Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Jul. 31st, 2008 03:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
llywelaFinally got around to watching the Sarah Connor Chronicles this week. Now, I wasn't really sure what to expect, since I've never watched a single one of the Terminator films. But obviously, the TV show would have to be completely standalone, in order to draw in a wider audience, so that I could follow what was going on right from the start. And I really liked it. The show has a big enough budget to be slick - lucky them - and is fast-paced and intriguing throughout, with engaging characters and fluid character dynamics.
I did wonder at times if it might help to watch the various Terminator films - there are three, right? - to get the background. But that would mean Arnie, obviously. And although backstory is always good, I don't think it is necessary here, because the show provides all the background needed to understand the story, and from what I can tell the mythology is in constant flux anyway. It is a story all about time travel - people and robots coming back from the future in order to change it. So, for example, you get Derek coming from the future and killing Andy Goode in the present. Now, Andy was alive and well in the future that Derek came from. But now he is dead and unable to play any part in that future - he will never take his place in the resistance, and never confess his part in the creation of Skynet to Derek, thus never providing the motivation for Derek to track him down and assassinate him in the past.... It sets up one hell of a paradox, really. But as I understand it, the whole mythology is founded on such temporal paradoxes, and the trick is not to think about them too hard!
Also? I know a guy called Andy Goode! He bears no resemblance to the one in the show, though.
Call me obsessed, but where young John is concerned, I couldn't help but feel at times that - if you exchange robots for monsters - his life bears strong parallels to what life must have been like for the Winchester boys growing up, in SN. Paranoid, obsessive parent, trained as a soldier and yet still a kid, moving constantly, regularly exposed to danger....
I like Sarah. She's completely paranoid, but rightly so. Hard as nails and has all the right moves, yet struggles at times to make the hard choices. She's reluctant to kill. I like that about her. I also like Derek. Because, honestly - this guy witnessed the apocalypse when he was 15, and raised his little brother underground only to have him disappear, never to be seen again. He's been imprisoned and tortured, and spent more than half his life fighting in the resistance. So it's hardly surprising that he isn't exactly a ray of sunshine! He is very, very damaged, a soldier to the core, and his harsh pragmatism makes a good counterbalance to Sarah's conscience, while his absolute pessimism sits perfectly alongside her paranoia.
Cameron, it has to be said, bears strong resemblance to Summer Glau's last major role, River in Firefly. She wants to watch she isn't typecast! The cyborg's journey through the strike-shortened season has been intriguing, as there is clearly more to her than meets the eye.
Also intriguing, and very well worked through the plot, is the way the various supporting characters such as Ellison, Charley and Cromartie are each developed in isolation from one another and the main cast, each following their own path, only for their circumstances to inexorably draw them all together over the course of time, their lives overlapping and interlinking. All those character arcs and subplots came together for an engrossing and at times truly nerve-jangling season finale, and I'm really looking forward to finding out how the story develops in season two.
I did wonder at times if it might help to watch the various Terminator films - there are three, right? - to get the background. But that would mean Arnie, obviously. And although backstory is always good, I don't think it is necessary here, because the show provides all the background needed to understand the story, and from what I can tell the mythology is in constant flux anyway. It is a story all about time travel - people and robots coming back from the future in order to change it. So, for example, you get Derek coming from the future and killing Andy Goode in the present. Now, Andy was alive and well in the future that Derek came from. But now he is dead and unable to play any part in that future - he will never take his place in the resistance, and never confess his part in the creation of Skynet to Derek, thus never providing the motivation for Derek to track him down and assassinate him in the past.... It sets up one hell of a paradox, really. But as I understand it, the whole mythology is founded on such temporal paradoxes, and the trick is not to think about them too hard!
Also? I know a guy called Andy Goode! He bears no resemblance to the one in the show, though.
Call me obsessed, but where young John is concerned, I couldn't help but feel at times that - if you exchange robots for monsters - his life bears strong parallels to what life must have been like for the Winchester boys growing up, in SN. Paranoid, obsessive parent, trained as a soldier and yet still a kid, moving constantly, regularly exposed to danger....
I like Sarah. She's completely paranoid, but rightly so. Hard as nails and has all the right moves, yet struggles at times to make the hard choices. She's reluctant to kill. I like that about her. I also like Derek. Because, honestly - this guy witnessed the apocalypse when he was 15, and raised his little brother underground only to have him disappear, never to be seen again. He's been imprisoned and tortured, and spent more than half his life fighting in the resistance. So it's hardly surprising that he isn't exactly a ray of sunshine! He is very, very damaged, a soldier to the core, and his harsh pragmatism makes a good counterbalance to Sarah's conscience, while his absolute pessimism sits perfectly alongside her paranoia.
Cameron, it has to be said, bears strong resemblance to Summer Glau's last major role, River in Firefly. She wants to watch she isn't typecast! The cyborg's journey through the strike-shortened season has been intriguing, as there is clearly more to her than meets the eye.
Also intriguing, and very well worked through the plot, is the way the various supporting characters such as Ellison, Charley and Cromartie are each developed in isolation from one another and the main cast, each following their own path, only for their circumstances to inexorably draw them all together over the course of time, their lives overlapping and interlinking. All those character arcs and subplots came together for an engrossing and at times truly nerve-jangling season finale, and I'm really looking forward to finding out how the story develops in season two.
