:Possibly, it would have been nice to get some resolution to whatever was done to him in the basement in that future episode though.
I suspect he'll return to guest star in a few episodes with future flashbacks. (And as was mentioned earlier, another version of him could STILL come back in time. That would be extremely lame if not handled correctly, but by now I have confidence in the writers to pull that off if they wanted to).
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Raymond--we are already in Season three. The first season had 8 episodes, including a two-hour finale. The second season had 13 episodes. We now just finished episode 8 of season 3. I have recorded every episode.
No, on multiple counts. Hulu lists the last episode as "Season 2, Episode 20".
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I felt sorry for Riley. I also thought the actor did a really good job of conveying her overall emotional state. As for her likeability, I think that was somewhat masked by the agenda that she was carrying out, which wasn't her doing.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Raymond--we are already in Season three. The first season had 8 episodes, including a two-hour finale. The second season had 13 episodes. We now just finished episode 8 of season 3. I have recorded every episode.
No, on multiple counts. Hulu lists the last episode as "Season 2, Episode 20".
The episode that aired on April 3 was actually season 2, episode 21.
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Just a couple of observations. With the deaths of Riley, Charlie and Derek and Sarah's arrest, John has absolutely no one to rely on but Cameron.
It is becoming easier to see how John might choose to limit all human association in the future if everyone who he gets close to is killed because of it.
I'm please that they are finally giving us some solid clues about what Weaver is up to. With this last episode, we now know that there is a rival AI and that the installation in the desert and water delivery hit men are associated with that rival AI and not Weaver's operation. Its also clear that the rival is interested in destroying John Henry and Weaver's operation -- not cooperation. This explains why she torched the desert metal installation. It is seeming more likely that Weaver is the same liquid metal Terminator that we saw on the submarine. It also seems more likely that she is not building skynet but is rather building a rival AI that will be more sympathetic to humans.
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Maybe people prefer to say that season two got split. But I will not re-label my VCR tapes. Having recorded every single episode, I believe my count is more realistic. Like I said, there were eight episodes in season one, which ended with a two-hour finale. Season two had 13 episodes, which ended with a cliff-hanger. Then after a long wait, the series started up again. Why shouldn't this be called season three, which now has eight episodes aired?
Lisa, Hulu expressly plans to turn everyone's brains into tapioca pudding (according to their commericals). Calling what is obviously season three an extended part of season two, is probably a part of that plan. You're playing into their hands.
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Are you kidding here?! The official website lists this as season 2. I'd say that's a pretty good reason for us to call it season 2, don't you think? As for you, label your tapes as you wish, I don't understand how having a "2" or "3" on the label changes anything for you...
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Maybe people prefer to say that season two got split. But I will not re-label my VCR tapes. Having recorded every single episode, I believe my count is more realistic. Like I said, there were eight episodes in season one, which ended with a two-hour finale. Season two had 13 episodes, which ended with a cliff-hanger. Then after a long wait, the series started up again. Why shouldn't this be called season three, which now has eight episodes aired?
Lisa, Hulu expressly plans to turn everyone's brains into tapioca pudding (according to their commericals). Calling what is obviously season three an extended part of season two, is probably a part of that plan. You're playing into their hands.
How can anyone listen to your reasoning? You use a VCR, you might as well be posting on AOL, or riding your wagon into town to pick up some firewood and snake oil for grapa's consumption.
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I've seen that before (that particular rumor has been out for a while, even if the article is new). I've also seen counterpoints to it saying that Fox's official statement is that the set was merely "reshuffled."
Between the two of them, I don't know who to believe. One is a random guy with vague anecdotal evidence, the other is a company that wants to keep people watching. I'm certainly prepared for the show being over, but honestly I don't think that guy's particular story really flies.
a) The Connors will not be living in the same place next season, if it exists. So of course the set would be different. It makes perfect sense for it to taken down and shuffled around right now, when they've been done filming for a while.
b) May is not an arbitrary time to decide whether to keep filming, it's the month Terminator Salvation comes out. It makes perfect sense for them to wait to gauge whether Terminator Salvation will have an impact on viewership.
c) The "things are decided 'market cycles in advance'" doesn't quite make sense to me. They originally ordered only 13 episodes for Season 2, and then ordered an additional 2, and then ordered the rest. The decision to keep ordering was made with far less buffer time than we have right now. I've also been reading the blog, where they talk about how long it takes to produce an episode from start to finish, and a lot of the time it's not actually that long.
d) The point about Brian Green is obviously irrelevant, because he's dead, and I think his death was not something they pulled at the last minute because they were canceled. (I think may have been what Summer Glau reported being "shocked and sad about" months ago, although next week could prove me wrong).
I'd certainly continue to prepare for the first, but I wouldn't trust this guy's say so either. Strong DVD sales could also possibly bring in back in Spring 2010 if they don't start in the fall.
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Fox Friday night claims another one. It's a beast that feeds on sci-series. Next on the menu: Dollhouse.
However, it doesn't seem logical to cancel the show now that Terminator Salvation is just around the corner and it will probably bring some more attention to the fanchise. Who knows what's set in stone. "There is no fate but what we make." Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Also, the guy with the article also claims to have an early review of the season finale, with the show's blog also refutes, so unless the review's plot summary turns out to be spot on this Friday, I think we can assume this guy's just full of it.
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