Terminator: More finale thoughts

[laceblade]

So, I was actually writing play-by-play notes last night while I watched the episode. As usual, they mostly contain caps lock. Also under the LJ-cut are links to various LJ posts and articles on the Internet.

I was talking to sasha_feather and were_duck yesterday about how I've never been upset about a show of mine being canceled before. Shows that ended while I watched them were already past their prime (The West Wing, Battlestar Galactica). Shows that ended while they were still good/serviceable (IMO) were already out on DVD and not airing any more when I picked them up (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Veronica Mars). So if TSCC ends up being canceled (which seems extremely likely, given the numbers), I am glad at least that it got many more episodes than Firefly. Still, there is so much ground to cover. And while I don't have much of a head for business, it seems like the release of a new Terminator movie could certainly revive interest in the franchise. Maybe a shorter third season will be announced for Spring of 2010? GETTING IN TIME FOR JUDGMENT DAY.

Also....it really bothers me that people compare the cancellation of Terminator to the cancellation of Dollhouse. Yes, I'm watching that show too, but even in the few episodes it has to tell a good story, it really...isn't. In fact, it's just uncomfortable and insulting most of the time. In my mind, the two are not comparable. Crying Whedon fans make me cringe - he really got his chance this time around, and in my mind, is blowing it.


Anyway!

OMG Joshua Malina back into original!Will Bailey mode! I LOVE HIM!

"I wanna know if being around them all the time can give you cancer." OMF John Connor is so smart! I never thought about that shit! But why wouldn't he have it, too??

I liked Sarah's conversation with the priest. AND OMG THEY BROUGHT HIM BACK. But it makes so much sense that she would believe in devils, but not really in God or faith.

11% of her mass in 6 weeks?! That seems....impossible! How can that happen?

"You're not perfect; you're a machine." BWAH!

WAIT, OMG!! THEY GOT THAT GIRL! THAT GIRL! OMG OMGOMG I LOVE THIS SHOW!!!

Orders from Sarah. Will they obey? No fucking way.

"Hasta luego." OMG I LOVE CAMERON!!!

LOL Ellison brought in to John Connor and his first in command. THEY ARE SO BAD-ASS. John Connor is so bad-ass!

"You've said enough, Mr. Ellison. I won't ask you again." And John is equally firm in his stare, but creeped out that Cameron is freaking out.

OMG WILL BAILEY BELIEVES HER! I LOVE WILL BAILEY!

She can't really believe that John will leave her, can she?

OMG they both said, "We'll see" - SO CREEPY

LOL John and Cameron are still heinous together. "Don't do that."
HOLY SHIT, sex and power. HOLY SHIT. WTF METAPHORS. HOLY SHIT. This sexually charged scene was probably my favorite in the entire episode. Holy crap.

And then there is John with the truck....YES I LOVE THIS FAMILY. RIGHT THROUGH THE GATE.
"Yeah, bad John Connor; GROUND ME."

And then, this conversation, with John and Sarah. Will it be their last one? THIS SHOW CANNOT BE CANCELED.

"I love you," and it's so....omg, this series. SARAH AND ELLISON EXCHANGE MADE ME CACKLE LIKE NONE OTHER.

"Will you join us?" AND SHE CLOSES THE DOOR?! WHAT THE FUCK?! NO! NOOOOO!

Of course the eel is part of her, too!

And what will cause John to freak out, in the end? Losing Cameron.

"You lying, Terminator bitch." LOL. "I'd watch who's calling who a bitch."

"He's got her chip....He's got her." WTF he goes to Cameron over his mom??? I guess he does. Poor John. On top of everything else, he's in love with metal.

OMG WILL DEREK BE HERE?? Can't the kid get some damn pants? Seriously? OMG IT'S DEREK! OMG DERK OMG I LOVE DEREK.

WTF THEY DON'T KNOW JOHN CONNOR ANY MORE. OMG IT'S KYLE REESE! OMG OMG I LOVE THIS SHOW!

OMG AND CAMERON. With a smile, of course. But the dog isn't barking....??? WTF IS GOING ON?

A spark and a crackle, and an "I love you too, John." THAT CANNOT BE THE END.




Terminator: Salvation commercial
Interesting! It's so gritty and bad-ass, and Bale somehow looks like Thomas Dekker. AND THE MOVIE IS TERMINATOR TOO. It's too bad it isn't in the same timeline as ours, though, :( STILL, I will watch that shit. Even if there is no Cameron and no Sarah.


