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Post by aceplace57 on Apr 9, 2009 19:51:40 GMT -5
Season 2 is almost over. Here's a thread we can discuss possible changes to the show during the long summer hiatus.
If Fox gives TSCC another chance. The show will have to make changes. What they're doing obviously isn't drawing a wide enough base of fans. It can't survive without better ratings.
Josh has started the process by clearing out nearly all the supporting characters. We'll soon know if the Zeira Corp family (Weaver, Savannah, John Henry, Ellison) has any chance of continuing into the next season.
Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker, and Summer Glau are the core of the show and I'm confidant they'll be back. John Connor may end this season alone, but it's very unlikely they'd attempt a full season with just this one character.
Let's discuss changes that would improve the show and make it more appealing to more casual sci-fi fans.
I'll start by suggesting they ramp up the action.
1. The Connors need to be chased and pursued in nearly every episode. Either by skynet operatives (bad guy humans or Terminators), police or even military intelligence. By chased, I mean we should see short scenes with investigators interviewing people, checking last know addresses, and tightening the net around the Connors.
2. There should be more close calls. Create a police task force to hunt them down. Crank up the pressure. The Connors should be changing addresses constantly. They should always be only a few steps away from discovery by either the police or skynet.
3. Create a bigger presence for the fledgling skynet. Skynet is hidden from the public eye, but it's like a spiderweb that stretches everywhere. That way the Connors have hard targets they can hunt down and destroy. They need more bad guys like Winston. Humans motivated by greed that are unwittingly helping skynet.
4. Take away the Connor's riches. Write a few episodes where generating $$ to fund the war takes priority. They may have to compete against and outwit criminals to get the $$ needed. Criminal enemies are another group that can pursue the Connors.
5. A lot of research projects are military funded. The Connors may have to battle military intelligence to stop these projects. Those guys play rough. Great source of episodes.
This show needs to rock the action. Keep people glued to the seats. Dare them to even think about changing the channel.
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timstuff
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Post by timstuff on Apr 9, 2009 22:09:00 GMT -5
I had an idea for a Season 3 villain: Bad Sarah It's possible that in the current timeline, Skynet has collected enough data to create a T-888 "double" of Sarah Connor and send her back, in an attempt to replace her and get to John, hopefully for a more interesting reason than simply trying to kill him. Technically this idea has already been done in T2, since the T-1000 planned to and eventually did take the shape of Sarah Connor, but there's something I find intriguing about the idea of an evil terminator who permanently looks like Sarah, stalking the connors. I wouldn't want the "Bad Sarah" storyline to last a whole season, mind you, but I think it could make for a very interesting arc.
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schmacky
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Post by schmacky on Apr 9, 2009 22:22:02 GMT -5
I had an idea for a Season 3 villain: Bad Sarah It's possible that in the current timeline, Skynet has collected enough data to create a T-888 "double" of Sarah Connor and send her back, in an attempt to replace her and get to John, hopefully for a more interesting reason than simply trying to kill him. Technically this idea has already been done in T2, since the T-1000 planned to and eventually did take the shape of Sarah Connor, but there's something I find intriguing about the idea of an evil terminator who permanently looks like Sarah, stalking the connors. I wouldn't want the "Bad Sarah" storyline to last a whole season, mind you, but I think it could make for a very interesting arc. HAHA! That'd be totally badass! I like that idea
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Post by vicheron on Apr 9, 2009 22:54:37 GMT -5
The Connors need to destroy all government and records about themselves. There's too much information about Sarah out there. The only thing Skynet should know about Sarah is that she was in Los Angeles in 1984.
It may be time for Skynet to start establishing government connections. Tech companies should be lobbying politicians to modernize the military. Maybe Skynet needs to engineer a military "accident," perhaps at Cheyenne Mountain, to convince politicians that the computer systems must be upgraded to remove human error. This would of course all lead up to the Skynet Funding Bill.
Money will never be a problem for the Connors as long as they're together. They can always steal cars and sell them to chop shops. Cameron can easily earn money with that nice super computer brain of her's.
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Post by aceplace57 on Apr 10, 2009 15:22:11 GMT -5
I like that idea. ;D That could really shake things up.
I've wondered if Season 3 should start a little later in John's life? They've told the boy becomes a man story. But, at 17 John is still too young to start taking charge. The Connors may need to go off the grid and hide for a couple years. Let all the police searches quiet down. John could come back in S3 as an emerging leader. At 19 that would be more believable.
Jumping ahead a couple years means baby Skynet is more developed. It's tentacles would be everywhere. There would be more specific targets for the Connors to battle and destroy.
It's something to consider.
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k8ie
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Post by k8ie on Apr 10, 2009 15:56:58 GMT -5
Jumping ahead a couple years means baby Skynet is more developed. It's tentacles would be everywhere. There would be more specific targets for the Connors to battle and destroy. It would also let them update the John/Sarah dynamic. I think Josh & the writer's room, Thomas and Lena did an excellent job of showing the growing pains as John leaves childhood behind and starts becoming an adult. But now that we've seen the beginning of that road, I wouldn't mind jumping ahead a couple of years to see how 18-year-old John works with Sarah and Cameron. He's still "John Connor", she's still "Mom" but I'd love to see the writers and actors sink their teeth into a scenario where John and Sarah operate more Batman and Nightwing than Batman and Robin (yes, Sarah's Batman in this scenario).
