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.

The Fanboy Paradox

Being a fan has lately become more or less synonymous with fanboyism. Because of this I prefer not to call myself a fan of anything. Fanboys are both incapable of handling any critique towards the object of their fanaticism or seeing any flaws in it themselves.

Let’s start with the paradox from the title. I’ve seen so many posts in various boards where fanboys of some TV-series attack any critique with the following logic: “me fanboy” -> “series perfect” -> “critique” -> “critic hates the show” -> “critic should stop watching and leave the board” -> “critic stupid.” That’s the first half of the paradox.

The second half is more often found in discussions about movies. It’s about people who did what the previous fanboys demanded and didn’t finish the film: ““me fanboy” -> “movie perfect” -> “critique involving a notion of not finishing the movie” -> “critic stupid for criticizing the film after seeing only part of it.” So critic is always wrong because it’s impossible to meet both demands.

The first half is more obviously flawed argument: unlike the fanboys claim criticizing something doesn’t mean hatred towards it. Very rarely (never) does one find a work of art than can be considered perfect, yet it’s natural for us to reach for that perfection. A transformation from imperfect to perfect requires change and critique is a suggestion or a demand for such change. A lack of critic is indifference, not appreciation.

The other part is slightly less obvious and there’s even some little notion of truth in it. Without seeing the film or show completely one’s limited to very rudimentary critique – such critique in itself isn’t very helpful or informative and that’s why I think it should be made clear that it’s made from incomplete viewing. Still it’s absurd to think that in modern abundance of entertainment people should waste their time in works that only manage to bore or repulse them: chances for a movie suddenly improving considerably after 40 minutes or a series after five or six episodes is too slim to gamble one’s time.

Besides the paradox fanboys often display some other flawed arguments. It’s very common to start by belittling the critique as just an opinion and then move on to bash the critic for having a wrong one. Another common argument against the critique is to emphasize the numbers: so many disagree with the critic so critic’s opinion must be wrong. In the end it all boils down to fanboy’s inability to see his own opinion as just another opinion.

In art there are no absolutes. Some technical aspects can be evaluated in mostly objective ways but the value of a final product is always personal.

This entry was inspired by comments to my claim that The Dark Knight was a movie worth 1 out of 5 points and that I stopped watching it after 40 minutes or so.

Transformer Sarah

While ranting about the lack of character development in Terminator – The Sarah Connor Chronicles elsewhere I was directed to this guide. I suppose it was meant to nullify my points. Lets see what this guide has eaten.

The point of the guide is that during the three episodes centered around Sarah her character went through a transformation. It starts as a defense for episode Some Must Watch, While Some Must Sleep but it’s about all three episodes.

The voice-over at the beginning of Earthlings Welcome Here is presented as a first proof. The writer claims it to mean that Sarah will undergo a transformation just like the Spanish explorer. That’s one way of seeing it. Another logical interpretation is that it’s referring to the events of the very episode – transformation from Alan Park to Abraham.

In addition to this voice-over the writer has collected pieces of dialogue from various episodes to support the theory. I believe that most of the voice-overs are vague enough to be interpreted in many ways and same applies even more to handpicked dialogue. Even if one would agree with all these proofs they would be pointless if the hinted development doesn’t occur.

The writer says that Sarah dying in her dream was the defining moment of the transformation. A change that would in the writer’s own words turn her “more like Cameron — more like a machine” or as some say a bad-ass warrior. The completion of the change is visualized to us with a pull of the trigger when she kills Winston. That doesn’t sound too far fetched, right?

Well, why did her dream have such a drastic effect? She had already nearly got John killed in real life (the events starting in Brothers of Nablus) but that didn’t teach her a thing. She’s been doing these same mistakes all the way from T2 and now we’re supposed to accept that one lousy dream suddenly fixed her. Either it’s bad writing or something’s amiss (or both).