Redefining Women's Work - coffeeandink
coffeeandink on "Adam Raise a Cain"
Josh Friedman talks the philosophy of Sarah Connor. [Pre-finale article]
The Terminator Wiki entry for this episode, which has an elaborate Q&A at the bottom of the page, in case you were at all confused, or have questions. [It helped me accept that my interpretation was wrong!]
vonnie_k's thoughtful post is here, which includes the finale.
An LJ post with instantaneous thoughts on the finale, plus discussion in the comments.
TV by the Numbers: Say Good-bye to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Disheartening, yes, but it also explains how awesome the show is.
were_duck on the ending here.


If you like the show....Addresses and e-mail addresses.

ALSO....Dreamwidth is super annoying to me. I was on Blogger. I was settled there! And then I was like, okay, LiveJournal, you will be my main platform. I've been blogging for so long that moving all my posts manually and locking the private ones is taking MONTHS! And now, everyone's moving to Dreamwidth anyway, making it impossible for me to still add you people's posts to my memories. IT IS VERY IRKSOME, INTERNET.

Comments

[ladyjax.livejournal.com]

I think a good number of us will be cross-posting between Dreamwidth and LJ. I know I will since I have so many links here that I really don't want to give up.

[were-duck.livejournal.com]

I know, I hate the Dollhouse/SCC comparison, too, especially since, post-finale, it looks really incredibly unlikely that we'll be getting any more SCC. Just because they're on the same channel doesn't mean they are in the same league! It's depressing!

I'm planning to move over to Dreamwidth eventually, and my understanding is that they're making the site very accessible to comment on from LJ using OpenID. Also, you can import all of your LJ posts, maintaining their privacy settings, in a matter of minutes. Or, you will be able to once it's up in open beta at the end of the month. I'll probably wait until they work a few more bugs out, but the point is, don't despair!

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

I understand that going THERE is easy. I'm just saying that 1) I won't be moving my LJ until I finish moving my blogspot to my LJ, and 2) it's not as easy for us LJ-remnants to read the stuff from here!

Bahhhh.....I'm just crabby when Internet things change. Always stay the same, Internet! Never change! ALSO the other night I almost bought space for like, 100 LJ icons. But then I thought I should wait and see what happens with this Dreamwidth stuff.

[were-duck.livejournal.com]

Wait and see? I think it will take some adjusting, but you should still be able to participate in commenting on DW posts from LJ by logging in with open id, and I think there are other ways in the works for making LJ and DW accessible to each other (ie., having both DW and LJ journals on your friendslist, ease of crossposting, etc)

I completely sympathize with feeling curmudgeonly about the whole thing, though. :/ It is grump-inducing.

[ladyjax.livejournal.com]

Oh, and something Terminator related:

If you ever get the chance, read the Terminator novels by S.M. Sterling - T2: Infiltrator, T2: Rising Storm, and T2: The Future War.

They suggest yet another fork in the Terminator mythos.

I'm sorry to see the show go, but the deal breaker for me was the move to Friday night. I was already locked in to watching other stuff. However, Fox has a tendency to use Friday as a death slot for sci-fi (outside of the X-Files in the early 90s).

Space: Above and Beyond met the same fate (with Fox not even telling people that the second part of the series finale was being shown the next week). It's been off the air for years and I still resent the hell out of Fox's cancellation of it.

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

I agree: As diehard of a fan that I am, the move to Fridays meant I couldn't watch it that night any more, or with friends. Hello, people do things on Friday nights! I wonder if they wanted to recreate SciFi Channel's BSG/SGA nights?

I will look into those books! Thank you for the recs.

[were-duck.livejournal.com]

I HATED all my shows being on Fri nights. I also like to do stuff! And I often work late on Fridays! Thank goodness for Hulu, though I wonder if Hulu-watching instead of on-the-air watching contributed to low ratings? Whatever. Stupid Fox.

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

Insta-thoughts!

"I wanna know if being around them all the time can give you cancer." OMF John Connor is so smart! I never thought about that shit! But why wouldn't he have it, too??

Cancer doesn't work like that! It's not so simple. Plus John is young and healthy. Sarah is older and may have genetic predisposition to cancer, more environmental exposures, etc. We know from T3 that in alternate timeline she does die from cancer.

11% of her mass in 6 weeks?! That seems....impossible! How can that happen?

Well, yeah! That is why they think she is sick! Rapid weight loss. But keep in mind that she weighs maybe 100 pounds, so 10% of that is 10 pounds, over the course of 6 weeks. Which is still unhealthy but might not be noticeable because it's so gradual, unless you are Cameron and are a robot.

Also, I think Future!Cameron there might not be a cyborg. I think she might be a human that the cyborg is modeled after. Remember the weird Cameron dream/memory shit from a while back? It might have been season 1.

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

No, future Cameron was definitely not a cyborg: she was petting a dog, and dogs are used to mark Terminators: they bark incessantly when near them. Yeah, it was an episode in early season 2: Allison From Palmdale. And yes, I think that's who it was supposed to be.