Quotable:

"In cooking, as in all the arts, simplicity is a sign of perfection." - Curnonsky

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Queen's Gambit

Andy Goode is back with another chess computer, the Turk II. This is relevant because John Connor played chess in his youth in South America and apparently knows a lot about chess history as a result. And people say this series is unrealistic.

Of course, chess is being used as a war metaphor in this episode (rather blatantly if you listen to Sarah Connor's commentary at the beginning and end of the episode). This could be ironic because apparently Skynet is being developed from a chess program. Perhaps in the future, Skynet loses a game of chess to a human and annihilates the species as a result.

The most blatant cliff-hanger mystery is: Who killed Andy Goode? If it wasn't Derek Reese, was it a Terminator? That seems likely since their mission is to insure Skynet's creation and without a military contract, that didn't seem likely.

The whole Derek Reese phenomenon seemed to come out of nowhere. In the original movie, Kyle Reese never mentioned a brother. Of course, that doesn't mean the brother didn't exist but in that future it didn't seem likely that coincidentally the two brothers would survive. But maybe that's just me futilely looking for realism.

The entire Jordan suicide storyline has been dragged on long enough. Either get to the point or stop having these characters mourn a supplementary character who has become more a plot device than a person.

I liked how the Terminator reacted strangely when the cell phone rang, as if he never saw one before (which he probably hasn't). Modern cell phones didn't exist when the original movie came out. Maybe he's a leftover from 1984.

I've commented on Cameron's dress sense before, but in this episode she's going Goth slut. Not that there's anything wrong with that. She is, however, attracting more attention to herself and I think that goes against the mission of laying low. I thought it was funny when she was presented with the Westworld style robot and reacted quizzically. Then the robot canine (perhaps a tribute to Doctor Who) showed up and totally mystified her. Her best line of the episode was "I'm done with grief counseling. I'm feeling much better."

During the final battle scene, when the other Terminator got its hand knocked off, I thought, "Great. Now there's ANOTHER piece lying around the city." Didn't the fact that a Terminator hand was left around the first movie lead to the second one?

The episode helped a lot of plotlines move forward. The big revelation was the existence of Derek Reese who is John Connor's uncle. I wonder if he's going to end up being a future love interest for Sarah. If so, then it's just like television to immediately introduce him to Sarah's ex.

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