"I went to a place to eat. It said 'breakfast at any time.' So I ordered french toast during the Renaissance". --Steven Wright ... If you are a devotee of time travel, check out this song...

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

The Sarah Connor Chronicles 6

The sixth episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Fox last night was the best yet, after the pilot...

Derrick Reese - Kyle's brother - becomes a central player, more in the apocalyptic future that he and his brother are trying to prevent, than on the table in our present on which Charley is desperately trying to save him. (Last week, Cameron pronounced Derrick's injuries incapable of repair.)

To the extent that Derrick is conscious on that table, he wants Cameron nowhere near him. They clearly have had some interaction in the future, and near the end of the episode we find what Derrick fears in Cameron: good Terminators sometimes go bad. Cameron says this to Derrick in the future ...

This may be one of the most important revelations in the series so far: is it true that Cameron is not 100% trustworthy? At very least, she seems to be lying at the end of this episode about a little something she is holding in her hand.

We also find out more about what Derrick's mission was: Killing Andy Good. At least, in part. Good tells Derrick in the future that he, Good, was responsible for Skynet. And in the last scenes of Episode 6, we see that it was indeed Derrick who killed poor Andy, after all. Apparently there's not that much difference between Derrick and Cameron - who wanted to kill Andy, too - after all. (And we also know that killing Andy Good doesn't do much good, does it?)

Derrick is part of a team of humans that John Connor has sent back to our present. I was delighted to see Andre Royo - Bubbles on The Wire - as one of the team. Way to go, Bubs! (Hey, The Wire crew is doing pretty well in the new golden age of science fiction in television - Lance Reddick has a role in Lost.)

Future John Connor sends back the team of four to our present - to "correct" everything, Derrick says. The four stand naked, shivering, in our Los Angeles, in awe of the skyscrapers that still stand proud...

Little do they know ... that, when it comes to time travel, errors are never easily corrected...


See also: The Sarah Connor Chronicles 1 and 2 ... 3 ... 4. A Robot Primer ... 5 ... 7 ... 8-9: Terminate with Puzzles, Surprises, and Soul







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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Considering the fact that Cameron is collecting various components that Skynet will use in the manufacture of Terminators in the future it is OBVIOUS that she may turn on John, Sarah and Derrick.

She has already kept a piece of Coltan alloy and a T-888 CPU. There has to be more to what she is doing however, as if she wanted to turn on the Connors she could have killed them a million times over by this point.

We'll have to wait and see next week to see if they heed Derrick's warnings. I doubt they will. The most shocking thing about this episode is that even after being memory wiped and reprogrammed, a Terminator can turn on its programming and start killing humans.

Even though T3 is not canon in this timestream,it is important to look back at the fact that even after the T-850 had its system corrupted by the T-X it made a moral decision to save John Connor and destroy the T-X.

Cameron may be coming into her own, but she may save the day in the end if she advances to a higher moral understanding.

And you are still a very poor reviewer......

Paul Levinson said...

:) aw, well, I'll try to better live up to your superb standards from now on...

Meanwhile, your "OBVIOUS" point misses my point, I'm afraid. Of course Cameron is up to more than we might think. What's at issue is whether she'll turn bad - whether she can be trusted to ultimately be on the side Sarah and John.

Anonymous said...

I think Cameron is on a mission from future John and the idea that she is a traitor is a red herring. I don't think Derek really knows what future Johns plan is, I also think future John is just being kind or an ass. He knows that judgement day cannot be prevented, but every time Skynet sends a Terminator back in time they help him. The first time led to his birth and his mother's awaking to the threat, the second let him know the threat was real. And know every time he fights one of them he learns more and more preparing him to one day defeat them. The idea of 'stop skynet before it is born' is just a fool's errand that will result in nothing at all.

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