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Post by vicheron on Apr 10, 2009 16:24:58 GMT -5
Judgment Day is still in 2011. If they jump ahead a few years, then it'll only be a few months before the end of the world.
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k8ie
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Post by k8ie on Apr 10, 2009 16:38:36 GMT -5
^^ We don't actually know that.
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Post by vicheron on Apr 10, 2009 17:07:36 GMT -5
We may not know that but the Connors still think that Judgment Day is in 2011, especially considering what happened after T2. Not to mention the fact that they know that there are still Terminators around. If we skip ahead 2 to 3 years, we're going to miss a lot of stuff.
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timstuff
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Post by timstuff on Apr 10, 2009 18:23:00 GMT -5
I'm going to vote no on the "jumping ahead" business. Judgment Day is likely as soon as 2011 or maybe even sooner, and I don't want them to skip over all the character development that leads up to it.
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rossbondreturns
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Post by rossbondreturns on Apr 10, 2009 18:39:57 GMT -5
As a writer I certainly wouldn't jump ahead by a few years...days almost certainly...weeks possibly...but months or years no.
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timstuff
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Post by timstuff on Apr 11, 2009 0:29:41 GMT -5
We all got pwned, or at least 1/3 pwned. John is stuck 20 years in the future, far away from his #1 Cyborg and his mom's pancakes.
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Post by vargatom on Apr 13, 2009 11:49:35 GMT -5
I think that the season finale is clearly not meant to be an ending, as it opens far too many doors, plot threads and possible conflicts... It's already clear that the writers plan to explore a future without John Connor, and look into how Skynet's plan to kill him in 2008 would actually work out (whether he's dead or skipping the years by time travel does not matter). Also, John has to first survive in this new environment, probably by becoming a fighter himself. He has to either help protect Weaver's true identity, or make the resistance accept her as an ally (T1001s might not even exist in this future). His relationships with the Reese brothers and Allison could also be explored, and he could even meet Jessie and Riley again. With Weaver, they would have to find and maybe protect JH/Cameron, and accomplish whatever mission he has in the future (probably finding new, advanced hardware to run JH on in the present). John's meeting with Cameron in Cromartie's body could be pretty interesting, too. They would also probably have to find or build a time displacement device eventually, as it's far better to stop Skynet in the present then trying to salvage whatever's left after Judgment Day. It could also be possible that this version of Skynet has evolved from the AI associated with Kaliba, and thus it could recognize and target John, trying to prevent his return to the present. In 2008, Sarah would have to go into hiding as she has been presented as a dangerous terrorist, and her chaotic escape from prison and the subsequent deaths and destruction at ZeiraCorp certainly did not help. She could even be charged with Weaver's murder But she has to stay in LA because that's where Kaliba is, and where John would probably appear if he's to return from the future. Once the other half of the cast is back, they could join the fight against Kaliba and Skynet. They could also bring back someone unexpected from the future by accident, like Derek (or even Kyle - although that would be too much IMHO). Obviously they should also restore Cameron, either by repairing her original body in 2008 or finding a new one in the future (which could also involve sacrificing Allison...) The introduction of John Henry as a benevolent AI and new ally is important in many ways. He could provide intelligence, help to cover up the Connor's tracks, maybe even become a formidable fighter on his own if he gets to keep Cromartie's body. Also, fully stopping Skynet before would have required the complete destruction of every single Terminator including Cameron so her story would have had to had a tragic ending. However with JH's presence, her continued existence would no longer be be a risk. I also think that Weaver in 2008 would be a far too big advantage for the Connors as she's practically indestructible, so the writers would eventually have to get rid of her somehow. Finally, there still are some unanswered questions from the first two seasons, like Cameron's full story, her connection to Derek, the unnamed resistance fighter who provided the bloody clues, and of course the whole Kaliba issue. And all these events would shake up the existing relationships between the characters as well, like John becoming more independent from her mother, or Ellison going underground with Sarah, or Cameron gaining new abilities from sharing her chip with John Henry. So there's plenty of story there, lots of drama and action, and all of these could make the third season the best so far. With the added attention from the Salvation movie, the Terminator series could both keep the existing fans (after this finale, they're 100% guaranteed to keep watching, actually a lot of other people have regained interest after seeing the praise that the last few episodes have received) and increase its ratings. It would make a lot more sense to keep this show instead of trying to replace it with something that starts from zero. I really hope that Fox will see this potential and order a third season, at the very least another 13 episodes...
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Rift
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Post by Rift on Apr 16, 2009 18:49:34 GMT -5
I almost wonder if they’d actually go the whole showing 2 separate times route or if maybe they’d have John and whoever goes back with him show up in the season premiere or so just to reveal what happened while he was in the future through flashbacks/forwards throughout the season like they did with Derek and Jesse. I also wonder if to John it will feel like he was gone longer than it does for Sarah or vise versa.
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timstuff
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Post by timstuff on Apr 16, 2009 19:42:51 GMT -5
There are a lot of places they can go with the alternate future timeline. The thing they have to be careful of though, is how long they keep the Connor family broken apart, because that would deprive us of the main cast's chemistry. Currently Sarah is in 2009, John is in 2027, and Cameron is deactivated. We'll have Dekker interacting with BAG and Summer Glau, but the latter two are gong to be quite a bit different, since Derek no longer knows John and Allison is a completely new character. I'd say a 3 episode arch of John in the future could work out pretty well, but if they go on longer than that they're going to start tyring the audience's patience, and that could be dangerous. People will want to see John, Sarah, and Cameron back together as soon as possible methinks.
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