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Post by littleb on Oct 6, 2009 9:18:18 GMT -5
On a bit of a rewatch thanks to the DVD release and I think I missed out on S&D first time around... so what the hell.
I remember watching this sneakily online the day after it aired and loving it. I've seen it since, of course, but mainly now only in bits. The other night was the first full rewatch for a goodly while and y'know what - with a little critical perspective regained - it's not the best of episodes IMO.
From the point of view of a show attempting to re-establish itself and gain new viewers, opening your episode with approx. 8 minutes of grainy, dialogue-free, slo-mo set to a rock song might not have been the best idea. Actually, it was a pretty crap idea, and should probably never have gotten past the white-board.
There were plenty of good moments in what was essentially a pretty simple Terminator-chase episode:
Sarah asking for sanctuary in the church. I don't know why exactly, but I've always loved that scene.
Cameron nonchalantly stapling her face back together.
"Can you walk? Good cos we gotta run."
Derek with his possessive snark-on (thing of beauty!),
The car accident - nice stunt. (Although realistically, due to a seeming inability to EVER FASTEN THEIR SEATBELTS they'd have been thrown fifty yards out of the windows and died horribly)
Sarah's little smirk when Cameron's telling her to call for John. I love that "yeah, yeah, do I look like I'm going to call for him?" private laugh of disbelief.
Summer Glau acting her socks off whilst trapped between two trucks. Good effort.
Derek eating the snarkiest PB&J butty ever.
Sarah wishing her son a happy birthday on the birthday which must surely rate quite a way below the one on which she bought him a flak jacket...
But the bad stuff. Hmmm.
"How's your leg? Is your head still bleeding? We've gotta get off the street." I'm guessing this line was over-dubbed as an after-thought because it sounds bloody awful and there's nothing Lena can do with it.
The scene with Ellison and the debrief FBI dude still fills me with WTF?! The choices made by the actor (and I'm guessing David Nutter calling the shots must also shoulder some of the blame) are utterly bizarre to the point where you're left wondering whether he's actually supposed to be metal. And then he isn't, he never reappears and you're still left with WTF?!
John stabbing that knife in the bread board. Didn't work. If I'd been Sarah, I'd have just slapped him and told him to get a grip. Besides, can't take the lad seriously with that hair.
Charley riding around LA in his own private ambulance on his own private missions because apparently no one else in LA that day had a heart attack or a stroke, or fell over drunk or broke their leg...
I'm struggling to get past the utter stupidity shown by the supposed Leader of the Future. I know he was traumatised (and with retrospect we know how very traumatised) but the thermite scene was so badly conceived and written that it works on no level whatsoever. After dusting Cameron's chip with a cloth, John sticks it back in and blithely tells his terrified mother that there's "only one way to find out" whether or not his pet robot will actually kill him. No, a world of no. Because, well, just NO. It makes him look like an idiot and right at that point, it might have been safer for humanity had Cameron popped a cap in his head and had done with it.
I know the scene was establishing the rift between Sarah and John that would sadly run for most of S2, and it all looked very pretty with the flames and the sparks and the me and my robot V the rest of you dynamic. But a) I wish they'd just not gone there at all and b) if they had to, they should have written something better than that.
I'd forgotten how very much I ended up disliking John in this episode. I fully accept that I'm all ra-ra! Go Sarah! and part of my dislike is firmly rooted in how utterly terrible he is to his mother in this one, but still, he doesn't come out of it well at all. I could understand numbness, shock, or John just withdrawing after the attic trauma, but turning him into a pissy little upstart did him - and the episode, and probably new viewers - no favours at all.
So, fun at the time, but looking back - without the rosy glow that inevitably comes with a brand new season - there've certainly been better.
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schmacky
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Post by schmacky on Oct 7, 2009 0:58:21 GMT -5
Wow.
You speak complete truth. Nice read. I have nothing to add because I agree with you
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Post by littleb on Oct 7, 2009 8:46:47 GMT -5
Wow. You speak complete truth. Nice read. I have nothing to add because I agree with you LOL. I think I needed a place to vent A lot of S2 eps stand up beautifully to repeat viewings or just have minor moments that make you wince a little before you forgive them. This one had holes large enough for Sarah to crash a truck through and too many poor character-beats to make it an effective opener. I wonder how many people watching the show for the first time, failed to tune in again because John was portrayed so unsympathetically and acted like such an arse. Consequently, they might not have stuck around for the whole Sarkissian story to unravel itself which is a shame.
