Leven discusses Back 9

[t101]

Restarting Cameron even to her 1999 self would be incredibly lame and disappointing. They need to continue her character development with everything she has learned and been through. She's a unique character, would you want lets say Sarah's memories and experiences be wiped out this way? To simply remove a chunk of her character development?

As to why would anyone want the "faulty" Cam back, same reason John saved the first time. He is not Sarah, he does not see her as a chunk of metal that you'd rather replace like a damaged car.

This worries me. If Cameron dies I'll be too disappointed to care about the show any further.

[bowman]

I don't think they'll kill anyone off then bring them back through time travel.. This is just us trying to work around one of those three dying and it not being Riley.

If the spoilers from Thomas are true then it has to be Riley who dies. Having to do all sorts of laborious plot-stretching jumpy-sharky stuff just to work around one of the other two dying but not really dying just doesn't seem like something they would do, and killing off Cameron or Sarah permanently? It'd kill the show..

So, no, Occam's Razor; Riley dies, or the spoilers are foilers.

[Hollow Crown]

Killing off Cameron or Sarah doesn't kill the show if the producers feel they only want to do one more season after this, which could be possible.

[Alexis]

Jan 23, 2009 17:19:28 GMT -5 @richardstevenhack said:

I have to say, this begins to concern me again.

I think her "big action scene" might be a fight with Jesse. Riley could turn on Jesse as a result of falling in love with John and want to stop lying to him.

OTOH, it could be a "fight" with Cameron - I put "fight" in quotes because how is Riley even going to begin to fight Cameron. She's not a Resistance soldier, she's a civilian.

I don't understand the reference to there being more to her mission than what has been revealed. It seems pretty clear what her mission is. How much more to it can there be? In fact, rereading that part, it's not clear to me that it is suggested that there is any more to her mission than that.

What concerns me is that this notion of her possibly surviving the season once again means that either Sarah or Cameron will die - assuming Tom wasn't messing with people's heads again (with or without Josh's orders). And although I've speculated that they could kill Sarah off based on the "Blake's Seven" precedent, the reality is that it's much more likely to be Cameron.

And that way lies madness and the show basically finishing out its run and not being renewed. At least if the character death is indeed intended to be permanent. I really can't see the show surviving the removal of Summer Glau from the cast.

Man, seems like you've been reading my mind! I agree in every single word with your comment. Karma!


But now I have a new hypothesis:

At first, I thought that Riley would die, in a redeeming way, fighting against Jesse, but now I've just changed my mind - because I believe she might actually have a fight with Cameron after all.

Let's think of the most unexpected twists:

Could you ever imagine Sarah letting John?? I bet you couldn't.
And what if she decided to let him for his own good?? What if the circumstances forced her to let him?? (Obviously, to return later at the beginning of the third season ).

And what if Cam betrayed him?? Maybe she promises John not to hurt Riley but she turns out killing her. That may sound like a betrayal to John (but finally, at the the beginning of the third season, John realizes that Cameron was right - She's always right! Why don't they ever listen to her!! ).

Finally, the best part of it is: Riley will die painfully - lol ;D
OK, not necessarily 'painfully' *sigh* but she will die anyway and that's enough for me ;D

Summarizing:

-Jesse will die (no matter how, she must die, ok? ).

-Cam betrays him (but she'll be back and, of course, he will forgive her ).

-Sarah leaves him (maybe due to her illness... but she will come back for a third season!! ).

Greetings!

[hobs202]

Didn't the recent spoilers from Michael Ausilleo on EW pretty much point to Riley being the character who dies?

[hobs202]

Jan 23, 2009 17:03:26 GMT -5 allergygal said:

I'm inferring Riley not dying this season from this:

As for Riley's actual mission, Rambin said viewers already have as much information as they're planning to reveal this season.

That implies there is more of her story to be revealed next season. And why would they reveal the story of a character who was already dead?

I read that as they've finished revealing Riley's mission and that there isn't anything left to it.

