Lower Decks

The following review contains spoilers for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles through the current episode, “Allison From Palmdale,” originally broadcast September 29, 2008.

As a reviewer, I tend to try to stay positive.  I wouldn’t review a show I didn’t like, and I try to enjoy the shows I watch.  But this episode of Terminator really didn’t do anything for me, so it might be time for me to let loose on a couple things.  Beware, readers, my Terminator chip is malfuctioning, and I’m out for blood.

After this episode, I’m not entirely sure how the Connors can ever trust Cameron again.  And that’s without them knowing the backstory that we know.  Because, for the second time in four episodes, Cameron has had a pretty major malfuction.  This time she isn’t out to kill John, but she still finds a way to hurt him.  Oddly enough, though, the main advocate for killing her (Reese) is nowhere to be seen in this one.

Of course, knowing John, he won’t tell his mom about Cameron’s malfuction.  But this is two in a matter of weeks (at the most), and that’s gotta be a bit frightening to John.

I thought this was going to be a pretty cool one.  We were going to learn how Cameron came to be, according to the previews.  And I guess we kinda did, but I was hoping we’d understand a little bit more about the role Cameron was given by Skynet.  Or at least how she was reprogrammed by John.

But what we got was a nice little character piece on a character we’ll never see again (Allison Young) and an incredibly boring B-story.

And while it was really nice to see Summer Glau get to act human, I don’t really see the point of the backstory.  We basically learned that Cameron was an infiltrator Terminator designed to kill John Connor, and I’m pretty sure we already knew that.  What we didn’t know was that Cameron was based on a real person, but I’m not entirely sure that really matters.  Because, from what we saw, Allison’s life had zero impact on Cameron’s programming or her current personality.

So all we basically got was a cliched “character doesn’t know who she is and gets wrapped up in the wrong crowd” story, and the only part I really enjoyed was the irony of a Terminator getting mugged/robbed by some jackass ex-boyfriend guy.  Boy, did he luck out?

One interesting thing about the backstory was Cameron’s first attempt to win over Allison – that some of the machines don’t want war, they want peace.  It’s something I’ve never really considered, and it almost makes a bit of sense.  It would be interesting if we’d found out that Cameron was simply a “resistance Terminator” that turned on its creator – that she’d chosen to protect John instead of simply being re-programmed.

Of course, it doesn’t seem like the Terminators really have any free will to begin with, so I’m not sure it really works with the canon.  I don’t think the Terminators are supposed to be sentient beings…from what we’ve seen, they’re basically mindless soldiers that do their masters’ bidding.  And Skynet is the only machine with real “free will” if I understand the universe correctly.

I still think that would’ve been cool.  Too bad it was a trick.

The B-story of the episode revolved around Sarah helping her pregnant landlord.  And I have one question for the writers: am I supposed to care?  I’ve left the woman’s character out of my reviews because I didn’t think she was worth mentioning, and I wish she still wasn’t worth mentioning.  She’s basically been used as comic relief to this point because she’s *really* pregnant, but she gets a solid section of the story this time and I just don’t know why.

No, I know why.  The writers want us to see Sarah as a mother; they want us to remember the Sarah from the original Terminator movie.  And that’s fine.  I just don’t think we should have to put up with this annoying lady and her out-of-nowhere “baby’s daddy.”  Are these characters going to have any impact on the series at all?  If not, what was the point of any of this?

And what happened to the bloody note left by that resistance fighter a couple episodes ago?  I was thinking that was going to be the point of the series – stopping Skynet’s side missions.  But, instead, we get John Connor’s teen angst and a pregnant woman’s drama?  Really?

Then there was Ellison and Weaver.  I think this story has potential to go somewhere, but it’s getting there pretty slow.  I think we all assumed last week that he was going to take the offer; I’m not sure we really needed another episode to confirm it.  We did confirm it, right?

And I just kept thinking the entire time that a T-1000 would be bored out of its mind being Catherine Weaver.  These are machines that are designed to kill, and I doubt she really gets the chance to do so.  She must’ve drawn the short straw while the other T-1000s get to fight Arnold and play with liquid nitrogen.

All in all, I don’t think we got anywhere here.  We learned a bit about Cameron, but we mostly learned about the person behind Cameron’s face.  And, I’m sorry, I don’t really think Super Mario fans would be interested in watching a documentary about a couple Brooklyn plumbers.

Then there was a boring B-story about a pregnant woman (whose name I don’t remember or care to look up) and a stalled Ellison/Weaver story.  Not much to praise.

Going forward, we have to get back to those Skynet side missions (which I still think is really cool), and John has got to figure out a way to get Cameron fixed.  Because, again, I’m not really sure how he can trust her ever again.  She’s going to have to work on that…at least to get my trust back.

Of course, with dwindling ratings and killer competition, we might not get many more episodes of Sarah Connor.  And if there are going to be many more like this one, that might not be a bad thing.

Review Terminated.