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Post by Deep Art Frummy on Oct 30, 2008 22:45:44 GMT -5
Someone please tell me I'm not the only one? Part of my lack of activity on this forum has been due to me losing so much interest in this show. I mean, all summer I was so excited for its return, then I freaked out when I heard it might get cancelled about four episodes into season 2, then I really didn't even care that it recieved the additional back nine.
I don't know, I really wanted to like this season more than the first one, but it's just not happening. I really CAN'T STAND this terminator-of-the-week thing they have going on and it looks like that will continue to play a role into episode 10. Shirley's acting has gotten a bit better, but I really do think her character is useless. I just can't buy into any of her screen time, at all. Then, we move on to Sarah... ok, I realize this show is a partial drama, but why has she become more of a character from "Army Wives" than a drill instructor? Look, I don't want her to be "raging" 24/7, but the edge of her character has completely disappeared. Oh, and who is this Jesse girl? As if we needed any more people returning from the future. Sure, she might play a vital role right now (I think she may even be working for Skynet), but the addition of her character has completely flooded this show.
Now, my main complaint... John Connor and Cameron. First, where is this "new" John Connor we were supposed to get? Why is he still gloomy? Why is he not being aggressive? Why has their been no physical or mental training? Yes, I know he's 16. Yes, I know he's still finding himself, and yes, I know he went through a lot by killing Sarkissian and then Cameron almost killing him. However, why is his character so bland? Why can't their be any episodes where he's learning how to fight? Maybe martial arts and some artillery training? That would sure be night. Anyway, it's obvious that his hair was never the true issue with him... it's the way his character is portrayed.
Ok, as for Cameron... why is she still all messed up? I was happy with it going on for more than just one episode, but this Cameron is CLEARLY not as intrigueing as first season's Cameron. I really hate that a Summer Glau character has become so bland, that I could care less if she appears in the next episode or not. It almost appears that she becomes less knowledgeable as each episode goes by.
Well, that's about all I can muster up right now. I really hate to be a negative nancy, but this show is close to losing me as a viewer, for good. This is NOT EVEN CLOSE to what it was in the first season. It's simply become... boring, dull, and predictable. What happened to the complex themes?
Ugh, I hate this. Make this show interesting again.
EDIT: changed thread title
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Post by allergygal on Oct 30, 2008 23:20:27 GMT -5
I was doing a bit of grumbling myself in the EW thread, but the issues I have with this season aren't quite the same. I think for me it's all about a lack of perspective. Last season felt more intimate, like we were right there with the Connors. This season it's more like sitting in the audience watching from the outside. We're less drawn in, less compelled by the relationships and the struggles. I can't believe it's as simple as there being no Sarah VOs, but I'm sure that's at least part of it. There's also too much jumping around between characters and stories. And it's getting a bit LOST-ish with character-centric episodes. It feels kind of splintered. TSCC is still my favorite show on TV and I love it, but it's just not as captivating as last season yet. I'm hopeful that once we get past this John and Sarah business it'll feel more like TSCC again. Their relationship hitting a rocky period is fine, but I think it's grown stagnant. It needs to change one way or another soon.
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Post by Deep Art Frummy on Oct 30, 2008 23:23:42 GMT -5
Right.
I see what you're saying. I don't know, there's a lot of other things bothering me about the show, but I'm too tired to type it all out. I was also thinking that I may have lost interest since I got into "True Blood", which has been significantly better than season 2 of TSCC. It just feels like there's so much going on this show, but it's going at such a slow, repetitive pace.
I just really, really, REALLLLLLLY hate the terminator-of-the-week. It's extremely bad right now. It's overkill.
