Writer: Daniel T. Thomsen
Director: J. Miller Tobin
Cast: Lena Headey (Sarah Connor), Summer Glau (Cameron Phillips), Thomas Dekker (John Connor), Kristina Apgar (Cherie Westin), Brian Austin Green (Derek Reese), Edoardo Ballerini (Timms), Jwaundace Candece (Singer), Jonathan Sadowski (Sayles), Tony Wilde (Eric Carlson), Luis Chavez (Morris) & Garret Dillahunt (Cromartie)
Derek confronts Cameron over the T-888 chip she has kept, as Cromartie grows dangerously close to discovering John's location...
The penultimate episode (shown as the first part of a 2-hour finale in the States), is quite diverting at times, with Chronicles benefiting from the time taken to story-build earlier in the season. There are no big revelations here, but it's enjoyable to watch – even if Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) continues to play fifth fiddle to action-man Derek (Brian Austen Green), impassive protector Cameron (Summer Glau), tech-head son John (Thomas Dekker) and her own book-ending voice-overs...
Against expectation, Derek has discovered the CPU belonging to "Vick" -- the T-888 Cameron incinerated in Dungeons & Dragons. Sarah and John are forced to face the fact their Terminator guardian has been lying, and could be operating against their best intentions. Cameron reveals she's able to lie (if the mission demands it), but kept the chip because it contains valuable data they can use...
Using high-spec computer equipment acquired from a geeky friend, John manages to connect Vick's chip to a motherboard and stream broken fragments of the T-888s audio-visual memory onto a screen. It appears that, amazingly, Vick was actually married to a woman called Barbara Chamberlain -- who never suspected her husband was a cyborg from the future. Wouldn't you just love to see them on Jerry Springer together?
Cromartie (Garret Dillahunt) is also making great progress in finding John, now arriving at his school and performing face-to-face searches of students. Cameron identifies Cromartie, after receiving a note from a student asking for her "brother" John to meet a FBI Agent at the school, and convinces love-struck Morris (Luis Chavez) to go in John's place. Cromartie fails to match Morris' face to his visual record of John and leaves the premises. When John discovers Cameron's actions, he isn't happy about her willingness to put his friend in danger, but also makes her promise not to tell his mother -- for fear of them being forced to move house. Again.
They come to realize Barbara was involved in a new high-tech traffic control system for Los Angeles, with Vick's mission being to insure she completed her project – before later strangling her as she took a shower. Sarah is certain the traffic control system will one day evolve to become Skynet's "nervous system", with The Turk computer program its "brain". Clearly, the new system has to be taken down, so John works on a computer virus they can upload at the source to destroy it.
Fortunately, the traffic system is next door to City Hall, which can be accessed using underground tunnels built during the Cold War. Derek is particularly familiar with the location, as he spent much of the future scurrying around underground with brother Kyle. They manage to get inside easily enough, despite having to blow through an obstructing wall, and upload John's virus. The virus fails and Derek and Sarah are forced to run from security guards who catch them in the act.
Back home, John is still tinkering with Vick's chip and applies more voltage – resulting in the chip "rebooting", accessing control of John's computer and dialling a number using his cell phone. John and Cameron manage to pull the plug (these Terminators are tenacious!), but are both left wondering who Vick called...
After Sarah reveals their mission failed, the experience with Vick's chip gives John a better idea: to use Cameron's CPU ("the best learning computer on the planet") to access the system by connecting it/her to a traffic light. Just go with this, okay. The episode's most striking scene has John slicing open Cameron's head to remove her chip, turning her into little more than a lifeless china doll, before plugging her "mind" into a city traffic light with Derek.
After the system crashes, Derek snatches Cameron's chip from John – warning him that one of these things will kill him one day, but John still has faith in Cameron. Later, there's quite a touching scene when John resurrects Cameron by re-inserting her chip, finding himself absently stroking her hair as he does so. While it was inevitable a "love story" would present itself between Cameron and John, that scene was tenderly played by both actors, and I hope this awkward relationship continues.
So it seems Cameron isn't the wolf in sheep's clothing we expected from Dungeons & Dragons, and is also exonerated from Derek's suspicions she was responsible for slaughter of his men at their safe house. After scouring Vick's memories, Derek instead finds that a colleague called Sayles (Jonathan Sadowski), tasked with keeping tabs on Barbara, was followed back to the safe house by her husband Vick/T-888 – who proceeded to terminate all of Derek's friends.
Overall, Vick's Chip was a rather simple storyline that linked nicely to events in previous episodes, and managed to entertain in its own right. I'm still grossly disappointed by the treatment of Sarah Connor on the show, as she spends most episodes pacing around, or standing with her arms folded. The introduction of Derek Reese has certainly shaken things up for the better – giving a fresh dynamic on things in the process -- but it's also resulted in him shouldering the bulk of the action sequences and further limiting Sarah's role on the show. Sure, she tussles with a few security guards in one scene, but Sarah's still far from the dominating presence the title of the show infers.
Vick's Chip is solid, but unremarkable stuff. I'm still really enjoying Summer Glau's wide-eyed performances, Thomas Dekker got a few chances to shine, the direction for Brian Austen Green's character is agreeably unpredictable (a romance with his brother's lover?), but there were a few dumb ideas scattered around (a thug-like, monosyllabic Terminator playing house husband!), and I'm yet to be chilled by the performance of any of the villainous Terminators.