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t101
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Post by t101 on Oct 7, 2009 18:03:42 GMT -5
Are you people this angry when John pulls the same stunts for his mother?
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k8ie
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Post by k8ie on Oct 7, 2009 19:29:13 GMT -5
"You people"? That's not a very nice way of entering the conversation. Perhaps you'd like to try again without the attitude?
As for S&D I haven't rewatched but I agree with LB there are some problems with the idea of John holding a gun on Sarah and Derek to reboot Cameron.
For one thing, I thought it was dramatically un-earned.
Because JF & co decide to obscure what happened in the upstairs room (to ultimately no purpose), the only serious threat in the episode is Cameron. If ever a boy was going to get a lesson in why Terminators make dangerous house pets, you'd like the preceding 30 minutes of television would be it. Apparently not. So the moment comes out of left field. This is accentuated by the fact that John's attachment to Cameron in this episode is out of proportion to their actual interaction in the previous nine episodes. Basing your characterization on fanon? Never a good thing.
Finally, up to this point, Cameron hadn't been portrayed as a particularly vital part of the war against Skynet - yeah, she's a Terminator but she's shifty, she's untrustworthy and she doesn't appear to have any useful intelligence.
What S&D fails to provide is a reason WHY John is prepared to pull a gun on his mom, his uncle and his would-be-father to test a dangerous theory about Cameron. Frankly, pretty face isn't good enough. Canonically, John at 13 was mature enough to understand why Uncle Bob - a far more useful and trustworthy ally - had to be smelted down at the end of T2. That John at 16 suddenly has a wild hair about the Terminator that nearly killed him, nearly killed his mother doesn't hold up to close scrutiny (nor btw does Cameron leaving Sarah alive).
And this is where JF's decision to obscure the events in the upper room really sinks the episode because the one reason that John has, that the audience could immediately grasp and empathize with, is that John's just killed a man who was trying to kill his mother. Something you can believe John can believe that Cameron could have/would have prevented if she'd been there.
Instead John looks like a petulant kid who's refusing to let them put down Ol' Yeller.
A better episode, a stronger episode would have been one that let the audience in on John killing Sarkissian or created a stronger external threat to the Connor family, including Cameron, than Cameron herself presented. The threat Cromartie presents is too difuse and too removed from the Connors in S&D compared to Cameron nearly killing John and Sarah multiple times.
So instead of John coming out of S&D looking like a kid who'd just taken a big step into adulthood and found it unpleasant, he looks like a petulant boy who put his crush above the future of the human race. Sarah looks like she's been cut off at the knees by said petulant child (and to a lesser extent, Derek) and the segment of the audience not interested or invested in boy-robot love (and judging by the ratings, I'd say that's about 4 million of them), is left wondering WTF just happened.
That said, S&D sets up interesting character dynamics but you could have had those plotlines - John & Sarah's mutual anger & distrust, John going over her head to resurrect Cameron, Derek's disgust with the whole group, Cameron's new-found self-doubt - without alienating either Sarah or John's fans, confusing the audience or detonating established characterization.
Basically? If they'd shown us John killing Sarkissian in the first frelling place, it would have been a stronger episode all-round.
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schmacky
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Post by schmacky on Oct 7, 2009 23:39:40 GMT -5
Wow.
You speak truth too. I love you gals
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t101
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Post by t101 on Oct 8, 2009 3:28:00 GMT -5
"You people"? That's not a very nice way of entering the conversation. Perhaps you'd like to try again without the attitude? English isn't my first language. Was that rude? I apologise then. But then perhaps you are misinterpreting my attitude because it's me questioning yours in relation to this disliked subject matter? Honestly all I wanted to know is if it is your personal dislike for a particular plot point and direction is what gets you riled up as opposed to what you see as an objective mistake in characterization. Is that what you think happened? You are sure you aren't thinking your own fanon better fits the writer's canon interpretation? John is not basing his decisions on logic at all. I don't agree with this. I thought there were plenty of hints including in the acting to see everything necessary. I thought that was not the point at all. The point was that the boy was broken and took a rather stupid leap of faith because he couldn't take it anymore. I do not have a problem with it in the one beginning episode, the problem was that they took this one moment of weakness and ran with it throughout the entire season, including into the ending. I think you are really projecting your dislike onto the masses with the ratings comment. Given the general (unfortunate) trend throughout the show regardless of what happened on screen.
