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shadowkatWell, I got curious and watched the season, and I'm thinking series finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
It feels like a series finale to me, and I'm not really sure how they can continue, without changing their entire cast and adding quite a few people to it, not to mention loads of special effects, making the series that much more expensive.
From a critical perspective, this felt a bit rushed to me. We went from the slow contemplative Sarah episodes, to a sudden rush of plot heavy ones. That said, I think Riley's arc worked with us almost entirely in Riley and Cameron's points of view and not knowing what John or Derek thought or knew about it. The interesting thing about this series and one of the reasons I loved it - is the point of view, unlike most science fiction action stories, was almost entirely from the female characters. We seldom saw things from Derek or John or Allison's perspective. Most of the plot and storyline was from Sarah, Cameron, Riley, Jesse, and Catherine Weaver's pov. That is rare and it is to a degree in keeping with the first film of the series, Terminator, where we are in Linda Hamilton's pov throughout.
The finale was not what I expected. I don 't know what I expected, but that was not it.
Nor am I certain it works - from a time travel point of view. Does taking John Connor, future leader to the future, disintegrate that future? Or does taking John Connor to the future, at the age of 16, create that future?
I'm guessing, Connor was meant to travel to the future and in this retelling of the Terminator story, by taking Connor to the future, Catherine Weaver creates future John - the leader who sends Kyle, Derek, and Cameron back in time to aid his younger self and ensure his eventual trip to the time period in which they all reside. In other words - John and Catherine create themselves.
That's one interpretation.
The other, is that by taking John to the future, Catherine invariably changes what is to occur.
I'd more or less guessed a while back that Catherine Weaver was not part of skynet. And that she was part of another group, which I guessed may or may not be against skynet. (We now know for certain that she is an enemy of SKYNET and SKYNET wants her destruction as badly as it wants John Connor's and her raid on the warehouse was a direct raid on SKYNET and SKYNET's people.) Skynet is clearly the governmental weapons operation that became aware and took over. (Reminds me a lot of the rogue computer that Mathew Broderick sets amoke in War Games or Hal in 2001.) Weaver is not part of that. Any more than John Henry appears to be. They appear to be developed separately and Weaver may or may not be the creation of John Henry. They've created each other.
Again it's not clear.
Cameron is clearly a creation of SKYNET, changed and reprogrammed by future John Connor, then again by his younger version. Throughout the series we see how adept John is with machines and computer technology. Yet, no matter how well he reprograms Cameron, she informs him that she was created to terminate him. That was her essential purpose. We know, from our own journey into her past and John's future, that she was also created with the purpose of infilterating his unit and obtaining his trust - based on a human woman that he trusted. A human he trusted because she resembled or was Cameron - the cyborg that killed her and John reprogrammed and sent back in time. So does John Connor create Cameron? Did he kill the girl Cameron copied? Is he responsible ultimately for both Derek and Kyle, not to mention Jesse's demise? Has John created himself? Is he, however unintentionally, the writer of this story?
Or in attempting to change the story is he merely ensuring it's progression?
Hmm, I may be over-thinking it. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, after all.
The ending was both bleak and oddly, positive. John survives Skynet's attempts to kill him, by escaping to the very future that he has heard so much about but has yet to see. He loses his mother, who may well be lost to him anyway, her body in the beginning stages of cancer.
But he regains all those who died before her, trying to keep him alive, amongst them his father, Kyle, his uncle, Derek, and his friend, Cameron. Catherine Weaver saves Sarah Connor's son and goes after her own, leaving Allison and Sarah to look after her human daughter.
That's one reading. The positive one.
The bleak, negative reading...is that John has come to the future too early, negating his arrival. So as a result, those in it do not know him, have not heard of him, and follow someone or something else. This could inadvertently negate John's own existence and change the flow of future events as well as past ones.
I doubt this is true. It's more likely that we are seeing the beginning of John's leadership.
Before he became the leader he is. Before he earned their trust. But in the episodes preceeding, specifically the Riley arc - we see why they trust him, why he is considered their leader and how he will eventually gain that trust. His conversation with both Jesse and Derek demonstrates that, as well as his conversations with Cameron and Catherine.
