Terminated?

The second season of Terminator – The Sarah Connor Chronicles is over and with it possibly the whole series. Before the last nine episodes I speculated on future events. I was so wrong that there’s no need to even analyze those predictions. Let’s speak of what really happened in the finale.

One of the flaws in series has been the overuse of time travel. First two movies used it only to set things in motion but in TSCC the traffic is heavy to both directions. First big question is why did John Henry go to future? What does he hope to accomplish as a regular T-888 with Cameron’s chip in his head? According to Weaver the survival of humanity depends on John Henry and he’s meant to be a rival to SkyNet. If so wouldn’t it make more sense for him to fight SkyNet in the present instead of a machine ridden future? That way he might even be able to prevent Judgment Day.

That leads to another problem I’ve had with John Henry for a while now: why is he so important to begin with? Cameron, Weaver and most likely even T-888’s are far more advanced computers than he is. He’s nowhere near the size of a modern super computer and he’s probably a decade or so behind the Terminator technology. Hard to imagine what benefits he’d have against T-888 chip.

Second cause for concern with time travel is the usage of reset: Derek, Kyle and Allison are all suddenly alive again. If and when writers kill important characters they should stand behind their decisions. Now it seems that in TSCC no one dies for real.

The finale’s time travel also has some flaws in its logic. In Terminator franchise one of the axiom’s is that John Connor is mankind’s savior. Now John appears into future around 2027 (based on Allison’s age) but resistance appears to be exactly the same without him as it was with him. What happened to his importance? Cameron’s body not traveling with them was also in conflict with Cromartie’s head in the pilot.

Then we have Cameron, Josh Friedman’s personal whipping girl. With slight exaggeration in every other episode she’s capable to feel and in every other she denies that because she’s just a machine. Despite of what she does Sarah hates her and suddenly John starts to blame her for his mother’s potential cancer; at times she kills like a real Terminator should but in the finale she refuses to shoot cops because Friedman wants her to take massive amounts of damage; instead of accepting Weaver’s invitation to join forces she decides to give her chip to John Henry so that SkyNet’s humane alternative gets to send itself into future. And then there’s the glitch that seems to have suddenly vanished. Nothing here makes slightest sense.

If the series ends here almost nothing is answered. We still don’t know why Cameron came to present, why she offered the alliance to Weaver in the future, what John Henry is supposed to do, what happened to Derek in the basement, etc.. Instead of answering existing questions Friedman just makes another fine mess with time travel and Cameron cliffhanger that he’s most probably not able to climb up in any reasonable way.

I still want to see third season but I’d really prefer it to be without Josh Friedman.

Tags: Josh Friedman, Sarah Connor, science fiction, Scifi, SF, terminator, TSCC, TV