Striking a balance between relief and initiative remains a central point throughout the series terminator the sarah connor chronicles review . This is what separates us from machines. Such a conflict will never go out of style because it is an endless battle. As the looming war draws closer and their enemies get closer, the characters continue to feel less safe. They must control the machine and their own sanity.
The behavior of robots further blurs the lines between humans and machines. First, you have "Cameron," the reprogrammed Terminator sent to protect John and prepare him for the upcoming trial. As time passed, he sought to better understand human behavior through observation and entertainment. For example, she can be seen practicing her dance after chasing a protagonist posing as a ballet student. At another point, he tried to "feel" the wind rushing through his toes during a routine ride. These encounters make you question how advanced these robots are, and allow Summer Glau to really sell the character through her disturbing body language.
Innovation doesn't stop at hobbies, however. Cameron is known to keep secrets from John and Sarah, making his own judgement about when to reveal those secrets and how important they are to John's mission and/or upbringing. This is very disturbing. Even if the machine appears to be by your side, it will continue to exert its will as the gap between organic and synthetic narrows.
He and his writer set out to tell a very complex story with a well-defined beginning, middle, and end. That's commendable, but it does mean that anyone who joins after the first episode is quickly choke on loose plot threads and crushed by snowy relationships. This is something that needs to be managed. Terminator never bothers. Aside from a brief "Last time..." message, no concessions were made to appease newbies, and absolutely no attempt was made to appease disaffected existing viewers. Throughout, Friedman displayed a ruthless and single-minded dedication to his story worthy of the show's stellar counterpart. If, like "Lost," you got 16 million viewers early on, or like "Battlestar Galactica," you tricked audiences throughout the series into thinking it was actually a space shooter opera, and Not the talking underwater series that just happened. Settle in space.
But should the name Terminator alone be worth 16 million regular viewers? Possibly, but somehow he always seemed to be more of a hindrance than a help. The name brings budget, but also anticipation. The Terminator series alludes to explosions, robot fights, and carnage with their backs to walls. The series offers these things reluctantly and often as the climax of five star-gazing episodes. God, Terminator likes to look at his belly button. This is not criticism, although it is aimed at the millions of people who stopped watching. Personally, I think it's pretty good. Wrapped in a compact script full of brilliant lines and observations, full of philosophical musings by a group that very proudly emerge from this train wreck.
While their paths don't cross here, Cameron and Ellison are wrestling with the Christian narrative and how they fit together. While Ellison's struggles may seem isolating (his struggles to find community and meaning in the chaos that plagued him are often frustrating), Cameron faces an even tougher task. Unable to even imagine "belief" in the mundane sense ("It's not part of my programming," he says), he sought an explanation. "Do you believe in resurrection?" he asked Sarah. Asked again and again to play mom for all these lost kids, Sarah sighs and answers half-heartedly. Even when Sarah is upset, you can see the point; you know that every episode involves some kind of resurrection, for her, John, or the Terminator. It was never entirely clear whether this violated or followed the rules.