3 March 2008
FOX, 8/7c pm
Director: J. Miller Tobin
Cast: Lena Headey (Sarah Connor), Summer Glau (Cameron Phillips), Thomas Dekker (John Connor), Kristina Apgar (Cherie Westin), Brian Austin Green (Derek Reese), Edoardo Ballerini (Timms), Jwaundace Candece (Singer), Jonathan Sadowski (Sayles), Tony Wilde (Eric Carlson), Luis Chavez (Morris) & Garret Dillahunt (Cromartie)
Derek confronts Cameron over the T-888 chip she has kept, as Cromartie grows dangerously close to discovering John's location...John: I guess when they say you can't fight city hall, they really mean it.
Derek: Well, whoever said that didn't have as much plastique as we do.
Derek: Well, whoever said that didn't have as much plastique as we do.
The penultimate episode (shown as the first part of a 2-hour finale in the States), is quite diverting at times, with Chronicles benefiting from the time taken to story-build earlier in the season. There are no big revelations here, but it's enjoyable to watch – even if Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) continues to play fifth fiddle to action-man Derek (Brian Austen Green), impassive protector Cameron (Summer Glau), tech-head son John (Thomas Dekker) and her own book-ending voice-overs...
Against expectation, Derek has discovered the CPU belonging to "Vick" -- the T-888 Cameron incinerated in Dungeons & Dragons. Sarah and John are forced to face the fact their Terminator guardian has been lying, and could be operating against their best intentions. Cameron reveals she's able to lie (if the mission demands it), but kept the chip because it contains valuable data they can use...
Using high-spec computer equipment acquired from a geeky friend, John manages to connect Vick's chip to a motherboard and stream broken fragments of the T-888s audio-visual memory onto a screen. It appears that, amazingly, Vick was actually married to a woman called Barbara Chamberlain -- who never suspected her husband was a cyborg from the future. Wouldn't you just love to see them on Jerry Springer together?
Cromartie (Garret Dillahunt) is also making great progress in finding John, now arriving at his school and performing face-to-face searches of students. Cameron identifies Cromartie, after receiving a note from a student asking for her "brother" John to meet a FBI Agent at the school, and convinces love-struck Morris (Luis Chavez) to go in John's place. Cromartie fails to match Morris' face to his visual record of John and leaves the premises. When John discovers Cameron's actions, he isn't happy about her willingness to put his friend in danger, but also makes her promise not to tell his mother -- for fear of them being forced to move house. Again.
They come to realize Barbara was involved in a new high-tech traffic control system for Los Angeles, with Vick's mission being to insure she completed her project – before later strangling her as she took a shower. Sarah is certain the traffic control system will one day evolve to become Skynet's "nervous system", with The Turk computer program its "brain". Clearly, the new system has to be taken down, so John works on a computer virus they can upload at the source to destroy it.
Fortunately, the traffic system is next door to City Hall, which can be accessed using underground tunnels built during the Cold War. Derek is particularly familiar with the location, as he spent much of the future scurrying around underground with brother Kyle. They manage to get inside easily enough, despite having to blow through an obstructing wall, and upload John's virus. The virus fails and Derek and Sarah are forced to run from security guards who catch them in the act.
Back home, John is still tinkering with Vick's chip and applies more voltage – resulting in the chip "rebooting", accessing control of John's computer and dialling a number using his cell phone. John and Cameron manage to pull the plug (these Terminators are tenacious!), but are both left wondering who Vick called...
After Sarah reveals their mission failed, the experience with Vick's chip gives John a better idea: to use Cameron's CPU ("the best learning computer on the planet") to access the system by connecting it/her to a traffic light. Just go with this, okay. The episode's most striking scene has John slicing open Cameron's head to remove her chip, turning her into little more than a lifeless china doll, before plugging her "mind" into a city traffic light with Derek.
After the system crashes, Derek snatches Cameron's chip from John – warning him that one of these things will kill him one day, but John still has faith in Cameron. Later, there's quite a touching scene when John resurrects Cameron by re-inserting her chip, finding himself absently stroking her hair as he does so. While it was inevitable a "love story" would present itself between Cameron and John, that scene was tenderly played by both actors, and I hope this awkward relationship continues.
So it seems Cameron isn't the wolf in sheep's clothing we expected from Dungeons & Dragons, and is also exonerated from Derek's suspicions she was responsible for slaughter of his men at their safe house. After scouring Vick's memories, Derek instead finds that a colleague called Sayles (Jonathan Sadowski), tasked with keeping tabs on Barbara, was followed back to the safe house by her husband Vick/T-888 – who proceeded to terminate all of Derek's friends.
Overall, Vick's Chip was a rather simple storyline that linked nicely to events in previous episodes, and managed to entertain in its own right. I'm still grossly disappointed by the treatment of Sarah Connor on the show, as she spends most episodes pacing around, or standing with her arms folded. The introduction of Derek Reese has certainly shaken things up for the better – giving a fresh dynamic on things in the process -- but it's also resulted in him shouldering the bulk of the action sequences and further limiting Sarah's role on the show. Sure, she tussles with a few security guards in one scene, but Sarah's still far from the dominating presence the title of the show infers.
Vick's Chip is solid, but unremarkable stuff. I'm still really enjoying Summer Glau's wide-eyed performances, Thomas Dekker got a few chances to shine, the direction for Brian Austen Green's character is agreeably unpredictable (a romance with his brother's lover?), but there were a few dumb ideas scattered around (a thug-like, monosyllabic Terminator playing house husband!), and I'm yet to be chilled by the performance of any of the villainous Terminators.
3 March 2008
FOX, 8/7c pm
