But there was a great Sarah Connor Chronicles - Episode 2.9 - tonight, which had one of the best time travel dances of the series, and, for that matter, of time travel on television.
Jesse captures a Charles Fischer, back in 2008, from the future. He's a "gray" - a human who cooperated with Skynet in the future - and Jesse wants Derek to get Fischer (good to see Richard Schiff of The West Wing in this role) to tell them what he's doing in 2008. Fischer denies that he's Fischer. Jesse expects Derek to know exactly who Fischer is; Derek does not. Jesse captures then the young Fischer in 2008, and brings him into the room with the older Fischer. She tells Derek that Fischer in the future tortured Derek ... he has no recollection of this. Derek does eventually break the older Fischer in 2008, who admits that he's Fischer. Jesse kills him. She wonders how Derek could have had no recollection of what Fischer did to him in the future. Maybe it never happened, Derek realizes, and maybe we come from two different futures....
But how could that be? Why would Jesse remember Derek telling her that Fischer tortured him, if it never happened to Derek, because the younger 2008 Fischer was traumatized by what happened in that room?
Here's my explanation:
a. Derek1 is tortured by Fischer in the future. Derek1 tells Jesse1 about this.
b. Jesse1 travels back to 2008. She soon runs into the older Fischer in 2008 ... and all the events described in the paragraph above happen. The younger Fischer, because of what he saw in the room, does not go on to torture Derek1.
c. Therefore, in the future, at the instant the younger Fischer goes on that better path, Derek1 flips into Derek2. The two are identical in all ways, except that Derek2 has never been tortured. In this future2, Derek still loves Jesse.
d. Derek2 at some point after that travels back to late 2007 - before Jesse1 arrived. Jesse1 contacts Derek2 a few weeks ago, and what happened in the first paragraph - the action tonight - happened.
The key to this is that since Jesse1 traveled to the past, she retains memories of future1, and does not change when future1 becomes future2. But because Derek is still in the future at this point, he changes from Derek1 to Derek2 when the future changes from future1 to future2.
Ain't time travel grand? I think so, and I think The Sarah Connor Chronicles is doing a fine job of it.
See also 2.1 Cameron's Back ... 2.2 Firing on All Cylinders ... 2.3 Who, Truly, Is Agent Ellison? ... 2.4: Meet Allison ... 2.5: Unpacking the Future ... 2.6: Terminator Mom, Human Daughter ... 2.7: The Saving Robbery and Cromartie ... 2.8 Perspectives and Death
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14 comments:
I don't think your explanation works.
The episode ends with Young Fischer being locked up in a cell. So he winds up in prison on a DHS rap, and therefore likely to survive judgment day (as Old Fischer said), rather than on the righteous path as you suggested.
This could be a predestination paradox -- he ends up in prison because of his antics in the future which only happened because he was in prison which only happened because of his antics in the future.
(This would work but for the fact that Old Fischer seems to suggest another reason he originally went to prison involving a couple of women and his grandfather's funeral).
Regardless, in the timeline of the show as of the end of this episode, it's clear that Old Fischer is directly responsible for putting Young Fischer in prison.
I came also out of the episode assuming that Our Derek came back to 2008 before Jesse, and his actions in the present somehow caused the future in which Her Derek is tortured before she herself time-travels.
Just as Fischer puts himself in prison, Derek puts himself in the torture chamber through his actions in the past.
What I was curious about is whether the writers want us to think that it was as a DIRECT CONSEQUENCE of Derek’s torturing of the two Fischers in cargo container that Young Fischer turns out to be the evil bastard we see in the flashforwards.
That would be interesting.
I see both points here. I just wanted to clarify a few things. Derek was first seen in Season 1 - Episode 3, on Andy Goode's porch. He reemerges in Season 1 - Episode 5, where he KILLS Andy Goode. This murder takes place in October 2007, the date of death given on Andy Goode's mausoleum grave at the beginning of Season 1 - Episode 7. So, Derek has been in the past at least since October 2007. The only real thing he changed was killing Andy Goode, since, as reveled in Season 1 - Episode 6, in the future, Andy tells Derek that he helped build Skynet. Apparently, Goode built Skynet in such as way that it sought only to imprison and kill humans. with Goode dead, the Catherine Weaver terminator builds Skynet instead, and programs it not only to capture and kill humans, but to torture them as well. Because of this, Derek's killing of Andy, meant to prevent the birth of Skynet, actually leads to the creation of a more vicious Skynet, one that torutures Derek, perhaps for no other reason than because Derek killed Skhynet's would-be father.