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Post by littleb on Oct 9, 2009 4:05:34 GMT -5
Are you people this angry when John pulls the same stunts for his mother? LOL. Oh honey, you ain't never seen me angry. That was me being retrospectively critical. Which - I think - is allowed... As for S&D I haven't rewatched but I agree with LB there are some problems with the idea of John holding a gun on Sarah and Derek to reboot Cameron. For one thing, I thought it was dramatically un-earned. That's a perfect way to put it. It came across as a snark against his mother and nothing else. There was, ostensibly (given the information we had to hand), nothing more concrete underlying it than that. John can't turn around and yell "she saves my life" when Cameron's just spent the episode attempting to kill him and Sarah, and not expect people to raise an eyebrow. So, John, she saves your life when she's not chasing you, wrecking your car, lobbing a wrench at you and stomping all over your mum? Given the events of the ep, his actions were all over the place, motive-free and ultimately made him look ridiculous. Fanon. <snorts> I love that word. I've never heard the word before but I love it. True though, the TLF thing was going on outside of the episodes, it had never actually been a big thing within the show. The closest hint was Vick's Chip with the googly eyes on the bed and John's reaction to Cameron's "I love you" in this one, but the whole "I'll risk my life on a whim and piss everyone off" came straight out of the blue and therefore goes down as John being an idiot. But with a lack of other reasons, that was seemingly what it boiled down to, which of course, points us straight back to the John = Idiot card. And we're supposed to empathise with him??? I wanted to slap him upside his head. Which is totally what Sarah should've done. Or Derek. Or Charley. Actually, all three. True. I guess I would have been willing to cut him a little slack in that case, but I still wish they'd have portrayed him as the battle-scarred veteran that Sherman saw as opposed to pissy little upstart, acting up out of spite that Friedman went for. John's better than that, he has to be better than that and the character-beats in The Tower were lovely in comparison. Perfectly put. Actually, I guess it comes full-circle to BTR where he looks exactly the same and acts with about as much intelligence and maturity. Hell, maybe Friedman knew exactly where he was going and it was all cyclical and thematic 'n' stuff. And someone should've stepped right on up to the plate and stopped him. Yeah, no one comes out of it looking particularly good. Which isn't the best way to start a new season. Oh, I do wish they hadn't gone there. Everything was so nice! Oh but don't you know? It's all about the Jameron... oh sorry, that was bitter. But then, I spent £40 on the DVD set so I think I can be forgiven for getting that impression <grinds teeth at extras> You can't advertise your new season with "A Boy Becomes a Man" and then have him actually act like an infant. That's just all wrong. John needed to take on responsibility, to make decisions and show signs of leadership, but instead he looks like someone discovering hormones for the first time which is something else entirely. He had a lot to do to earn back respect for his character after this... and Mousetrap... he was a prat in that one as well. It wasn't even like it was a big sekrit or something you couldn't at least have guessed (despite the misleading podcast or whatever Friedman put out.) If the show intimated that Sarah did it and you've got John acting up, then I kinda assumed it was leaning towards John. It gave the show some interesting places to go in future episodes, but for me, got it all wrong in this one. Wow. You speak truth too. I love you gals <LOL> K8ie speaks it far more eloquently than I do! I think it's just nice to be chatting about the show again We should do it more often.
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k8ie
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Post by k8ie on Oct 9, 2009 12:17:27 GMT -5
In general, prefacing a statement or question in English with "you people" reads as hostile and/or rude.
If John's feelings for Cameron were so extreme that he would put her existence above his family, then that was something the writers need to have shown onscreen and it wasn't there in the first 9 episodes. As i recall, he spends most of his time trying to avoid thinking about Cam that way and trying to get in with Cheri.
That's my point.
If that's the case, why hide the fact? Why have Sarah lie about what happened in the scene with Derek. Why make a point of it being a big flipping deal in THE TOWER IS TALL?