The biggest flaw of the article is its timing – it tries to justify three episodes with something that hadn’t happened at the time of its writing. One can write all kinds of beautiful theories about how something was hinted and built terrifically but they all become worthless if that something never occurs. An article about Sarah’s transformation before we’ve had a chance to verify that change is not very useful.

Now that there’s been two episodes after that it’s quite safe to say that the transformation theory presented in the guide has no value. In Today Is the Say (Pt. 1) Sarah is back to her old self. Last week she was quite convinced that Riley is a security risk and told John to prepare himself because she assumed that Cameron is going to kill Riley. This week after learning about Riley’s death she instantly went back to her old bitching ways and was practically ready to kill Cameron for presumably doing the logical choice – the choice new Sarah should have embraced herself.

So I’m still going to uphold my opinion that TSCC has some serious flaws in its writing and that the three Sarah centric episodes at the beginning of back 9 were three hours wasted on nothing. I wish that the series can survive the creative talent that is Josh Friedman.

Campaign Promises

Josh Friedman wrote a post to Fox’s Terminator – The Sarah Connor Chronicles blog. He addressed some of the negative feedback that’s been given to series’ back 9 this far. While I agree with some of his thoughts I don’t think he addressed the real problems.

First he says that “…some months ago I determined to steer the show towards its title, towards Sarah Connor. I wanted to explore not simply the idea of chasing Skynet and all that that entails, but also the psychological effects of doing so.” I have no objection for this idea but I’m disgruntled by how he belittles majority of the critique by saying that “…most of you are just pissed there’s not enough Cameron.”

A sad fact about the episodes 13 through 15 is that the writing has been abysmally bad. To explore Sarah’s mental state Mr. Friedman should have written episodes that somehow lets us viewers to see inside her head. Now we’ve got an insane fixation that turned out to be a cheap plot device, an extended surgery accompanied with pointless dialogue with hallucination and a funeral where all character interaction was awfully awkward.

There has been no character development for Sarah who still is the most one dimensional main character of this show. None of the other characters even had a chance for development because their screen time during the back 9 has been so small. Main plot or any of the side plots have not advanced at all; Riley left the hospital and in next episode no one even mentions her, a (somewhat stupid) glitch in Cameron’s chip has no effect on anything unless she happens to be the center of the episode and so on.

To put it short I think that in theory Mr. Friedman’s goal was good but for multiple reasons the execution failed badly. For once I’m taking the company’s side against the creative mind behind a show because at least the network warned Josh about his idea. With failing ratings you just can’t take a risk and return from a break with episodes that are centered around one of the mains, that forget other important characters (who happen to be more popular than the one you’re centering on) and that don’t advance anything during the first two hours.

Instead of making up excuses why people haven’t realized the excellence of recent episodes Mr. Friedman should take an objective look at the episodes themselves and try to see the faults that’ve been so obvious to majority of viewers. Slow and psychological doesn’t have to mean dull and pointless. Centering around a character doesn’t have to mean that other mains get less screen time than episode’s extras.

I’m very sad about the recent collapse in the series’ quality. Such potential shouldn’t be wasted. I still hope but my trust is failing.

Failing Heroism

Maybe I’m in minority but there’s something that keeps bothering me in vast majority of fictional heroes – an obsession with stupidity. Far too often I see characters in situations with only one logical approach and yet they almost always err on the side of irrational. Before further explanation I’ll give you couple of examples.

In last week’s Battlestar Galactica episode called The Oath admiral Adama let’s his prisoner free when advised that they don’t “have time to take prisoners.” Releasing an enemy fighter aware of your location and strength just isn’t a decision made by seasoned officer facing an armed mutiny.

In Terminator – The Sarah Connor Chronicles episode called Brothers of Nablus Sarah’s decision not to kill the fourth robber at the bowling alley was plain stupidity. I understand that she doesn’t like killing but should she really endanger her son and the whole human race for a thief who stole from her? I don’t think so.

Another more generic example is the “If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him” syndrome. By what alien logic do you inherit the crimes of those you kill? Would killing Stalin really have made you equally bad as man who was responsible for millions of deaths (quite an extreme example but makes my point very clear)?