What's interesting about Sarah Connor - is it is a tale about how a group of women gave birth to a hero and ensured that hero's survival, at great cost to themselves. John's survival is based on the deaths of those he loves. It is his gift and his curse. As the woman who hands him his passport states, we all lose those we love. It's true, we do. Repeatedly. Everything in this world is temporary. Including us.
And we are not perfect. Cameron isn't. John tells her. You are not infallible. You are not perfect. You are just a machine. Feels like a metaphor for the rest of us. We are not perfect. We are not infallible. We are the body electric, machines, with minds and we hope souls that live on, but cannot be certain.
Has John come home at the end, arrived finally to the future he was destined for? With the family he yearns for? So the world is burned around him. And the family he sees battered. He has come to their time, because in order for them to return to his and for him to exist, he must reside with them in this time...or none of the rest will occur.
Then finally, we have two Johns. John Connor and John Henry. Both necessary to destroy Skynet.
John Connor sent people in the past to create himself. And John Henry sent people into the past to create himself. And then there's skynet, that has by its very determination to end all that is, created them both. Death and Life, the snake perpetually eating its own tail.
I'm going to miss Sarah Connor Chronicles - it was great sci-fi, albeit short-lived. I don't think it will be renewed next year, could be wrong of course - but somehow I doubt it. It's a bit too good for tv.
It feels like a series finale to me, and I'm not really sure how they can continue, without changing their entire cast and adding quite a few people to it, not to mention loads of special effects, making the series that much more expensive.
From a critical perspective, this felt a bit rushed to me. We went from the slow contemplative Sarah episodes, to a sudden rush of plot heavy ones. That said, I think Riley's arc worked with us almost entirely in Riley and Cameron's points of view and not knowing what John or Derek thought or knew about it. The interesting thing about this series and one of the reasons I loved it - is the point of view, unlike most science fiction action stories, was almost entirely from the female characters. We seldom saw things from Derek or John or Allison's perspective. Most of the plot and storyline was from Sarah, Cameron, Riley, Jesse, and Catherine Weaver's pov. That is rare and it is to a degree in keeping with the first film of the series, Terminator, where we are in Linda Hamilton's pov throughout.
The finale was not what I expected. I don 't know what I expected, but that was not it.
Nor am I certain it works - from a time travel point of view. Does taking John Connor, future leader to the future, disintegrate that future? Or does taking John Connor to the future, at the age of 16, create that future?
I'm guessing, Connor was meant to travel to the future and in this retelling of the Terminator story, by taking Connor to the future, Catherine Weaver creates future John - the leader who sends Kyle, Derek, and Cameron back in time to aid his younger self and ensure his eventual trip to the time period in which they all reside. In other words - John and Catherine create themselves.
That's one interpretation.
The other, is that by taking John to the future, Catherine invariably changes what is to occur.
I'd more or less guessed a while back that Catherine Weaver was not part of skynet. And that she was part of another group, which I guessed may or may not be against skynet. (We now know for certain that she is an enemy of SKYNET and SKYNET wants her destruction as badly as it wants John Connor's and her raid on the warehouse was a direct raid on SKYNET and SKYNET's people.) Skynet is clearly the governmental weapons operation that became aware and took over. (Reminds me a lot of the rogue computer that Mathew Broderick sets amoke in War Games or Hal in 2001.) Weaver is not part of that. Any more than John Henry appears to be. They appear to be developed separately and Weaver may or may not be the creation of John Henry. They've created each other.
Again it's not clear.
Cameron is clearly a creation of SKYNET, changed and reprogrammed by future John Connor, then again by his younger version. Throughout the series we see how adept John is with machines and computer technology. Yet, no matter how well he reprograms Cameron, she informs him that she was created to terminate him. That was her essential purpose. We know, from our own journey into her past and John's future, that she was also created with the purpose of infilterating his unit and obtaining his trust - based on a human woman that he trusted. A human he trusted because she resembled or was Cameron - the cyborg that killed her and John reprogrammed and sent back in time. So does John Connor create Cameron? Did he kill the girl Cameron copied? Is he responsible ultimately for both Derek and Kyle, not to mention Jesse's demise? Has John created himself? Is he, however unintentionally, the writer of this story?
