TVSquad

To be honest, the fuzzy timeline is of no concern to me.
The "Glau-bot" is a fine actress (I've never seen her before) and I will continue to watch and hope Fox does not pull the plug.

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You could NOT think about it and just enjoy the show? You have to pick and choose what shows to think about. Lost, yes! The too soon departed Journeyman, yes! Heroes, no. Sarah Connors Chronicles, no. I think this one was just meant to enjoy. Which may be hard since the series has such a huge following.

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I understand why some people would want/have to examine all of the minutiae connected with multiple time lines, and I even enjoy the mind wrestling from time to time.

As far as the details of how they got a house and got John and the "Glau-bot" enrolled in school...
...really? You really want them to go into that in a one hour weekly series?

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I don't think it was differnet timelines as much as a changed timeline.

And I think the series handled the reset very well.

http://redlightnaps.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/sarah-conner-chronicles-pilot/

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Not to mention it's not like she was unprepared for an upcoming and fast move. If I were her, I'd have a dozen safehouses and ID's ready to go so we could be out of there at the first sight of a shiny metal ass.

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Uh..... It is a blog about TV shows... Where else should we go to sweat the small stuff?

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Not think?

What's the fun in "turning your brain off?"



TV shows and movies have their own rules. If they play by their rules then it's all good. Shoot'm Up is one of the easiest, most recent examples of this. Everything in it is absurd, but it sets itself up as absurd from the very beginning and sticks with it. Those are the rules of the Shoot'm Up universe. You don't need to turn your brain off because any kind of thinking will work out, given the rules of that world.

Other movies are completely idiotic and redefine their rules scene-by-scene hoping no one notices. See almost any Michael Bay movie. It ends up completely mind-numbing, yet you always have people going "who cares if it's insulting your intelligence, it's fun, turn your brain off!"

Sorry, no switch on the back of my skull. Brain is permanently stuck in the "on" position. I'm always thinking. It'll always happen. If a show/movie can't hold up to that kind of thinking then it's just not worth the time.

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As long as there's nothing glaringly obvious that contradicts itself within the same sentence then I'm not too bothered.

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There were a lot of holes in the first two episodes, not simply relating to the timelines.

1. How does the terminator skull travel through time? It's not covered with organic matter.

2. How does the bank vault rubble, and subsequently, the terminator body, remained undisturbed for eight years?

3. How does time jumping from 1999 to 2007 prevent the nuclear holocoust of 2003? What stops Skynet from going live?

4. How would John know that his mom was his best fighter ever if he never took charge of the resistance during her lifetime? In T3 he hadn't done anything yet and she was already dead.


I'm going to give the show a chance and I want to like it, but I hope they start to fill in the gaps.

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It all makes sense if you look back at it from the perspective of the future from the final change of the timeline. The problem is, we don't know when that point is & how many changes have been effected to create that timeline.

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I think that it is easy to overthink the TV version much more than we do the films simply because the films have to be a nice, tight, compact little package that runs a total of just under two hours. With a TV series, we have week after week of new plot development and by necessity the show constantly evolves over the course of just one season much less multiple seasons. We end up with SO much more story that there is just a lot more for us to dissect in the end.

As previously mentioned, the films all have plot holes and contradictions too but they aren't as noticeable because there just isn't as much time spent developing those aspects of the script. I think that is why the reaction to T3 was so bad, because in the film timeline, it made perfect sense to go there but in the end it just made the plot holes and previous contradictions stand out that much more. There was just a more stark contrast between those film scripts than if it were one continuous storyline. Frankly, we probably would have gotten a much smoother transition between all three films had they all been part of a television series instead of three separate films.

I am a big fan of time travel, whether in written or film form. Lets get this straight - the "perfect" time travel story has never been told simply because of the paradoxical nature of the genre. One can only get better or worse tales depending on how complicated the author wants to make the story or film. Back to the Future was a mildly complex story and they did address the time paradox issue pretty well. The Butterfly Effect (Director's Cut ONLY!) was a masterpiece of putting together the complicated results of making changes in a timeline.