Jessie comes back in time after Derek, without John Connor's permission. The early epsiodes of Season 2 set the date as November 2007, as mentioned in phone conversations between John and Sarah and John and Riley. Assuming that Jessie arrives in November 2007, Derek has already been there for at least a month, so Jessie's future is one where Derke was tortured when he was captured by Skynet in Season 1 - Episode 6. In Derek's future, he was simply captured, held prisoner, and let go.
As for Charles Fischer, the future version of him is a "gray", a human traitor who works for Skynet, teaching terminators how to act human so that they can infiltrate the resistance. Skynet sends Fischer to the past to install Skynet code on the computers of his former workplace. Since past Fischer works there, future Fischer is able to use his fingerprints to get in and install Skynet code, so advanced that past computer technicians cannot dismantle it. Jesse captures future Fischer and proves who he is by kidnapping past Fischer and showing that they both have the same neck scar. When past Fischer sees how Derek and Jesse brutalize and kill his future self, it makes him want revenge against them. The actions of future Fischer earn past Fischer a life sentence in prison, where he gets his "Till the end of time" handless clock tatoo. Future Fischer wanted his past self safe in prison, so that he could survive Judgment Day. Now, past Fischer blames Derek and Jesse for everything that has happened to him and wants revenge. Twenty years later, he would get his revenge by torturing Derek. The actions of Derek and Jesse make past Fischer an evil man, and he becomes future Fischer, who takes revenge on them by torturing Derek.
Kevin & Aaron, yes, young Fischer is locked into the cell, and therefore survives Judgment Day, but why assume he becomes the bad Fischer? It's more plausible that what happened in that room in 2008 showed young Fischer what would happen to him if he tortured Derek - he's be in line for a bullet in his head from Jesse.
Aaron - thanks for the 2007 correction, which I've put into my blog. I knew when I was writing this that we had seen Derek in 2007.
It looks like you and I are on the same page Aaron, although you clearly have a better memory of previous episodes than I do.
One thing I would call you on though:
Does it matter whether it was Jesse or Derek who arrived in the show's present first?
Surely It only matters who *left* the future first.
Jesse could have arrived in November 2007, or September 2007, or 2003, or 1999. As long as Our Derek time-travelled from the future to the present before she did, thus creating a time-line in which he was tortured, it's possible that Her Derek would be the divergent torture victim while Our Derek has no memory of such events.
(I'm using Back to the Future logic here, btw. I'm not sure if that holds up in the Terminator universe)
I still disagree with you, Kevin:
I'm thinking Derek left the future not before but after Jesse - that's why Jesse has the memory of Derek being tortured but Derek does not.
Now, this could also work with our Derek, with no memory of being tortured, leaving first, as you say... (and as a result of what we saw last night, young Fischer turns into the torturer, etc)
But that would not address what I pointed out in my earlier comment: young Fischer would not want his older self to be shot, which would explain why he went on the better path after what we and he saw last night.
Your analysis has not addressed that point.
PL said: “I'm thinking Derek left the future not before but after Jesse - that's why Jesse has the memory of Derek being tortured but Derek does not.”
But Derek seemed awfully surprised to see Jesse in 2007 when he first met her and found out she was AWOL from the future war. He almost shot her, if I recall.
If she’d disappeared from his present in the future (because she had time-travelled to our present) perhaps he would have noticed, since they were so in love?
PL said: “But that would not address what I pointed out in my earlier comment: young Fischer would not want his older self to be shot, which would explain why he went on the better path after what we and he saw last night.”
At the end of this episode, Young Fischer is in prison, charged by the DHS with hacking into government computers for a purpose so nefarious that the DHS’s own hackers can’t figure it out yet.
We’re supposed to think that Young Fischer is now in prison for a good long time. Long enough that he doesn’t get out until after Judgement Day?