Or in attempting to change the story is he merely ensuring it's progression?
Hmm, I may be over-thinking it. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, after all.
The ending was both bleak and oddly, positive. John survives Skynet's attempts to kill him, by escaping to the very future that he has heard so much about but has yet to see. He loses his mother, who may well be lost to him anyway, her body in the beginning stages of cancer.
But he regains all those who died before her, trying to keep him alive, amongst them his father, Kyle, his uncle, Derek, and his friend, Cameron. Catherine Weaver saves Sarah Connor's son and goes after her own, leaving Allison and Sarah to look after her human daughter.
That's one reading. The positive one.
The bleak, negative reading...is that John has come to the future too early, negating his arrival. So as a result, those in it do not know him, have not heard of him, and follow someone or something else. This could inadvertently negate John's own existence and change the flow of future events as well as past ones.
I doubt this is true. It's more likely that we are seeing the beginning of John's leadership.
Before he became the leader he is. Before he earned their trust. But in the episodes preceeding, specifically the Riley arc - we see why they trust him, why he is considered their leader and how he will eventually gain that trust. His conversation with both Jesse and Derek demonstrates that, as well as his conversations with Cameron and Catherine.
What's interesting about Sarah Connor - is it is a tale about how a group of women gave birth to a hero and ensured that hero's survival, at great cost to themselves. John's survival is based on the deaths of those he loves. It is his gift and his curse. As the woman who hands him his passport states, we all lose those we love. It's true, we do. Repeatedly. Everything in this world is temporary. Including us.
And we are not perfect. Cameron isn't. John tells her. You are not infallible. You are not perfect. You are just a machine. Feels like a metaphor for the rest of us. We are not perfect. We are not infallible. We are the body electric, machines, with minds and we hope souls that live on, but cannot be certain.
Has John come home at the end, arrived finally to the future he was destined for? With the family he yearns for? So the world is burned around him. And the family he sees battered. He has come to their time, because in order for them to return to his and for him to exist, he must reside with them in this time...or none of the rest will occur.
Then finally, we have two Johns. John Connor and John Henry. Both necessary to destroy Skynet.
John Connor sent people in the past to create himself. And John Henry sent people into the past to create himself. And then there's skynet, that has by its very determination to end all that is, created them both. Death and Life, the snake perpetually eating its own tail.
I'm going to miss Sarah Connor Chronicles - it was great sci-fi, albeit short-lived. I don't think it will be renewed next year, could be wrong of course - but somehow I doubt it. It's a bit too good for tv.
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no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 09:58 pm (UTC)At the T:SCC panel last month at the San Francisco WonderCon they said that they have a story arc for the third season, so there are definite plans of where this would be heading...
but I got the vibe that they weren't really expecting it to be renewed, and the dropping ratings make it unlikely that it will be.
Some people said it would have been cancelled already but for the Terminator movie coming out (the studio making the movie wouldn't like for the TV show to be cancelled before the movie has a chance....). And who knows? If the movie becomes a block buster then maybe the TV show might be given another chance? (unlikely I'm guessing)
I had thought for sure it was cancelled because I'd heard that the sets had all been destroyed, but after seeing the finale I know that that isn't any real evidence: none of this seasons sets would be used in a season three if they have one! lol
They really pretty thoroughly destroyed everything last night!
no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 03:34 am (UTC)1. Broadcast TV viewership is extremely poor all around, except for a tiny number of well established franchises, and now many of them are gone or winding up. Some money is way better than no money, and TSCC has a very devoted group of followers that could grow, and grow quickly, even over the summer. That stunning finale can't help but get a viral resurrection effect going, sez moi.