Obscuring the details added nothing to the episode and took away a chance for the audience to connect with what John was feeling. Hints are fine and good but they're intellectual clues not emotional ones. In a story like S&D - and to a larger extent, THE TERMINATOR - part of what makes it work is keeping the audience in the character's headspace. Everytime the audience has to stop and think about character motivations or which character is lying or why is John so freaking upset it takes them out of the moment.
John choosing to resurrect Cameron only works if you empathize with John in that moment. A significant chunk of the audience did not and continued to be put off by his characterization throughout the season. Ergo, the moment fails and, by extension, the episode fails on this point.
My problem is that's exactly not how John came across to me.
I completely agree there because, if you go by the end of BTR, John's learned absolutely nothing all season so, really, WTF is the point?
No, I'm not. I kept watching.
But lots of people didn't and lots of people dropped out after the first few episodes of Season Two, and lots that dropped out after the show came back in February. There's a hell of a lot that's brilliant about the writing and characterization on TSCC but by choosing to reboot the story and character relationships by blowing them apart in S&D, JF & co sacrified the narrative continuity with Season One and, ultimately, about half the audience really didn't like it.
I read the reviews, I followed all the blogs for main page updates, this has nothing to do with my dislike. Frankly, while I hated a lot of what they did with John and Sarah, I'm a performance whore and Lena Headey and Thomas Dekker and Summer Glau made each epiosde worth watching. I liked that I wasn't spoon-fed characterization or plot but, at the same time, the writers tended to gloss over things that the audience needed to know to empathize. It wasn't that the casual viewer couldn't get behind the Terminator mythology. It was that the casual viewer (and not infrequently regulars) had no frelling idea half the time what was going on between the main characters: Sarah's in a funk, John's being a prat, Derek's more interested in bedding his girlfriend and Cameron's... well, Cameron sort of falls off the page for nine episodes - what the hell happened to the fight for the future?
"John killed the man who was assaulting his mother and neither he or Sarah can get over it." is not a story beat that should be left to the audience to intuit over the course of one episode, let alone SIX. You put a period on that stuff because otherwise part of your audience is confused and casual viewers sure as hell don't know what's going on and, ultimately, you blow a major moment and the first half of your season on a character interaction that ultimately goes nowhere.
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Post by littleb on Oct 13, 2009 3:40:41 GMT -5
If that's the case, why hide the fact? Why have Sarah lie about what happened in the scene with Derek. In S&D it was easier for Sarah to allow Derek to assume she killed Sarkissian. I think in that ep she just didn't have the energy to set him straight on the facts, which kinda worked for that moment. In Tower, they needed the big reveal about John to come out through the therapy so sacrificed common sense in the writing by not letting Sarah make the reveal to Derek. Which is a shame, because that would have made for an interesting scene. I mean, I love that scene as it is (just cos... well, it's Sarah and Derek!), but it would have been more interesting had she actually told him the truth there. If we take the character motivations as black and white as given by the show... John ostensibly was pissed at Sarah for killing a man who was trying to kill them both. Which just plain doesn't work. So you have to run against that, assume that something sekrit happened and consequently come quite easily to the conclusion that John is either a prize pillock, or he killed Sarkissian himself (and is still a bit of a pillock.) Either way, John didn't come out of it well. Although, the writing for his character and Dekker's acting in Tower... just about pulled it out of the mire. Wasn't keen on the six episodes of subterfuge, but I am very fond of that ep. They'd only had that good stuff for 9 episodes. It wasn't long enough. All of a sudden, Sarah and John are torn apart, Cameron's all over the place or not there at all, Derek's off playing with Jesse every week, Ellison's being a prat... That's something you can do if you get a third season, not something you do after a first season that lasted for 9 episodes. I actually loved S2, there were some fabulous episodes in it, but looking back - knowing the show got cancelled - I wonder whether it would have been stronger to keep the characters playing on the same side for a little longer, as opposed to breaking everything into pieces.