[wb5]

Jan 24, 2009 17:30:11 GMT -5 t101 said:

Restarting Cameron even to her 1999 self would be incredibly lame and disappointing. They need to continue her character development with everything she has learned and been through. She's a unique character, would you want lets say Sarah's memories and experiences be wiped out this way? To simply remove a chunk of her character development?

As to why would anyone want the "faulty" Cam back, same reason John saved the first time. He is not Sarah, he does not see her as a chunk of metal that you'd rather replace like a damaged car.

Seconded. The producers of BSG did not feel the need to keep their Cylon characters as well-defined individuals, and they felt they could just replace Boomer with Athena, but that really didn't work as far as I am concerned - she's but a cheap rip-off. We need to preserve the Cameron we have. Sarah dead would be quite unthinkable as well, and actually I don't want Riley (or, for that matter, Charlie) to die either.

But assuning Thomas' spoilers are correct and not terribly exaggerated, I do think it's Riley who buys it. I hope that if so, the writers redeem her by having her side with John - perhaps her big fight scene is against Jesse, as some have suggested here, and that's a likely point for her to die.

I think this because of what Hobs202 also pointed out: there is a spoiler from Ausiello who confirms some of what Thomas said, and he mentioned that the actress of the character which dies is a big fan of his blog and that he has video to prove that. From what I hear at the FOX forums, Leven Rambin is the most likely suspect by far for this (Lena and Summer apparently are rarely online). Riley is also the most logical character to die, for the reasons given in this thread.

So I guess that Riley dies heroically (fighting Jesse?), Sarah "betrays" (perhaps Jesse or another resistance member talks her into attacking Cameron) and Cameron "leaves" (maybe because she feels she shouldn't be driving a wedge between John and Sarah or John and the resistance, or she simply feels it is more dangerous for John with her around instead of on his own). I don't see Sarah just "leaving", she would never do that. Cameron "betraying" John could be if she kills someone he really didn't want killed, though (Riley?). But I think the "betrayal" won't be as bad as it sounds and it will be Sarah, and mended quickly into S3 (if we get one).

It could be a nice setup for S3, with John alone or perhaps with Derek or someone else from the resistance, Sarah trying to reconnect with John and Cameron out on her own somewhere. The latter should have potential for some nice situations, until the (I suppose) inevitable reunion of the main cast.

[t101]

"Betrayal" is indeed quiet vague.

[Alexis]

Jan 25, 2009 19:20:29 GMT -5 wb5 said:

So I guess that Riley dies heroically (fighting Jesse?), Sarah "betrays" (perhaps Jesse or another resistance member talks her into attacking Cameron) and Cameron "leaves" (maybe because she feels she shouldn't be driving a wedge between John and Sarah or John and the resistance, or she simply feels it is more dangerous for John with her around instead of on his own). I don't see Sarah just "leaving", she would never do that. Cameron "betraying" John could be if she kills someone he really didn't want killed, though (Riley?). But I think the "betrayal" won't be as bad as it sounds and it will be Sarah, and mended quickly into S3 (if we get one).

It could be a nice setup for S3, with John alone or perhaps with Derek or someone else from the resistance, Sarah trying to reconnect with John and Cameron out on her own somewhere. The latter should have potential for some nice situations, until the (I suppose) inevitable reunion of the main cast.

Very good hypothesis, wb5. Karma!

The only thing I'm concerned about is that Ausiello said that he has 'a video evidence confirming that much'.

When I first read that phrase (then, I immediately changed my mind), my first impression was that Ausiello was referring to Sarah - Remember the video tapes that Ellison kept as "evidence", in which Sarah needs to be sedated after attacking Dr. Silverman... That might be considered as the 'video evidence' that turns Sarah into Ausiello's 'out and proud 'aushole''? ).

Anyway, I still believe it couldn't/shouldn't be Sarah. As many others said, that would be killing the show after all.

Oh well, just a few weeks... The big time's getting closer

[richardstevenhack]

All the speculation so far - including my own - leaves me cold.

The problem is I can't see any logic whatsoever in Tom's description of John being stripped of ALL the main characters in his life except Derek.

