TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES 1.7 – "The Demon Hand"

Writer: Toni Graphia
Director: Charles Beeson

Cast: Lena Headey (Sarah Connor), Summer Glau (Cameron Phillips), Thomas Dekker (John Connor), Richard T. Jones (Agent James Ellison), Brian Austin Green (Derek Reese), Omid Abtahi (Sumner), Ron Butler (Social Worker), Mark Kubr (Russian Thug), Bruce Davison (Dr. Silberman), Mark Bloom (FBI Evidence Clerk), Keith Pillow (Mr. Bianchi), Luis Chávez (Morris), Mark Ivanir (Dimitri), Matthew Angel (Damien Axelrod), Traber Burns (Chief of Staff), Angela Gots (Maria) & Alex Veadov (Russian Man)

While trying to find and destroy the hand lost by the T-888, Sarah breaks into Agent Ellison's apartment and discovers files about her time in a mental hospital...

"And somewhere in the city, a naked cop bleeds in an alley."

-- Sarah Connor (Lena Headey)

It stumbled post-Pilot for a few episodes, but Sarah Connor Chronicles is really beginning to find its feet now. After last week's invigorating look at the post-apocalyptic future, The Demon Hand pays further respect to James Cameron's movies (too much?), but earns plaudit by developing its human side...

The series is doing a good job keeping an overarching narrative going -- with ostensibly standalone ideas like chess-playing program "The Turk" feeding directly into recent episodes, and last week's use of flashforwards to a possible future helping connect other strands of its TV mythology.

I'm still concerned that the best episodes (save the Pilot) have Sarah (Lena Headey) and John (Thomas Dekker) generally confined to their house -- leaving the action to Cameron (Summer Glau) and Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green) – but hopefully things will begin to turn around soon...

This episode opens with Cameron disguised as the T-1000 motorbike cop from T2 (do cyborgs have a penchant for leather and mirrored-glasses?), causing a city-wise blackout across L.A so she can sneak into the FBIs archive and steal the missing T-888s hand.

Unfortunately, FBI Agent Ellison (Richard T. Jones) is actually keeping the cybernetic hand in his fridge at home, beginning to suspect there could be some truth in Sarah's wild stories about killer robots from the future. After reviewing footage of Sarah ranting during her time at the Pescadero asylum (with Headey basically re-enacting Linda Hamilton's scenes from T2), Ellison decides to investigate her claims deeper. The only person who can help him is Sarah's psychiatrist, Dr Silberman (X-Men's Bruce Davison, replacing Earl Boen from the Terminator films), who has since retired to live alone in the mountains...

Frustrated by the missing hand (which could disrupt the timeline and usher in Judgment Day earlier), Sarah calls the FBI pretending to be an evidence clerk, but finds they have no knowledge of the "prosthetic hand" she's looking for. She does overhear Agent Ellison's name and later breaks into the Agent's home, looking for the hand herself, but instead finding files about her stint at Pescadero.

Derek has now recovered from his wounds and taken to cleaning Sarah's arsenal of weapons, clearly battle-hardened and distrustful of everything and everyone – particularly Cameron. Derek advises Sarah to let Cameron go out and search for Dmitri Shipkov (Mark Ivanir), the co-creator of "The Turk", as that computer program still needs to be found and destroyed.

Cameron's investigation requires her to enrol in a ballet class being taught by Dmiti's sister Maria (Angela Gots), who she impresses with her exact imitation of professional dancing, albeit with a mechanical stiffness in her upper-body. After class, a Russian gangster arrives to demand money from Maria, with Cameron able to eavesdrop on their foreign conversation...

Dr Silberman is indeed discovered living in the mountains as a hermit – a radical departure from the stuffy prick his character was in the Terminator films. Silberman has since become a firm believer in Sarah's crackpot story, and agrees to meet with Ellison for tea. Sadly, Silberman proved to be mentally-unstable himself, drugging Ellison's tea and knocking him unconscious, suspecting him of being a cyborg!