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k8ie
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Post by k8ie on Oct 17, 2009 19:53:29 GMT -5
If that's the case, why hide the fact? Why have Sarah lie about what happened in the scene with Derek. In S&D it was easier for Sarah to allow Derek to assume she killed Sarkissian. I think in that ep she just didn't have the energy to set him straight on the facts, which kinda worked for that moment. In Tower, they needed the big reveal about John to come out through the therapy so sacrificed common sense in the writing by not letting Sarah make the reveal to Derek. Which is a shame, because that would have made for an interesting scene. I mean, I love that scene as it is (just cos... well, it's Sarah and Derek!), but it would have been more interesting had she actually told him the truth there. I understand why in the show we're to believe Sarah let Derek think it was her. But that decision was made in the writers room and it was IMO really, really bad. Nothing is gained from waiting until episode six to reveal that John's having trouble dealing with the universe giving him justifiable homicide for his 16th birthday. And it's clearly intended to be a revelation - the set up, the direction, the editing of "Tower" all set up the final flashback to Sarky as A Big Reveal, which makes it a double failure because I think I was the only one fooled (at least on this board). As you point out, either the audience bought Friedman & co's misdirection (and btw I loathe it when TV writers mess with the audience's perception of what happened on-screen off-screen. Loathe.), or they come to the conclusion that John killed Sarky (and most did) but that still doesn't explain why he acts the way he does in S&D or towards Sarah. Having spent nine episodes setting up John's desperate need for Sarah's attention and respect, he saves her for a change and all he does at rage at her. Driven by guilt and self-loathing or not that note always felt forced as if having decided to amp up John's stake in Future!War (and one hates to say it but make him look more badass) by killing someone, they have to go to pains to show us that killing is bad and John is tortured by it. But what he mostly looks like a petulant brat. Samson & Delilah was an exciting hour of TV but as a chapter of an on-going story, it has serious structural and tonal problems. Intended as a game-changer, the episode is an introduction to another, completely different and, ultimately, less satisfying game. Whether they were the fault of FOX meddling or not, I think the way they spun Sarah, John and Cameron's arcs from that episode over the course of the season was ultimately detrimental to the show. Hindsight is 20-20, of course, but even though I eventually got what Friedman was after when he said "How do you build John Connor up without tearing Sarah Connor down? I don't think you can", it was a mistake to pull that relationship apart without having something else in the structure of the show to replace it, not even an overt conflict between mother and son. The idea to replay the end of T2 with John saving the robot is strong, building off widely known character and plot beats from the movies. But that idea creates its own natural tension between Sarah and John that didn't need to be multiplied by John and Sarky and "Why didn't you save me". Or overshadowed by it. It's unfortunate that in the wake of the writers' strike they made the decision to throw PTSD and John's burgeoning A-holishness (and now we understand why Future!John has no friends) into the mix instead of pick up the high school storyline (which would also have integrated Riley into the game much more believably) and let John and Sarah fracture apart over Cameron naturally. Instead Cameron becomes this thing that Sarah just sucks up and never discusses with John until the end of the season. All the reasons why John's decision to revive Cameron were OOC hold doubly true for Sarah for whom Cameron had consistently proven an unreliable asset even before she tried to kill Sarah's son. It fundamentally undermined Sarah's authority in a way that doesn't help the series - particulary the moment when we're meant to believe Sarah watches John reboot Cameron because John's holding a gun on her? We were seriously meant to believe Sarah thought for an instant John would shoot her? Cow-pucky. The weaker Sarah is in relation to John, the less John has to fight against. What was great about bringing Derek into the mix in the first place was that he provided a strong antagonist for Sarah. The interplay between Cameron's lack of affect and Sarah's hostility was often dramatically static (Sarah looked like she was kicking the puppy). In comparison, the overtly-hostile and grudgingly-cooperative back and forth between Sarah and Derek crackled because Sarah was fighting within her own weightclass so to speak. So when we see Sarah's authority with John undermined in relation to Cameron and to Riley suddenly John's not rebelling against his paranoid mother (BTW paranoia is an unreasonable fear - Sarah's fears have always been extremely empirical) he's being an unreasonable twerp. It's a bad fit for the character particularly when you've established in a scene not 10 minutes earlier that John still has that habit of obeying Sarah when push comes to shove (or when Terminator confessing her love to him is trapped between two trucks).
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rossbondreturns
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Post by rossbondreturns on Oct 18, 2009 1:56:37 GMT -5
As one of the resident writers round here I gotta say I loved S and D. Loved it quite profusely.
And sometimes us writers have to to do things...oh for instance have John SEEM to not learn or change very much over the 2nd season..(which IMHO is huge load of bollocks BTW).
S and D was NOT supposed to be happy episode...it was not supposed to make ANYONE come out better than anyone else. In fact they all made boneheaded choices.