Obviously, there's a need to get John to the point where he's in control of himself and growing up to be the leader he's supposed to be. They've touched on that during the season, and Tom said one problem was that process seemed to stall during the first 13, but is accelerated in the back nine.

All well and good if that's true. But still, stripping him of everybody but Derek really doesn't help that process or the show, in my opinion.

Riley is an insignificant character. What happens to her is almost irrelevant, since she's just a plant from Jesse. Resolving the Jesse subplot might help John grow up a bit, but then it still doesn't resolve his little problem of still being a virgin - and likely to remain one forever at this rate. That's not exactly helping him grow up.

Cameron, assuming she wasn't lying, told Sarah in episode two of season one that future John considered Sarah his best fighter. While I find that hard to believe, let's assume John was being charitable to his mother. Either way, I find it hard to believe that John is going to be helped by simply dumping his mother. Getting to a position where she no longer controls him, and they treat each other as equals would be the way to go - and I don't see that requiring her to leave, let alone die. But that does need to be done, if for no other reason than he doesn't have to ask permission of her to get laid.

As for Cameron, she is John's best weapon. So far, she has had little influence on him at all, let alone the sort of all-consuming influence Jesse fears she has. In episode one, John made the strategic decision that she was so important to him that he risked his life to reactivate her. That was the one moment when we saw the future John, standing against his mother and Derek - with a gun, no less - backing his own decisions against the majority opinion. So now in the back nine, they're going to have John simply get rid of her because of some incident that is less than her trying to kill him? That would be totally inconsistent and a backward move in terms of John growing up. Not to mention that if it meant taking Summer Glau off the show, it would kill the show dead.

So I have to say that, other than Riley getting knocked off - because she's superfluous once her situation is revealed to John - as a result of her betrayal of John (and perhaps of Jesse if she revolts against her part of Jesse's plan), I can't see any logical or even likely explanation for John losing either his mother or Cameron.

The other problem is it's not clear how you can assume from Tom's comments about one betraying, one dying and one leaving as necessitating anybody leaving the show - except for the one dying, obviously. And again, Riley is the obvious candidate for dying. Betraying and leaving doesn't necessarily imply leaving the show.

But if Sarah and Cameron don't leave the show, that raises the problem of how the characters will interact on the show, if they've nowhere near John. The fans have been moaning about how the characters have been split up enormously during the first 13, so now they're going to be even MORE split up? John and perhaps Derek hang out, but where is Sarah and where is Cameron? How do you run three separate story lines about the characters in that situation? How do you get any of that to work in relation to Weaver and Ellison and Skynet? Do you have John and Derek in one subplot, and Sarah and Cameron in the other?

None of it makes any sense. Worse, it begins to sound like a soap opera, instead of a sci-fi action show. It continues the meme that the way you develop a story is to torture your characters, rather than merely making their antagonists get bigger and better. I'd rather see the latter approach - keep the protagonists together and just make the antagonists more interesting and the conflict bigger.

I've been complaining all season that the characters have been so messed with that they have ended up appearing less than heroic and less than interesting. So now I have to be concerned that it's going to get worse?

[hobs202]

Jan 25, 2009 20:48:20 GMT -5 Alexis said:

Jan 25, 2009 19:20:29 GMT -5 wb5 said:

So I guess that Riley dies heroically (fighting Jesse?), Sarah "betrays" (perhaps Jesse or another resistance member talks her into attacking Cameron) and Cameron "leaves" (maybe because she feels she shouldn't be driving a wedge between John and Sarah or John and the resistance, or she simply feels it is more dangerous for John with her around instead of on his own). I don't see Sarah just "leaving", she would never do that. Cameron "betraying" John could be if she kills someone he really didn't want killed, though (Riley?). But I think the "betrayal" won't be as bad as it sounds and it will be Sarah, and mended quickly into S3 (if we get one).

It could be a nice setup for S3, with John alone or perhaps with Derek or someone else from the resistance, Sarah trying to reconnect with John and Cameron out on her own somewhere. The latter should have potential for some nice situations, until the (I suppose) inevitable reunion of the main cast.

