Terminator: Catchin up, part III

Dungeons & Dragons - Feb 18

Hey, it's the third Sarah review that I haven't published. If you're reading this, I've corrected the problem.

Still good. Maybe even great.

But they hit one really false note for me: They showed Kyle Reese. I know all of these actors are making the character's their own. For the most part that's terrific. But Kyle just seemed so peppy. It underlined a big difference between the people from the future in the movie and the ones in the show. In the movie these people were living at the end of the world. Kyle was so detached as to be off-putting. He had never lived in a world like today. He grew up in the "ashes of the nuclear fire". In the show they're just a bunch of guys in a bad situation. They don't seem "on the way out". They also don't seem all that taken aback by 2007. Heck, you'd think these guys would be amazed by running water! (I guess there's a deleted scene from Terminator where Kyle just about loses it looking at a park with trees.) Again, time travel is a lot less painful than in the films. It was cool that they had a fake looking Terminator. I'm sure that interrogation thing will come back. And they got all of the stuff right about Kyle's unit. I'm disappointed that nobody said they were "under Perry". But I'm a nerd.

I think they nicely dodged a bullet by not showing "future John".

BTW, the people are NOT the same as the machines. They're not, so don't even go there.

It was a nice tie-in with the movie though that it was Derek getting captured that tipped off Skynet to where there was a shelter which was attacked in the movie (when Sarah's photo was burned). They're changing timelines around again (although maybe this is the "post-T2" timeline, so it's different). In The Terminator Kyle traveled back from 2029. Now it's 2027. And the war is going on for two years afterwards when Derek goes back. So much for the "final battle".

Also, no Ellison this week. (You know, I still laugh that the Terminator is named Cameron, but only just got that the FBI fella is named Ellison.) But I've decided I like Charlie (Sarah's ex) a lot. I hope they do interesting things with him. The "very scary robot" conversation was terrific.

This plot is reaching Angel levels of complexity. So now Cameron has extra metal and a chip. And "sometimes they go bad". THAT will all go well.

Random thought, I wonder if they'll ever mention that a Terminator killed John's grandmother? I like that the identity of Kyle as John's father is such a closely guarded secret that even Cameron doesn't know it. That might be good plot coming up there.

Sarah's repeating Kyle's litany about the machines was great. (Nerd.) And they will never, ever stop. And of course "there's a storm coming". Still think Sarah's awesome. Still like Cameron (and they're certainly keeping her from being boring). And I'm really digging John. So I call that a win.

Getting a nagging feeling they're going to get canceled though. It's Fox.