Taking The Sarah Connor Chronicles and comparing it to the same standards, I think they are doing a terrific job! Hey, we've only seen TWO FREAKING EPISODES! We really need to see how this whole universe unfolds before passing judgement on the entire series. Hell, look at the countless Star Trek or Star Wars novels that work within the framework of the original works yet push the hell out of the boundaries originally established. I guarantee you that the thousands of people who buy those (and make them successful) are willing to let stuff slide just for the sake of continuing the series. I think we've just begun to see where we're headed here. I'm more than willing to get on board and see where they're going.

Hehehehe... props to whomever came up with "Glau-bot". Nice.

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In response to Wayne's questions:
1. That is exactly what I want to know. I thought the only way Terminators were able to time travel was if they were covered in organic material, so the head being able to travel but none of the other debris or clothing seems to make little sense. But then so does the severed head reactivating a body that had been lifeless for 8 years. Maybe this Terminator was something different. Maybe it was made of organic materials? Here's hoping we get an answer.

2. I thought all that stuff was in a different location. I thought the body was in a dump somewhere. I could be totally wrong, but that's just how I interpreted it.

3. I think the timeline set up by T3 is supposed to be 100% ignored by this whole series. Kind of like Superman Returns - we get part 1 and 2, and here's a new 3; forget the old 3 and 4. It's starting fresh. So T2 sets up a particular timeline and that is played out in the series which then creates another timeline after the jump at the end of the premiere. So the nuclear event of 2003 never happened and is a total nonevent in this series.

4. Again, the series seems to ignore T3 entirely, so that may give you an explanation.

I just really dig how all the terminators look different. That always bugged me about the movies. Why keep the same organic disguise on a new T800 that was on the original sent back to try and kill Sarah? And then later on, when the machines have sent an even deadlier killer, lets send back yet another T800 with, yet again, the same organic disguise. It just makes more sense that there would be multiple organic disguises for a number of terminators and I like that the series recognizes that.

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The point the series is trying to make, I believe, is that the war with Skynet and the human race is inevitable. It's going to happen, but it definitely needs John Connor.

Whenever a cyborg comes back to help, they are constantly altering the future. The moment the John Connor was conceived, that's the moment history changed.

Each time Arnold (the governor) saved Sarah and John, they were able to prolong the war, not stop it. And each time they prolong the war, new technology or strategies get developed into going back in time to get John Connor.

While multiple variables changes through the future and cyborgs, the constant is; the war happens, and John leads the humans to victory.

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Well.. as far as the timeline goes.. if.. you want to get technical.. the tv show is off by 2 years.. all you have to do to figure it out is watch the first 5 minutes of the second movie....

Sarah says in the prologue she killed the first terminator in 1984 and that the second was sent when he was a child..

The tv show starts off by saying john is 15.. the year in the show is 1999..

Given that.. john is 10 for T2.. making it 1994... miles dyson was blown up in T2.. or 1994..

The fbi agent says dyson was blown up in 1997..

there you go.. timeline all jacked up.

btw.. T2 is one of my favorite movies of all time, so I'm critical of the TV show.. sorry.

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The problem people are having stems from trying to reconcile everything where you don't have to. Each time someone is sent back from the future, the timeline is changed and invalidates what has come before.

1. Original timeline. Skynet attacks, is almost defeated by John Connor, sends Terminator back to kill Sarah, causes John's birth. (T1)

2. Second timeline. Skynet tries to kill John again (T2) and inadvertently changes history delaying Judgement Day until 2012. Sarah dies of cancer.

3. Third (current) timeline. Future!John sends Cameron back to protect young!John and bring John and Sarah into the future to save Sarah. Young!John decides that they need to stop Skynet rather than let the apocalypse happen.

Each timeline overwrites the previous version, which would make sense since each time Skynet tries to change things it only makes John Connor a stronger resistance fighter.

(And T3 doesn't exist.)

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It has no real timeline. Every movie, every book, every comic book, and the TV show all change the facts around. Just sit back and enjoy.

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