Once Ellison proves his humanity (by showing pain from a stab to the thigh), Silberman explains how he changed his mind, after witnessing two Terminators fighting over Sarah and John (see: the events of T2).

At the ballet studio, Cameron protects Maria from the Russian gangster again, making it clear she can help pay their debts if she can meet with Dmitri. At Dmiti's rundown hotel room, Cameron hands over a diamond as payment, with Dmitri revealing he sold "The Turk" to a buyer who offered him cash. He writes the buyer's name on a piece of paper for Cameron, who leaves... passing two armed men o their way to kill Dmitri and Maria for non-payment – not even flinching when gunshots and screams are heard.

A deranged Dr. Silberman decides to kill Agent Ellison by setting fire to his own house and leaving Ellison inside, tied to a chair, to die. He plans to destroy the T-888 hand he finds inside Ellison's car, but is stopped by the arrival of Sarah – who punches Silberman to the ground, steals the hand, and saves Ellison from certain death.

The episode ends with Cameron giving Sarah the name of The Turk's buyer, Ellison attending a Bible-reading group (perturbed by the confirmation of an impending apocalypse), and distrustful Derek spying on Cameron in her room – seeing her passing the time by ballet dancing -- for pleasure? As Sarah's spookily predicts in voice-over: "machines cannot appreciate beauty. They cannot create art. If they ever learn these things, they won't have to destroy us. They'll be us."

The Demon Hand (named after "Demon With A Glass Hand", a Harlan Ellison-scripted Twilight Zone episode that inspired The Terminator, according to the outcome of a court case), is another surprisingly enjoyable and dramatically-solid episode. More impressively, it's almost entirely devoid of action spectacle, with the characters and ideas given all the attention.

Of course, it helps that the series has enough back-story to build some layers on now – although this continual quest to destroy "The Turk" is becoming slightly strained. And, while it's good fun to see events from Terminator 2 referenced, and a minor character from the films return, this is the second episode in a row that's been overt with deference to the films it owes its existence to.

Thankfully, there's enough going on with the characters to take your mind of the overflow of cute references – with Derek being a particularly intriguing new element for Chronicles. He's a member of Sarah and John's family who doesn't know his own bloodline, has been scarred by years of war, and is consequently doubting of cyborg Cameron – unable to anthropomorphize a machine. If you thought Sarah was sometimes too frosty with Cameron, she's veritably chummy compared to Derek!

I also appreciated a better storyline for Ellison, as Richard T. Jones strikes me as a capable actor the series should make better use of. Maybe now he's on the same wavelength as Sarah, his role will become less antagonistic?

Bruce Davison gives his second nutty performance in as many weeks, fresh from a similarly kooky role on Knight Rider. He does well with the material, but his character is clichéd and a big departure from the films. Oh, and as Silberman had a small role in Terminator 3, are we to assume that Chronicles will one day jump back in time to before his character went crazy? Gah! My head hurts!

It's becoming predictable to shower Summer Glau with praise every week, as she's been given a crowd-pleasing role that plays to her strengths as Cameron. This episode even conspires to include an unnecessary ballet-dancing subplot, purely to utilize Glau's real-life proficiency in that art-form.

Regardless, it's true that Glau does full justice to the poise and wide-eyed stares expected of her, and her shtick is yet to become boring. In fact, this episode contains the strongest hint yet that she's becoming more "human", so I hope we're in for some existential debate about what that means. Or are we fed up with existential debates about humans-versus-machines, thanks to 3 years of Battlestar Galactica?

Overall, The Demon Hand is another strong instalment for Chronicles -- as we race to the end of this short season, with the two-episode finale served up next week. And, despite some wobbles around episodes 3-5, the show is showing promise lately – although the jury's still out on the success of Headey and Dekker as our guides through this world...


25 February 2008
FOX, 9/8c pm