The fact of the matter is that the majority of the time good looses on good ole planet earth. And S2 IMHO was a very accurate representation of that fact with the "Good Guys" more often than not failing in individual and overall missions.
There's a brilliant review of the entire S2 I just read...and it makes me happy and sad...because as I was certain would be the case...S2 works much better on DVD than it did on a weekly basis.
If only et cetera.
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schmacky
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Post by schmacky on Oct 18, 2009 21:07:21 GMT -5
As one of the resident writers round here I gotta say I loved S and D. Loved it quite profusely. And sometimes us writers have to to do things...oh for instance have John SEEM to not learn or change very much over the 2nd season..(which IMHO is huge load of bollocks BTW). S and D was NOT supposed to be happy episode...it was not supposed to make ANYONE come out better than anyone else. In fact they all made boneheaded choices. The fact of the matter is that the majority of the time good looses on good ole planet earth. And S2 IMHO was a very accurate representation of that fact with the "Good Guys" more often than not failing in individual and overall missions. There's a brilliant review of the entire S2 I just read...and it makes me happy and sad...because as I was certain would be the case...S2 works much better on DVD than it did on a weekly basis. If only et cetera. Dude. Seriously? Just because you're a writer doesn't mean you "get it" more than anyone else. And just because you write... something doesn't mean you're all super qualified because the writers of SCC also... write. I make movies but that doesn't mean I can throw myself in the same category as Steven Spielberg. And you just said "sometimes us writers do things..." and talk about John seeming to not learn anything (which you call BS on) but you don't say why. So why would "you writers" do that? For no reason? I don't think anyone was saying that S&D needed to be a happy episode. Or the season needed to be happy or end up feeling good. I think we all can agree this show is pretty damn depressing and that's why we like it. What some folks are saying is that the writers made mistakes. No ifs ands or buts about it. They sometimes made poor creative choices. Ehh, and oh well, shit happens. But that doesn't mean we can't talk about those effs up.
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Post by littleb on Oct 19, 2009 9:40:13 GMT -5
As one of the resident writers round here I gotta say I loved S and D. Loved it quite profusely. That is certainly your perogative. Dude! Get over yourself. You're not the only one around here who writes. Half the people on this board regularly put pen to paper and come up with something worth reading. Plus, you don't really make a point there (or if you do, you don't make it clearly)... John does learn, he does change over S2, hell he eventually gets the arse retconned off him to make him do both of those things. Sadly, the fact that he was written poorly in this episode and IMO poorly written again at the end of the season in Born to Run, actively negates all the hard work of retconning him, but there was definitely an intention to develop and deepen his character. They did. Everyone makes mistakes, this bunch make an awful lot. In S&D, however, the fact that they made out-of-character choices that were so OOC they actively launched you out of the episode, is a fault of the writing. Which is one of the reasons I love the show. I also love it for the fact that Sarah and Co - much of the time - have to battle so hard against the very people they are trying to save. It's the bleak little ironies like this that gave the show so much depth and made it one of the most intelligent shows on the box. This episode just wasn't a good example of the show at its finest and it wasn't a good choice to open a new season with. Currently up to The Tower... in a S2 rewatch and those first six episodes certainly do play better and hang together better when watched in quick succession (for all the reasons K8ie has already pointed out.) And yeah, surprisingly few belly-laughs to be had, but then, this is a show about trying to prevent an apocalpyse so they're not really playing it for the comedic angle. What some folks are saying is that the writers made mistakes. No ifs ands or buts about it. They sometimes made poor creative choices. Ehh, and oh well, shit happens. But that doesn't mean we can't talk about those effs up. Precisely. What she said. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. So is constructive criticism. I'm just happy to be chatting about the show again...