Now we know what but the real question is why. Why do people consider Cameron shooting the three robbers at the bowling alley disturbing when I’m only disturbed by the fourth surviving the scene? Why does Adama first declare that “If you do this there will be no forgiveness. No amnesty” and end up executing two people instead of at least every officer involved?

Back in high school we read William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies. During the discussion our teacher asked who of us believed that in some situation we could kill another human being? I don’t remember how many hands rose but it wasn’t nearly all. I’m quite sure the teacher said that everyone who didn’t raise their hand was lying. I agree with her.

So, back to why. I believe that majority of people are in denial about their true nature. They want to believe that they wouldn’t kill because they’re good. They want everything to be black or white and refuse to see all the shades of gray in between. They need their heroes to be as binary as their own illusion – good or evil, never in between. And Hollywood is afraid to question the delusion of their audience.

And me? I guess I’ll remain in minority demanding heroes who do what’s required, to whom the end really justifies the means or in some cases even the other way. To me morals are what we make them, there’s no black or white – just never ending gray. That’s how I want my heroes as well.

Terminator – The Back 9 Speculation

Terminator – The Sarah Connor Chronicles returns in little over a week. There have been several spoilers floating around the net and forums have been filled with speculation. What follows are my predictions on several major events I expect to happen during the back 9.

Cameron

Cameron is my favorite character so I’ll start with her. Dekker Tapes said that one of three women in John’s life will die. For a long time I was sure this can’t be Cameron. Yet this new interview digest has partially changed my mind.

Promo Shot of Cameron

One of the series’ promo shots has bothered me for some time: Cameron’s naked torso hanging on some metal pipes and wires. There’s never been anything even vaguely like that in the series so where did the idea come from? Maybe it came from Josh Friedman’s synopses.

So my prediction is that Cameron is wrecked by Jesse in the season finale. John and his crew believe her to be dead. Her remains are later collected by Ms. Weaver whose agenda remains unknown. If there will be season three Cameron is rebuilt during the first few episodes. Cameron will retain her character and memories. Depending on Weaver’s motives she may have some hidden programming that surfaces on later episodes.

Sarah

Sarah is difficult character to speculate because she’s so one dimensional. Still based on the Dekker Tapes she’s the one to leave John. There are two or three ways I see that happening.

Sarah’s been mentally unstable ever since Cromartie’s death. That allows two related reasons for her to leave; she succumbs deeper into her delusions and leaves John to hunt for her ghosts, or realizes that she’s loosing her grip and leaves before her madness puts her son to risk.

Besides her deteriorating mental health there’s another option to temporarily remove her from John’s presence: events leading to Cameron’s assumed death may cause John to blame her mother of it and thus sending her away.

John

First, what’s been one of the least liked things on season two? Emo John. Based on that fact alone Dekker Tapes sound very believable. John needs to become a man and taking everything away from him makes it hard to be a whining boy.

From the first episode on it has been clear that John has feelings towards Cameron. When he sees Jesse killing the cyborg he’ll realize that there really are people who need to die – Jesse being the first. No more angst about Sarkissian’s death either.

Whatever feelings John has had for Riley are replaced by contempt and hate when Cameron dies as a result of a plot Riley’s involved in. She’s sent away with a promise that there won’t be mercy if their paths cross again. If John has any reason to blame his mother for Cameron’s death he’ll send her away in his anger as well.

Others

Charley Dixon dies according to Dekker Tapes. That gives a good opportunity to involve Sarah in Jesse’s plan. After the death of his wife Charley will become a liability and Cameron may deal with him accordingly. Already unstable Sarah is unable to accept the reasoning behind Cameron’s actions and unlike the cyborg she’s trying to keep her promise.

Riley’s betrayal is revealed. I don’t know how but John is aware of that when Cameron is destroyed. With Jesse dead Riley is happy to walk away alive. I think it’s likely that Riley returns for an episode or two during the third season to die a valiant death and thus redeeming her betrayal.