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k8ie
Corporal
Posts: 1,482
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Post by k8ie on Oct 30, 2008 23:36:23 GMT -5
"Always with the negative waves Moriarty, always with the negative waves." ;D I'm along for the ride. I'd like to see the voice overs back - I think they provide a consistent point of view, and entry into the narrative for the audience. And I'm always up for a tighter focus on Sarah, John and Cameron - and particularly Sarah since her name is on the door. But I want to see where the story's going. Especially if they blow up Jesse. I'd hate to miss Jesse getting blown up *hopes*. ;D
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Post by allergygal on Oct 30, 2008 23:38:57 GMT -5
I just really, really, REALLLLLLLY hate the terminator-of-the-week. It's extremely bad right now. It's overkill. Yeah, the show is definitely bordering on terminator-of-the-week, which concerns me too. We've only had one ep this season where someone didn't battle a terminator: ep1 - Cam vs John ep2 - Greenway vs Sarah & Cam ep3 - Cromartie vs John ep5 - nameless terminator vs John and Derek ep6 - nameless terminator vs Cameron I think they're trying to do a weekly story in addition to the long-arcs so it's easier for new viewers to pick up the show. But they should find a better way to balance it. I'd like to see that myself. Maybe Derek wil stick a block of C4 on her back ;D
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Post by Deep Art Frummy on Oct 30, 2008 23:44:16 GMT -5
^^^ Exactly.
Anyway, tomorrow I'll also add more of my concerns.
I'll keep watching the show, it's definitely not horrible by any stretch of the imagination. But (in my best sports analogy), it's like watching your favorite team go from being Playoff contenders to being in the middle of the pack. Basically, the show started off really explosive and showed endless potential and promise, but now it has really slowed down and has lost its identity.
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k8ie
Corporal
Posts: 1,482
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Post by k8ie on Oct 30, 2008 23:52:05 GMT -5
Eh, terminator of the week doesn't actually bother me at this point.
I kind of like the idea that John Connor and Skynet are fighting a proxy war in the past. Skynet has the resources to send back multiple terminators but John has foreknowledge of what happened when they arrived. Thematically, it's a very cool idea. Arguably, there could be more discussion of whether or not that's going on in the text. But I've enjoyed the episodes on their own quite a lot (even the ones I was totally wrong about) - the big difference between season one and season two is that I can go back and look at season one as a complete entity and see how all the pieces fit together. Season two is like a dark highway at night...
Even if I agreed with you, Deep, and I don't, I'm a Maple Leafs fan.
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schmacky
Major
"Make yourself useful."
Posts: 522
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Post by schmacky on Oct 31, 2008 0:15:33 GMT -5
I'm with K8ie that the Term of the week isn't bothering me right now.
FutureJohn and Skynet are playing a crazy game of Chess in the past, they're both moving around Pawns and Bishops and Queens.
My only big beef with the show is how the main characters don't really talk to each other that much. I'm sure they will eventually, but they've mostly interacted with random people than with each other in the past 6 episodes.
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traitorsgate
Sergeant
This is Cam. She's trained for an Off-World kick murder squad. Talk about Beauty and the Beast.
Posts: 264
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Post by traitorsgate on Oct 31, 2008 0:46:02 GMT -5
And therein lies the single biggest weakness of the entire franchise. The constant time travelling will be creating God only knows what changes to any potential time lines, and yet through all this where expected to just blindly accept the overly simple and some might say contrived idea that through all this John Connor remains at the heart of the entire story - no sorry it's just not working for me.
The original premise going back to T1 was that the time travel was a once off, only Kyle Reese and the Arnold Bot would come back. Since T2 that idea is gone, and with it any realistic chance for me to ever accept that John Connor can be Mankind's only hope, the endless possibilities of time travel made John Connor redundant in my mind.
So where does that leave TSCC? Well for me TSCC has a golden opportunity to genuinely breath new life into the Terminator franchise, a franchise that as far as I was concerned was dead & buried years ago. Unfortunately the Producers seem to be hell bent on squandering that opportunity. Few people would argue that the two most popular characters have been Sarah & Cameron, and yet Sarah is being increasingly sidelined and Cameron is in danger of being seen as the comic relief with naff one liners and Summer Glau quirkiness that the producers seem so enamoured with.
With FOX signing off on a full 22 episode run I'll be interested to see if the remaining episodes will just be a case of the Producers/Writers playing it safe with what is perceived as the Terminator Canon or whether their capable of being genuinely creative & original by pushing TSCC in a completely different direction. Thus far it appears that their content to just mark time and allow TSCC to be just a filler to drum up interest in the franchise for T4, and that would truly be a wasted opportunity.
