The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Pilot

By Melissa Voelker

Finally it is time, after weeks of waiting and wondering and practicing my snarkiness, it is the first night of the special two night premiere event of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I am poised at the TV set, eyes glued to the screen, physically and mentally prepared to pounce on what I’m sure will be a total travesty of science fiction/movie tie-in drama. But instead I find myself pleasantly surprised.

The show starts with Sarah rushing into a school and telling John it is time to run again, though their escape is short lived when they walk right into the waiting arms of the police. But the cops can’t hold onto them when they are attacked by a big guy with a big gun. Sarah escapes from the cop holding her by playing on his own stupidity (any guy that acts pervy should get kneed in the face) and then grabs John again. She sends John running off to safety but their attacker shoots him in the back. Suddenly it looks like a vintage Sarah Connor dream, especially when the world blows up around her.

She wakes up, proving the nightmare theory, and the guy in bed with her starts a little pillow talk. Turns out this isn’t just some random playmate either, when they start discussing her engagement ring that John helped him pick out. She tells him she loves him while ominous music plays. It isn’t a surprise when she wakes up her son shortly thereafter and tells him that after two years it is time to run again.

Reeling from the shock of her sudden disappearance, Sarah’s fiancé Mr. Dixon gets a visit from FBI agent James Ellison and finally learns the truth about his sweetie. He tries to hold out against Ellison’s bullying but it looks like he eventually gives in and spills what he knows about her current name and other details. And meanwhile, as John sleeps and Sarah gasses up the getaway car, a mysterious computer in a shadowy room pops up with the FBI’s “Connor File” and an ominous red eye glows in the reflection on the screen.

Now safely (theoretically) ensconced in a new town, John meets a persistent girl named Cameron in school who very cutely wheedles information out of him. He pushes her away, but there is obviously interest there. After school he goes home to sulk and pout and then fight with his mother. To prove how not safe the Connors really are, Agent Ellison shows up in the same town. But they don’t know that yet, which gives John time to decide to become friends with Cameron. Their flirtation is interrupted by a substitute teacher with a robotic secret who cuts a gun out of his own leg and then starts shooting up the classroom. John runs for it and the killing machine follows after him.

Before this latest terminator gets a chance to destroy the savior of mankind, he is mowed down by a truck with Cameron behind the wheel. She throws open the door and utters the infamous line “Come with me if you want to live” and because that is the universal sign for “Get the hell in my automobile so we can make a daring escape” John hops in.

Sarah shows up a little late for the festivities and gets attacked by the recovered robot menace. When John calls the terminator pretends to be her on the phone and tells him to go to the house. But it looks like two can play at the voice changing game when Cameron turns out to be a robot as well and pretends to be John. Soon the metal people are flying around, smashing each other into walls and causing loads of damage. The little terminatrix manages to disable her much bigger and nastier opponent for long enough that she and the Connors can make their escape.
Later on John sleeps and his new robot nanny pulls bullets out of her chest. She and Sarah exchange some words and it is revealed that, though they pushed the date back a few years, the robotocalypse still happens. But though almost an entire class of high schoolers saw the cyborg shooting things up, Agent Ellison wants to discount the theory that maybe Sarah isn’t as delusional as the US government wishes to believe.

After John wakes up he sulks and pouts and whines some more until he convinces Sarah to destroy SkyNet for him. He sulks a little more while talking to the terminatrix, and then they go to pay a little visit on the widow Dyson. She doesn’t really want to talk to them, but gives in after a few minutes. They can’t stay long at the Dyson residence when their constant pursuer shows up to attack them once again. They manage to escape, but it won’t last as once again they haven’t killed their attacker.

Sarah and Cameron drop John off for supplies and then go off to hide and pull some bullets out of Sarah. The mom of the future shows a glimmer of weakness and mentions how afraid she is to lose her son. The next day the three go to a bank, Cameron pulls a gun on the bank visitors and employees, and then has the Connors and herself locked up in the safety deposit box room. Looks like something was hidden there back in 1963, like a very large and powerful weapon and a little thing that hurtles people through time. The terminatrix sets it to 2007 and the Connors take a trip to the future, knowing this is the When that SkyNet will be built so this is the When they need to be in.

The naked time travelers pop out of the time stream thing in the middle of a freeway, causing some havoc before escaping to find some clothes. Being the day and age of camera phones and constant connectivity to the internet and TV, footage of naked Sarah surfaces quickly on the news and Agent Ellison and ditched fiancée Mr. Dixon happen to catch it. It looks like even now, even eight years in the future, they probably aren’t safe.

I have to admit, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this show. It was written and performed way better than expected. Leana Headey makes a believable Sarah Connor, channeling the sound and the look of Sarah from the first film, though still able to kick ass like the Sarah from the second film. And Summer Glau as Cameron was a very limber and interesting terminatrix, though I’m not sure she has caught the trick of delivering cyborg dialogue yet. It takes some work to sound stilted and inhuman, but believable at the same time. This time she sounded wooden and like she was trying too hard, when she didn’t sound just like River Tam. Glau has made it clear she does super soldier well, it would be nice if they would let her stretch herself more and play something besides another cute girl with a mean punch.

The writers have done a good job so far of adding depth and dimension to their material. There is a scene at the Dyson residence that really intrigued me. When Mrs. Dyson tells Sarah she destroyed Cyberdyne, she destroyed EVERTHING, she means alot more than just computer programs and microchips. Sarah Connor comes into people’s lives and ruins them. She gets people killed, she gets buildings blown up, she tears apart families. And Sarah knows this. You can see it written across her face as she stares into the face of Miles Dyson’s wife and has nothing to say in return because she understands what the woman is saying and she knows it to be true. This was well written and well performed material, and if the show creators can continue at this level the show will be well worth watching.

However, good points aside, this wasn’t a perfect premier episode (and yes I’ve seen what I consider pitch perfect premiers, such as for Pushing Daisies and Reaper.) There were several scenes that seemed cut straight from the original movies – such as when Cameron and then Sarah have to do a little field surgery after getting attacked. That rang so much of the scene after Sarah is rescued in T2 that it made me cringe a bit. And there are some plot points that just couldn’t suspend my disbelief. Why does Sarah continue to believe she can and should stop the robotocalypse? If she does, John Connor will cease to exist, having no reason to ever be born if there is no war and no machines and no time machine to send Kyle Reese through in the first place. Is Sarah really willing to give up her child in order to stop SkyNet? She never even seems to stop and consider this possibility, and that continues to bother me.

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About Melissa: By day a mild-mannered tv station receptionist, by night a fighter of crime and corruption in the dirty streets of Spokane, WA . . . or maybe not so much. More like a hyperactive, anal-retentive daytime receptionist and a melodramatic, hyperactive nighttime fangirl who only wishes she could be a fighter of crime and champion of justice (except that would lead to getting my super costume all dirty and I hate doing laundry.) Though my intent has always been to write bestselling novels and live a life of wealth and luxury, putting my talents for snarkiness and word doodling together while letting my geek flag fly suits me just fine – for now.

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