The Time Tourists

[Review] - “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” Episode 3

It’s a sign of the times that I continue watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles despite my numerous complaints about the first two episodes. It’s not that the show is what I’d call compelling, especially compared to other Fox dramas like 24, Prison Break and House. It’s definitely not as good as cable shows like Rescue Me, The Shield or The Wire. As sci-fi, it’s nowhere near the level of a show like Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Stargate: SG-1 or Farscape. And it dreams of being as good as Lost or Jericho.

But Terminator: TSCC has something going for it that none of those other shows do, and that’s that it’s a big budget show based off two of the biggest action films of the 20th century, with lots of stuff getting blown up and killer robots on the rampage. And where Battlestar Galactica has traded in its awesome Cylon Centurions for pouty human clones, Terminator: TSCC has made sure to feature at least one good killer robot scene per episode thus far. And the third episode has an interesting twist, despite once again having some unbelievably lazy writing.

I hate it when television shows get self-important, especially when they don’t need to be. The third episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles had some very interesting science fiction, but in order to get to it, I was forced to listen to Sarah Connor prattle on about the horror of creating atomic weapons. I understand that nuclear weapons suck, and that even the people who invented them were horrified by them. Fine. I don’t need a show about killer robots from the future to preach about it to me.

But that’s just yet another example of how the writers for this show want viewers to think they’re edgy, but are in reality just recycling old ideas. And the sad thing is that this episode had the potential to really be edgy, but it missed the boat by putting John Connor in a position where he could moralize.

Here’s the setup: John Connor is attending his new school with his “sister,” Cameron, the cute terminator girl who lacks all of the charm and humanity she had in the first episode, but who still manages to dress like someone who does nothing but hang out at the mall and buy the latest clothes the moment they’re put out on the racks. For some reason, which is not really explained, someone is spray painting the windows of classroom doors black in the school, and this really seems to upset one of the cheerleaders. Cameron talks to her briefly in the bathroom, and it’s implied that the girl is sleeping with one of her teachers. A few minutes later, the cheerleader decides to commit suicide by jumping off the roof of the gym, and Cameron prevents John from stopping her. Once again, the show doesn’t really explain why, and it has Sarah preaching later about how you can’t save people and John preaching about how he’s supposed to be a hero and needs to act like one.

Here’s my problem with the scene. The characters are viewing the events, but they’re not participating in them. As a result, things aren’t explained coherently, and there are no emotional connections. A girl is upset, she kills herself, and no one tries to save her. In fact, one boy in the crowd is urging her to jump, and no one seems horrified. It’s so surreal it’s hard to connect.

So, here’s a rewrite. The cheerleader is crying in the restroom and confides in Cameron that she’s got a secret relationship with her chemistry teacher. Cameron, being a robot with no sense of the problem, talks about the situation candidly with other girls she meets, not realizing that she’s outed this cheerleader and her teacher. The girl goes to jump, and John rushes to save her. He nearly talks her down before Cameron appears, and the girl angrily shouts at Cameron for ruining her life. And, to John’s horror, Cameron talks the girl into jumping. They flee the scene as a crowd gathers around the girl, afraid this will get pinned on them. John realizes that he can never be a hero as long as he’s allied with a killer machine that has no sense of compassion or mercy.

There are three other subplots in this episode. The procedural subplot, where the FBI guy is investigating his murders, is pretty dull. Really, the writers should phase out this part of the story, since it’s poorly written (filled with hard-boiled detectives on crime scenes pointing out the obvious) and lacks much drama. The FBI agent is a two-dimensional character, and I can’t even remember his name from episode to episode because he’s so unimportant.

Sarah’s subplot, where she goes out on a date with a cell phone salesman who is programming an AI system in his spare time, is pretty goofy too. Sarah acts like she’s never seen a cell phone before (they did exist in 1999!), and then buys three of the most advanced phones in the store. It never occurs to anyone that the phones are complex computers that communicate with other even more complicated networks, or that they have GPS built in, or that the terminators can probably access them through the cellular towers and get exact information about the Connors. She doesn’t even ask how to turn the phone on. Cameron tells Sarah to kill the guy, but Sarah just burns down his house and destroys his project instead, which I suppose is a moral compromise or something. Again, though, it’s lazy; the writers hint at the ambiguity of the situation and how Sarah has to basically do exactly what the terminator did to her in 1984 (when it killed every Sarah Connor it could find) and take out any possible suspect who might create Skynet. But the show never really delves into this interesting idea, content instead to waste a lot of time with her dating the guy and avoiding his advances. Oh, and she’s being followed by the survivor from the future, but it’s never explained why.

The final subplot, though the most interesting from a sci-fi perspective, is actually the part of the episode that bugs me the most because it’s not nearly as awesome as it could have been. Basically, Cromarte decides he needs new human skin, so he breaks into a hospital and steals a bunch of blood. Next, he tracks down some scientist whom he forces to help him create artificial blood with the help of a complex equation and a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about synthetic hemoglobin. The scientist complies, and Cromarte submerges himself in the stuff and emerges with a brand new skin suit that lacks eyes. So, he kills the scientist, takes his eyes, and leaves.

Now, again… here’s a rewrite. Cromarte is actually quite terrifying without the skin suit, since he’s wearing a gas mask and a hood and speaks in a low, robotic tone. Because of his appearance, he’s easy for our future survivor to pick out, and the two have a battle that nearly ends in Cromarte’s destruction (since the guy knows how to destroy terminators). Cromarte breaks into a blood bank, where he uses the equipment to make his own skin (since, being a machine programmed with the knowledge of how the skin can be made, there’s no reason he can’t do it himself). His lack of eyes are a temporary setback, but he can disguise his glowing red orbs with sunglasses, for now… and pluck the eyes from the first person who gives him trouble, leaving the victim alive, blind and terrified of their last sight.

I always say if you’re going to create a villain, create someone whom you love to hate. Any killer robot who would callously remove the eyes of a human being and leave them alive to relive the tale over and over in their mind definitely fulfills that condition.

Once again, there was no time travel this week, or even a mention of it. I wish the show was a little better realized and that it didn’t have the procedural element; there are enough detective shows on TV as it is, and most of them are awful. And while no one got pushed through a window or hit by a car in this episode, it’s only a matter of time before it happens again…