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k8ie
Corporal
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Post by k8ie on Oct 31, 2008 1:27:51 GMT -5
Actually, I think TSCC is raising the possibility that John isn't necessarily going to become the leader of the resistance - for John to become a leader, Sarah needs to die. It's the one common thread in all the iterations of the Future!War story (very Freudian - child must kill the parent, etc). John's always become leader of the resistance because he was the only one there to do the job. No one else saw it coming. No one else understood what was happening. But now you have Sarah, Derek, John, Cameron - the weight is off John's shoulders in a sense... if you can overlook the fact that a machine, Skynet, doesn't understand the dynamic of parent-child relationships. That Sarah will never willing step aside and let John face Judgement Day and Future War alone as long as she's alive. So Skynet will keep on trying to kill John Connor, which is why Sarah and Derek and Cam protect him - really the only one likely to calculate that John Connor is no longer necessary to a future resistance is Cam and we don't know a) that she's not doing that already and b) whether her program would allow it. Sarah and Derek, not just because they're John's family but because they're soldiers and heroes are never going to stop preparing John for what's coming or protecting him.
All that said, it would be a kick to see what happened after John Connor got killed. But it would be a 50-50 chance that would be Sarah eating a bullet and then, not only is the show over, but humanity really would be screwed.
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traitorsgate
Sergeant
This is Cam. She's trained for an Off-World kick murder squad. Talk about Beauty and the Beast.
Posts: 264
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Post by traitorsgate on Oct 31, 2008 2:00:08 GMT -5
Well Hope Springs Eternal, what better way for TSCC to forge it's own path than to kill off John Connor. The combination of an emotionally devastated Sarah Connor continuing the fight while trying to come to terms with the death of her son with the added intrigue of the Cam Bot would make for compulsive viewing.
On the other hand, simply following the pre-ordained path that at some point Sarah dies and John grows into the role of leader of the Human resistance is just plain boring and unimaginative because we already know that story. By removing John Connor completely the Producers can be free to concentrate on the two things that have been popular ever since T1 - The Bots & Sarah Connor. So here's hoping the writers realise this, and have Sarah & Cameron front & centre, because nobody else really matters. After all the show is called Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles it's about time that the Producers/Writers are reminded of this small point before they squander the rest of the series.
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Post by richardstevenhack on Oct 31, 2008 2:57:38 GMT -5
I don't have TOO much trouble with the "Terminator of the week" bit, but as Zack said, hopefully they're going to tone that down in the upcoming episodes and give Cromartie more of a run - until he gets killed, which is likely in the next couple of episodes. (I mean, really, somebody digs him up later? Or maybe they buried him? What happened to the "thermite never leave a piece behind" bit? The Connors should be carrying thermite grenades with them at all times!)
But I agree that the story arc is progressing far too slowly, and the Connors are just BUMBLING AROUND to a degree which is embarrassing for people who are supposed to be "heroes".
And the Caminator is definitely underused - although according to the front page, we have an episode coming up where we find out what she does at night - probably a stripper at a men's club, if putting Stephanie Jacobsen in a bikini is any indication.
If the writers can't figure out how to make Cameron interesting again, I have plenty of ideas. Right now, she's being used as a "heavy lifter" and the butt of jokes and that's about it. The fight againt the female Terminator was good and fun and definitely needed, but it still felt that it was put in just to mollify the audience who hasn't seen anything of interest with Cameron since episode one and episode four.
I know not every episode can be about every one of the characters of course. And Cameron has had TWO episodes mostly about her this season, which is reasonable given that, as I've said, she's about fifty percent of the show. But we need to see more DEVELOPMENT of Cameron when she is used, not just the source of mild comedy.
But the real problem is not the focus on one character or the other, but the increase in negative characterization of all the characters at the expense of the story arc. As others have noted, John is going off the deep end, Sarah is going off the deep end, Derek is floundering with no direction, Cameron has been rendered questionable, and Catherine Weaver is just moving right along with her plans with the Connors none the wiser - and it's not clear Ellison has a clue, thus reprising his cluelessness of season one.