Of all the characters Derek is the hardest for me to speculate. Therefore I’m taking the easy way and make no predictions about him.

Ms. Weaver is a mystery. It’s clear that she’s not on a mission to kill John – she’s aware that Ellison has investigated them a lot yet she hasn’t made any attempt to get information about Connors from Ellison. I’d say that in her own way Weaver is on a good side, most probably trying to build a future where man and machine can live in peace.

Ellison and John Henry go somewhat hand in hand – Ellison’s fate depends on what John Henry becomes. I think that John Henry is Weaver’s attempt to build more humane Skynet but the attempt fails. After all the Judgment Day is supposed to be inevitable. It may be that Ellison’t fate is to become the first human John Henry kills on purpose.

Prophecy Be Damned!

As much as I like well written fantasy there are few things to turn off my interest as effectively as prophecies. The latest reminder came when I tried to look the pilot episode of Legend of the Seeker. Not that there was much to ruin but the prophecy ensured that there’ll never be any attempt to reason the events of the story – every twist and turn that doesn’t make sense can be blamed on the prophecy. Needless to say that I felt no need to continue with the show.

Prophecies act very similar to deus ex machina that was condemned as inferior plot device over two thousand years ago. While deus ex machina was often used to solve conflicts inept playwrights were unable to resolve otherwise prophecies are mainly used by equally incompetent writers as a tool to involve their characters into the story without having to come up with any justifiable motives.

In almost every case prophecy equals sloppy and lazy writing. It sets events in motion, replaces personal motives, acts as a road sign for lost characters and enforces villains to act stupid. In other words it’s just a cheap cop-out that lets writers to ignore the difficult aspects of their trade. It’s sad that it has become almost a de facto standard of fantasy.

In many ways sci-fi has managed to be taken seriously while fantasy is still often considered as childish continuation of fairy tales for teens. As an adult fan of both genres I’m irritated by that and I blame it on poor general quality of popular fantasy. So if you’re going to write fantasy please learn to write character driven stories instead of prophesying your characters through events they don’t really care. At least that way you’ll get past the first hurdle.

Machine in Love

Lately there’s been lots of debate about the emotional capabilities of machines in relation to TV series Terminator – The Sarah Connor Chronicles. On one side are Jameron shippers that long for romantic relationship between John Connor and his guardian cyborg Cameron, on the other side people who despise that idea for one reason or another. While the anti-shippers have varied motives there’s one argument that finds its way to practically every discussion; Cameron is a machine and therefore incapable of feelings including love.

So what is that chasm separating man from machine? I doubt that majority of people using this argument have given it any thought. “It’s a machine”, they say, “It only does what it’s programmed to.” While that sounds pretty obvious they forget the other part of their equation; what makes men tick?

For religious person the answer would be easy; people have souls while machines have not. That’s a solid argument if you’re willing to accept the concept of soul. Same applies to other attempts to mystify life – one must first accept that life has supernatural component, that at its root life is more than interaction of primary particles.

From physicalist point of view such arguments fall apart; life becomes matter, the difference between man and machine loses its profound meaning. Modern computers and programs aren’t nearly as complex as human brain but theoretically nothing prevents us from building an artificial human mind.

Religious delusions aside the argument has become invalid. To be able to feel Cameron only needs to be at certain level of complexity. The fact that she’s a machine isn’t not an obstacle – in fact the dividing line between machine and organism is one drawn in water. Well implemented ability to learn and enough processing capacity are enough to turn machine into a person.

Cameron’s emotional side may not be as developed as human equivalent but she has clearly shown both feelings and personality. Her view of the world surely differs from ours but being human isn’t a requirement for being a person. In my opinion that difference is the main reason why Jameron would result in better story than vast majority of fictional romances. It’s been built throughout the series, it makes sense (due to rigid part of her programming John is already a center of her existence) and it can make good drama so just go for it!