2. Said devotion leads to brisk DVD sales, which helps the balance sheet significantly.
3. The slow, contemplative, character-driven arcs during much of the latter part of the season bothered fans who like all action all the time, but drew in people like myself who tire of that style quickly. It also drew in more critical praise from professional reviewers. Critial cred means potential yet more income on reruns and DVD sales.
4. Don't underestimate the power of the Terminator film to draw in a greater potential audience. If the network drops the show, and the film is a huge hit, they'll just look like idiots for dropping a potential cash cow too soon.
5. The first season was a short one, due to the writer's strike. In reality , the show is only 1 1/2 years old.
6. Why haven't they canceled it already? The ratings were lousy ever since it moved to Friday night, and even before that it was up against serious competition form other networks when it was on Monday. Ask yourself this again-- why isn't it gone right now?
7. Why didn't they wait until May sweeps to play out the last 3 or 4 epsiodes? Do they know something already? And is it not what we think it is?
8. One last word-- Firefly. You can't tell me that doesn't still sting them. This time around the memory might just save some other deserving show-- or shows.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 03:50 pm (UTC)Have burned too many times.
I think it's not gone yet - for a couple of reasons:
1) The writer's strike - it delayed pilot season and didn't give the networks much to choose from to put in certain time slots. (I think we can thank the writer's strike for giving us Dollhouse, more episodes of Pushing Daisies, etc.)
2. They are busy figuring out their schedule and budget. There's quite a few shows up for grabs. Also the survival of shows on the edge of the cliff - is partly based on potential syndication, DVD, and dual cable deals. Friday Night Lights was just saved by a deal with Direct TV - which is picking up a lot of critically acclaimed shows with lots of fans - in order to steal subscribers from Cable. So, it is possible Sarah Connor could jump to satellite, which means if you don't have satellite - you may just have to wait for the DVD releases.
3.) They are probably waiting to see how Prison Break and a few other shows fare in the same slot - Prison Break has been cancelled. (sigh, about time, that show is just ridiculous now). But, they may be testing the slot. They want a sci-fi presence, because they want that demographic which the other networks don't have.
It gives them a nitch. But, sci-fi shows are expensive to make and they may ditch Sarah Connor and Dollhouse for Fringe and a show similar to Fringe. Horror with gory monsters and lots of violence (more than Sarah Connor) seems to do very well for some reason. I don't understand it, personally. But to each their own.
(They did the same thing with 24 and Prison Break.) They like shows that are easy to market, easy to syndicate (syndication is still far more lucrative than DVD sales believe it or not), and cheap to make, which give them critical acclaim and a media presence.
House is golden. Bones is also great although it doesn't garner the critical acclaim House does - let's face it David Boreanze is no Hugh Laurie. But it does do great in syndication. As does Fringe. 24 got critical accliam and media attention. Sarah Connor has gotten media attention here and there, and has a good fan base - which has kept it afloat, but it is wickedly expensive to make. We'll see...
I hope I'm wrong. But I've seen this before.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 04:45 pm (UTC)LOL
which is probably why the makers of Bones tried so hard to hire Stephen Fry as a regular! He didn't want to commit, but he will be returning for a new episode, I think it is next week...
no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 04:59 pm (UTC)To be fair, Emily Deschanel is no Kyra Sedwick either.
She's not even a Sarah Michelle Gellar, and that's saying something.
Hugh Laurie is one of those rare actors who can make reading the phone book seem interesting. I used to think James Marsters fit in that category, but have since changed my mind. Same deal with ASH.
Let's face it, acting is not as easy as it looks.
Hugh Laurie was part of that team of Brit actors that came right after Monty Python - and did Black Adder, Jeeves and Wooster and lots of other stuff. Included Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Miranda Richardson, Alan Rickman, Kenneth Branagh, and a few others. And almost all of them have popped up on Harry Potter.
I think, Christopher Plummer is correct - if you haven't had theater training, and some British Theater training, you can't quite handle the complexity of certain roles. The really talented A-list actors have all, without fail, had extensive theater training - they all have accents they can pull out of their back pocket.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 05:03 pm (UTC)of course I start wondering why Alex Denisoff (who had that training in the UK) doesn't get more roles!