As I've said, tricks like having some guy from the future drop in every once in a while to point the Connors in the right direction is basically a lazy gimmick as opposed to developing a story that allows the Connors to deal effectively with their end of the war.
Basically the Connors are starting to "jump the shark".
And that's bad for the ratings and the future of the show.
Now this coming week we have the Connors house being robbed by somebody connected to a DENTIST? I can understand Sarah's complaint about "being collectors for your fence". But I can also understand Derek's anger in the scene where he complains to Sarah that "our security doesn't work, and that boy is behaving more like John Baum than John Connor every day". I was pleased to see him bitching at Sarah rather than the reverse for a change.
But this is precisely what I've been saying in posts here. The Connors are bumbling amateurs. They need someone to come in, take over and show them how it's done - how to start and conduct an actual resistance and counter-Skynet plan. It's clear Derek can't do it - although if given a chance, he might be better at it than Sarah. Even that would be an improvement over Sarah spending all her time agonizing over how she's a failure as a mother.
It seems that they simply didn't get the fact that the female Terminator in last episode was sent to protect the psychologist. They simply overlooked the logic of the Terminator eliminating the secretary. The psychologist TOLD John his secretary was absent and the temp agency was sending someone over. But John didn't put two and two together and realize that this meant the Terminator was intended as a replacement for the secretary - and thus that she was intended to protect the psychologist who is clearly going to be instrumental in creating Skynet.
And the obvious course once you figure that out is to turn the psychologist to your side, debrief him, discover Catherine Weaver and "The Turk" and bam - you're back in business at destroying Skynet!
Granted, it enhances the suspense when the heroes screw up. But I prefer to see my heros NOT screw up. I prefer to see my heroes just get hit with bigger and bigger challenges instead. They can lose one once in the while - but not through blatant incompetence. Sometimes you just can't win. But so far the Connors have won mostly through blind luck - Cameron fixes herself, Cromartie can't swim, there's a tar pit nearby, guys from the future drop in with a list of objectives in blood, etc.
It's not an issue of whether John Connor is no longer the "sole savior" of mankind. It's clear he never was except in the back story of the franchise, and I think the T-4 movie will establish that. Even here in this series, we have Derek praising Marty as the guy who actually provided the experience to John to start the resistance.
Every resistance needs a figurehead and a leader and John is tagged as it, whether he likes it or not. What is needed is somebody who can come in and show him how - how he needs to deal with his issues, how he can start organizing the resistance NOW BEFORE Judgment Day, how he can plan to stop Skynet before it ever gets started and even if Skynet does come into existence, how he can keep the edge by thinking outside the box and beyond the thinking of military guys like Derek and Marty. There's a lot of obvious things from the internal logic of the franchise that could be explored in episodes that would flesh out the character AND be compelling and action-packed drama.
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traitorsgate
Sergeant
This is Cam. She's trained for an Off-World kick murder squad. Talk about Beauty and the Beast.
Posts: 264
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Post by traitorsgate on Oct 31, 2008 3:46:57 GMT -5
I think thus far the general underuse/misuse of Derek has been one of the main problems with season 2. In season 1 his introduction was arguably one of the key points that probably saved the series, as it was at the time in serious danger of slipping into the absurd territory of the trials and tribulations of High School life for John Connor and his trusty Bot protector Cameron. Derek's arrival was a timely reminder of what this show was meant to be about. Since then he's been for the most part just sitting in the corner brooding. As the only one with any real combat experience it's Derek who should be in Sarah's ear every waking moment about what she needs to do. There's nothing more counter-productive than the person who snipes from the corner without ever stepping forward to proffer an opinion - either put up, or shut up.
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Post by allergygal on Oct 31, 2008 6:08:04 GMT -5
GENERAL REMINDER TO EVERYONE: This thread was started as a spot to express some frustrations with season 2, but please remember to keep your comments respectful of the creative team that brings us this show. If we didn't all love TSCC, we wouldn't even be in here, right? So keep that in mind when posting.
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Post by Deep Art Frummy on Oct 31, 2008 11:33:42 GMT -5
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