Very good hypothesis, wb5. Karma!

The only thing I'm concerned about is that Ausiello said that he has 'a video evidence confirming that much'.

When I first read that phrase (then, I immediately changed my mind), my first impression was that Ausiello was referring to Sarah - Remember the video tapes that Ellison kept as "evidence", in which Sarah needs to be sedated after attacking Dr. Silverman... That might be considered as the 'video evidence' that turns Sarah into Ausiello's 'out and proud 'aushole''? ).

Anyway, I still believe it couldn't/shouldn't be Sarah. As many others said, that would be killing the show after all.

Oh well, just a few weeks... The big time's getting closer

"Aushole" means someone who's a fan of Michael Ausilleo. By "video evidence", he means that he's conducted an interview with a cast member in which she has openly declared that she likes reading his columns.

From what I've read, Michael did an interview with Leven, in which she apparently admitted to being a big reader of his columns.

[hobs202]

Jan 25, 2009 22:33:20 GMT -5 @richardstevenhack said:

All the speculation so far - including my own - leaves me cold.

The problem is I can't see any logic whatsoever in Tom's description of John being stripped of ALL the main characters in his life except Derek.

Obviously, there's a need to get John to the point where he's in control of himself and growing up to be the leader he's supposed to be. They've touched on that during the season, and Tom said one problem was that process seemed to stall during the first 13, but is accelerated in the back nine.

All well and good if that's true. But still, stripping him of everybody but Derek really doesn't help that process or the show, in my opinion.

Riley is an insignificant character. What happens to her is almost irrelevant, since she's just a plant from Jesse. Resolving the Jesse subplot might help John grow up a bit, but then it still doesn't resolve his little problem of still being a virgin - and likely to remain one forever at this rate. That's not exactly helping him grow up.

Cameron, assuming she wasn't lying, told Sarah in episode two of season one that future John considered Sarah his best fighter. While I find that hard to believe, let's assume John was being charitable to his mother. Either way, I find it hard to believe that John is going to be helped by simply dumping his mother. Getting to a position where she no longer controls him, and they treat each other as equals would be the way to go - and I don't see that requiring her to leave, let alone die. But that does need to be done, if for no other reason than he doesn't have to ask permission of her to get laid.

As for Cameron, she is John's best weapon. So far, she has had little influence on him at all, let alone the sort of all-consuming influence Jesse fears she has. In episode one, John made the strategic decision that she was so important to him that he risked his life to reactivate her. That was the one moment when we saw the future John, standing against his mother and Derek - with a gun, no less - backing his own decisions against the majority opinion. So now in the back nine, they're going to have John simply get rid of her because of some incident that is less than her trying to kill him? That would be totally inconsistent and a backward move in terms of John growing up. Not to mention that if it meant taking Summer Glau off the show, it would kill the show dead.

So I have to say that, other than Riley getting knocked off - because she's superfluous once her situation is revealed to John - as a result of her betrayal of John (and perhaps of Jesse if she revolts against her part of Jesse's plan), I can't see any logical or even likely explanation for John losing either his mother or Cameron.

The other problem is it's not clear how you can assume from Tom's comments about one betraying, one dying and one leaving as necessitating anybody leaving the show - except for the one dying, obviously. And again, Riley is the obvious candidate for dying. Betraying and leaving doesn't necessarily imply leaving the show.

But if Sarah and Cameron don't leave the show, that raises the problem of how the characters will interact on the show, if they've nowhere near John. The fans have been moaning about how the characters have been split up enormously during the first 13, so now they're going to be even MORE split up? John and perhaps Derek hang out, but where is Sarah and where is Cameron? How do you run three separate story lines about the characters in that situation? How do you get any of that to work in relation to Weaver and Ellison and Skynet? Do you have John and Derek in one subplot, and Sarah and Cameron in the other?

None of it makes any sense. Worse, it begins to sound like a soap opera, instead of a sci-fi action show. It continues the meme that the way you develop a story is to torture your characters, rather than merely making their antagonists get bigger and better. I'd rather see the latter approach - keep the protagonists together and just make the antagonists more interesting and the conflict bigger.

