Is Five Episodes a Record for a SciFi show on FOX?
I found this episode an improvement over last weeks. Not that last weeks was bad, it just left me rather 'meh'.
What I enjoyed most about this episode was the character development and character revelation. I think I now understand why the writers chose to backtrack from the pilot, regressing Cameron, not allowing her to quite fit in. Cameron's reason for being is to protect John Conner. She was 'born' into a world at war where the only thing that concerned people was survival. Now she's in this very different world where she still has a primary purpose, but she's also surrounded by people just living their lives, going to work, going to school, hanging out with friends, and dealing with death by very different means. While her programming is working to adapt, she's growing as a person and, if not yet having feelings of her own, she is becoming more attuned to others and trying to understand them better as well as trying to understand herself, something she would never have had the opportunity to do in that other reality. Two scenes I loved - the shot at the convention depicting the evolution of robotics, beginning with the fortuneteller machine and ending with Cameron and later her removing the chip from the terminator's brain, becoming aware of her own mortality.
Poor Andy. :( I really liked him. Though the scene unfortunately led to one of the sloppier moments in the ep - Sarah left her fingerprints all over the room.
Seeing Brian Austin Green getting his ass kicked could never get old. ;)
As soon as Derek mentioned the photo and how he recognized Sarah I had the "Uh Oh" moment. KYLE'S BROTHER??? AND HE DOESN'T KNOW HE'S JOHN'S UNCLE?!?! While this does feel contrived, I also think it's kind of cool. Especially if we get to see him react to the truth of this very complicated situation. Kyle died never knowing the truth.
And Charley is to save Derek's life. And I would think have to be let in on some of what has happened since John and Sarah look exactly the same ten years later. Which probably means he'll die five minutes after being told. Or maybe not since I am still suspicious of the wife.
Speaking of suspicious, Dan the Counselor seems to be trying to cover his ass. I think it's safe to say he was the one having the affair with the dead student and it seems he's moved onto John's lab partner.
ETA: I forgot to post this earlier. As much as I have grown to loathe Ausiello, he does have what would seem to be a pretty accurate listing of TV production schedules post strike. BSG has been added to the list since this afternoon and could be back in production next month. My guess is that it would take most shows three to four weeks to have scripts ready and the actors rounded up.