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Post by allergygal on Oct 21, 2009 4:15:04 GMT -5
In S&D it was easier for Sarah to allow Derek to assume she killed Sarkissian. I think in that ep she just didn't have the energy to set him straight on the facts, which kinda worked for that moment. Derek never would have assumed that Sarah killed Sarkissian. Earlier that day (in What He Beheld), he came to the realization that she'd never killed anyone before because he'd watched her freeze when Sarkissian's thug had a gun to her son's head the night before. So I find it totally unbelievable that he'd leap straight to the idea that Sarah the Pure Heart killed those men. We don't get to see what Sarah tells Derek at the warehouse about the day's events. But even if she wanted to hide the fact that John had done it, why would she say she'd done it? The obvious scapegoat is Cameron. She's out of commission, chip pulled and they're going to thermite her. So it would've made more sense to tell the story like this: "Yeah, tough day... Sarkissian and his thug blew up the Jeep with Cameron in it then stormed the house and beat us up. But Cameron limped in and killed them before turning the gun on John. We ran. She chased. We pinned her and yanked her chip."But instead, Sarah either decided to tell Derek she killed Sarkissian or she totally implied it so he'd make the assumption. Neither scenario makes any fraking sense. And even after all this time, I still don't get why Sarah even would've felt the need to hide the truth from Derek in the first place. I really hate that whole Sarakissian nonsense. HATE. If we take the character motivations as black and white as given by the show... John ostensibly was pissed at Sarah for killing a man who was trying to kill them both. Which just plain doesn't work. Actually, I was able to make John's anger at Sarah work, but him turning to the killer robot as an expression of that anger (or from confusion/trauma) doesn't work at all. They'd only had that good stuff for 9 episodes. It wasn't long enough. All of a sudden, Sarah and John are torn apart, Cameron's all over the place or not there at all, Derek's off playing with Jesse every week, Ellison's being a prat... That's something you can do if you get a third season, not something you do after a first season that lasted for 9 episodes. I actually loved S2, there were some fabulous episodes in it, but looking back - knowing the show got cancelled - I wonder whether it would have been stronger to keep the characters playing on the same side for a little longer, as opposed to breaking everything into pieces. That pretty well sums up underlying problems with season 2. After barely getting to know these characters and their relationships, the entire dynamic changes. There just wasn't a solid enough foundation for that kind of shift (and it went on way to long too). Splitting up the characters might have worked if it had started and concluded in the back 9. Kicking off the season with it, though, and running it all the way through was a terrible choice.
I understand why in the show we're to believe Sarah let Derek think it was her. Maybe you could let me in on that insight, because I'm still at a loss on that one. Nothing is gained from waiting until episode six to reveal that John's having trouble dealing with the universe giving him justifiable homicide for his 16th birthday. And it's clearly intended to be a revelation - the set up, the direction, the editing of "Tower" all set up the final flashback to Sarky as A Big Reveal, which makes it a double failure because I think I was the only one fooled (at least on this board). ...either the audience bought Friedman & co's misdirection (and btw I loathe it when TV writers mess with the audience's perception of what happened on-screen off-screen. Loathe.), or they come to the conclusion that John killed Sarky (and most did) but that still doesn't explain why he acts the way he does in S&D or towards Sarah. No, you weren't the only one. In the first few minutes of S&D it is abundantly clear that John killed Sarkissian. But then 3/4 of the way through the episode we're hit with the shocking revelation... "So I'm guessing Sarkissian didn't tell you where he hid The Turk before you killed him?" ...that it was Sarah who did it. So I spent the next five episodes using the wrong context to try and make sense of Sarah and John while I awaited the big reveal about how the Sarkissian killing went down. OMG. What could have happened in the attic to change the apparent course of events so dramatically?! John was enraged and cutting through his cuffs while Sarah was being choked. How could it have ended up with Sarah killing Sarkissian?But we were intentionally mislead for no reason. Augh. Why show us the truth straight off and then tell us that's not what happened? For the hell of it, apparently. I'm still bitter about that. You know what else doesn't make sense? This bit of dialog: "I know what you saw today. I know what you did and I'm so proud of you." Proud? It's a very odd choice of words, both when we believe John watched him mom kill Sarkissian and later when we find out he killed Sarkissian. Having spent nine episodes setting up John's desperate need for Sarah's attention and respect, he saves her for a change and all he does at rage at her. Driven by guilt and self-loathing or not that note always felt forced as if having decided to amp up John's stake in Future!War (and one hates to say it but make him look more badass) by killing someone, they have to go to pains to show us that killing is bad and John is tortured by it. But what he mostly looks like a petulant brat. The better story really would've been to focus less on the trauma of the kill and more on the fact that John saved his mother. That could have easily led to some growth — to John starting to believe in himself. Instead, we got 20 episodes (he wasn't in Alpine Fields) of John being a prick.
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