Yes. That’s what the writers are probably telling us, I reckon.
So it doesn’t really matter whether he wants his older self to be shot in the past or not. He’s locked up, and he won’t get out until after he’s survived Judgement Day and been employed by SkyNet.
SkyNet uses him to torture people for a while and then says “Go back to 2007 and do a job for me”.
So he does.
Kevin wrote: "But Derek seemed awfully surprised to see Jesse in 2007 when he first met her and found out she was AWOL from the future war. He almost shot her, if I recall. If she’d disappeared from his present in the future (because she had time-travelled to our present) perhaps he would have noticed, since they were so in love?"
We don't have any reason to think that Jesse and Derek were living together in the future. Indeed, given the nature of the ongoing brutal war, they likely saw each other sporadically, and were separated for long periods of time, as people in love often are in war time.
Kevin wrote: "So it doesn’t really matter whether he wants his older self to be shot in the past or not. He’s locked up, and he won’t get out until after he’s survived Judgement Day and been employed by SkyNet."
Well, we of course have no proof of Fischer's state of mind as he grows older - but your analysis disregards a psychologically important piece of evidence: the impact of seeing your future self shot right in front of your eyes.
Bottom line for me: I think both of our scenarios are plausible, but mine is better :)
"Bottom line for me: I think both of our scenarios are plausible, but mine is better :)"
Possibly.
But I bet mine is right.
I guess time (travel) will tell...
nice debate guys.
Machines wins. :)
I think the "Terminator"-concept of time-travel is highly flawed, and the last episoide showed this quite clearly.
If there is only one unchangeable timeline (the concept shown in the superb movie "12 Monkeys"), you can indeed be your own father. If that's the case, you are even forced by fate to be romantically involved with your own mother 9 months before your birth, wether you like it or not.
If the future is not certain and can be manipulated by time-travel (as in T:TSCC), you can not be your own father. You can go back in time and do this timeline's version of your mother and even beget a child with her, but that will never be you. It may become a version of you in the new timeline, that started with your arrival in the past, but your personal life as a time-traveller remains unchanged.
What does that meen for this episode of T:TSSC?
No matter what Reese does to the time-travelling version of Charles Fisher before the younger Charles Fisher's eyes, it is not the reason for him being tortured by Charles Fisher in his personal past.
For the same reason, the old Charles Fisher is not responsible for his own incarceration in his past. His work for Skynet may lead to the conviction of this timeline's young Charles Fisher, but never to his own.
The whole concept of the messianic John Connor, future hero of the human resistance, is illogical for the same reason.
Every able person can do John Connor's job. It does not matter if he get's killed, as long as somebody replaces him.
I apologize for spelling and grammar, English is not my first language.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Simon - and your English was fine.
Here's how I see this:
1. First, I agree that 12 Monkeys was a flawless, brilliant time travel movie - one of the few time travel stories on screen or in print to be unflinchingly consistent in playing through the paradox.
2. The Terminator saga does suffer from a fundamental illogic - if Sarah and people in our present are successful in stopping Skynet, than John's father would not exist - he would not have traveled back to the past - which means John wouldn't exist, either. I don't think the first Terminator movie suffered from this - it was only when Sarah turned some of her attention to stopping the creation of Skynet, in the second movie, that this paradox fully arose. One of the things I very much like about last week's episode with Fischer is that, I think for the first time, the Terminator story began to seriously deal with alternate realities brought into being by the time travelers.
3. I think your distinction between time travel stories with one, unalterable future, and stories with alternate realities, is not quite correct. Because, you never know in a world with alternate realities, if they're not being shuffled and re-shuffled until the one, true reality comes into place. In some of my own time travel writing, I play with the idea that the reality we're currently living in, even with bad things that we would want to change, is the ultimate, true reality. My time travelers might go to the past to change something, but their actions only actually help bring our flawed reality into being. One way of looking at this is they created a series of alternate, better realities that didn't last - or, there was always just one, true, ultimate reality.
4. Also, even in a world with alternate realities, the only reality that everyone knows is the one they're inhabiting, so, for them, it seems as if there's only one reality. You can then play with who knows there are alternate realities - other than the reader or viewer.
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