The Time Tourists

[Review] - “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” Episode 2

The second episode of the new Terminator television series shows that the writers do have some original ideas… sort of.  It’s hard to believe that such a high profile show can have such lazy writing. But I did enjoy the moral ambiguity of this episode… while it lasted, anyhow!

Episode 2 of The Sarah Connor Chronicles doesn’t feature anyone getting run over a truck, or getting thrown through walls — both of which seem to be Terminator staples. It also doesn’t feature much of a cohesive plot. Instead, it offers several vignettes about each character, which I’m going to refer to as subplots in these reviews since they are a) not really that crucial to the story and b) below par for a Terminator story. Well, they’re above what the third movie has to offer, but as I said before… let’s just pretend Terminator: Rise of the Machines never happened.

The main story in this episode could have been a webisode if all the nonsense had been cut out. Sarah Connor needs fake IDs, so she contacts an underworld contact from her Mexico days. He says he’s retired, and sends her to his nephew. His nephew tips Sarah off that the old man’s a police informant, so she confronts him and asks if he’s going to turn her in. He denies it, saying that he only turned in someone who really deserved it to get himself out of jail. But the cute girl Terminator Cameron shoots him coldly anyway, not trusting a word he says.

Now, I love the moral ambiguity here. Was this guy an informant, or not? Was he really a threat? Unanswered, the question is intriguing, and it sets the stage for the type of war these people are going to have to fight if they want to destroy Skynet. It also suits Sarah Connor’s character well, since she is very conflicted about the choices she has to make. Best of all, it makes Sarah realize that her ally is a remorseless killing machine. But unfortunately, the writers have to spoil the puzzle later by revealing, in a very cliched fashion, that yes, the guy is an informant who was about to sell them out. Sure, Sarah doesn’t know that, but the viewer does, and the mystery is spoiled.

The rest of the episode is just subplot, and most of it predictable and dull. The Connors need money, so they visit a safehouse where  they find a bunch of dead guys with barcodes tattooed on their arms, which means they must be from the future. A terminator attacks them, and Cameron throws him through a window (instead of a wall) and then gets run over by a car (instead of a truck). I’m glad to see the writers are thinking outside the box.

Later, they try to locate the safe, which is “hidden” in the room. But the walls are bare, save a conspicuous looking kitten poster that says something like “hang in there.” Surprising absolutely no one but the Connors, the safe is located behind the poser, and the combination to it is the date of judgment day. (It would have made more sense for it to have been John Connor’s birthday, since the date of Judgment Day seems to be moving around constantly, but I digress.) Cameron gets knocked out by a booby trap, and the Connors throw her out a window and she lands on a car. Sound familiar? Sadly, someone got paid a lot of money to come up with that.

Another subplot that’s marginally interesting is the fate of the Terminator Cromarte, the guy who shot up the classroom in the first episode. His head and his body got separated by time travel, and his body’s apparently been hiding in a scrap pile for eight years while it waits for the head to reappear. The body comes to life, locates the head, and Cromarte dons a costume complete with a hood and a gas mask to cover up the fact that he’s, y’know, metal. He ends the episode among some drifters, leaving you to wonder how long it’ll be before you see him again.

Aside from the lack of originality, I do have one major complaint, and that’s about the character of Cameron. In the first episode, she starts off seeming like a normal girl. She laughs, she smiles, she dresses like an Abercrombie & Fitch employee, and she fits in a little too easily in a rural New Mexico high school for someone who looks like she’s lived in LA all her life. Fine. But now, she’s cold, emotionless, and puzzled by everything.  Why the change? Wasn’t part of the premise behind her that she’s a different kind of Terminator? Wouldn’t it be more interesting if she was excellent at being a phony, but also happened to be a cold-blooded killer?

But again… the writers are being lazy. It’s much easier to have a “robot girl bewildered by the world” than it is to have a three dimensional character.

Also, speaking of two-dimensional characters, why does the FBI guy get so much screen time? It would be more interesting if he was stuck on this case because he fears technology, or because he secretly believes Sarah Connor, or something like that. Instead, his seems are just cribbed from one of the 26 procedural shows currently on television.

There’s not much to say about time travel in this episode, aside from the fact that I don’t buy that John Connor, from 1999, could so easily get on a demo computer at a store and quickly find a bunch of relevant information about his mom’s old boyfriend. In fact, I’m surprised the demo store machine is even able to access the internet since the output shows up on a big screen and teenagers are likely to load up vile porn anytime an adult’s not looking. I know I would have.

Since it’s clear that there’s at least one more guy from the future still alive, let’s hope he shows up and makes the show a little more interesting in the next episode.