I've been complaining all season that the characters have been so messed with that they have ended up appearing less than heroic and less than interesting. So now I have to be concerned that it's going to get worse?

Look, here's an EASY scenario: There's a big explosion. John, Sarah, Cameron and Derek all get separated from each other in the chaos.

[Alexis]

In a second thought, Sarah’s betrayal by trying to off Cameron is a good alternative, but I can’t see Cameron leaving John voluntarily (I mean, not without John asking or commanding that to her). Besides it would be totally against her programming, the problem is:

Once she “decided” to leave, what will she do with her [artificial] life? Moving to Detroit, marring Robocop and having little tin children doesn’t seem like a suitable choice, I guess. So, I think I’m still voting for: Sarah leaves, Cam betrays and Riley dies.

Jan 25, 2009 22:33:20 GMT -5 @richardstevenhack said:

How do you run three separate story lines about the characters in that situation? How do you get any of that to work in relation to Weaver and Ellison and Skynet? Do you have John and Derek in one subplot, and Sarah and Cameron in the other?

Actually, till now we have 4 separate story lines in the show (which will converge in the back 9, of course):

1- Connor team’s missions.

2- Derek-Jesse’s secret affair (and secret missions as well – Just remember Fischer).

3- Catherine Weaver-Ellison involved in John Henry’s secret development.

4- Relatively recent discovery of Jesse and Riley’s conspiracy to keep John away from Cam’s influences.

Jan 25, 2009 22:33:20 GMT -5 @richardstevenhack said:

None of it makes any sense. Worse, it begins to sound like a soap opera, instead of a sci-fi action show. It continues the meme that the way you develop a story is to torture your characters, rather than merely making their antagonists get bigger and better. I'd rather see the latter approach - keep the protagonists together and just make the antagonists more interesting and the conflict bigger.

If the main characters don’t “evolve” on their own (mainly John), then they won’t be able to face bigger enemies, my friend.

This might sound cruel, but I think they need to be "tortured" a little bit to grow up and mature (again, mainly John), and I believe that they need to go through those difficult situations to get them to be stronger and even more determined and devoted to their missions.

Jan 25, 2009 22:57:21 GMT -5 hobs202 said:

"Aushole" means someone who's a fan of Michael Ausilleo. By "video evidence", he means that he's conducted an interview with a cast member in which she has openly declared that she likes reading his columns.

From what I've read, Michael did an interview with Leven, in which she apparently admitted to being a big reader of his columns.

Big relief. Thank you for explaining

[t101]

In a second thought, Sarah’s betrayal by trying to off Cameron is a good alternative, but I can’t see Cameron leaving John voluntarily (I mean, not without John asking or commanding that to her).

It could work under one condition. If she deems her presence is a danger to John somehow. Then she could leave to protect him. Besides, we don't actually know what her exact mission is.

[wb5]

Jan 25, 2009 20:48:20 GMT -5 Alexis said:

Very good hypothesis, wb5. Karma!

Thanks!

About Cameron leaving, there are a few possibilities (I have a very hard time seeing Sarah leaving her son): as T101 says, it is possible she will feel she endangers John by staying with him. Maybe because of what she said at the start of the season, that "people would not like this". Or maybe Cameron gets hunted herself, by Weaver or others, and she is actually bringing danger to John. Or she feels she is the cause of a Sarah-John break-up, and she removes herself so they can mend this relationship.

Alternatively, Cameron really starts thinking for herself with programming having little influence on her now (due to the damaged chip, and the way it may more or less self-repair in unexpected ways that bypass hardcoded commands), she could also simply decide it's not in her own best interests to stay, if the Connors keep treating her as a mere appliance. But that seems rather unlikely.

Cameron on her own could continue to look for the Turk/Skynet/John Henry/Weaver, and I guess she could also try to check-up on Eric or even on (very young) Allison. Or, she could stay relatively close to the Connors and wait till the time is ripe to return. I guess it all wouldn't take too long into S3 before the main players get back together, if it happens as Dekker said.