We’re big fans of our friends over in Salvation world, but we can’t help but love this side-by-side comparison of our series and the film, compliments of io9. And if you, like them, “enjoyed” Cromartie’s FBI massacre set to Johnny Cash at the end of season one, just wait until season two starts…
Have you pre-ordered your season one DVDs? They’re chalk full of extras and WBTV is also releasing them on blu-ray. Get some.
Let’s try an experiment. You missed Comic-Con or you live in Nebraska and just stumbled upon this blog. So you’ve still got questions** for T:SCC Showrunner-Captain-Writer-Blogger Josh Friedman? Leave them here in the comments. We’ll see if we can’t get you some answers later this week…
(**The Small Print: Josh is not going to spoil or ruin anything, give you Summer Glau’s number, nor “discover” and cast you as the next great Terminator. Stick to things he will be able to answer. For example, will Shirley Manson be using her natural accent? How long ago did you write episode 201?)
There is all sorts of T:SCC blabber online today. Make sure to check out blogtalk radio, scifi.com, buzzsugar, and io9 (all about reprogramming robots). Oh, and crazydaysandnights blog caught us at the beach yesterday.
So everyone here at SCC has a post Comic-Con hang-over. The earthquake yesterday didn’t help. There’s also some kind of Con-related flu going around; Chairman Friedman and Amanda our Wardrobe Goddess have sore throats and such. So thanks to everyone who came out and supported our panel. And gave us some kind of fan-boy virus, apparently.
Thanks also for your thoughtful comments on the swimming issue. It makes me feel better that you guys disagree on whether Terms can swim, since we argue about it here as well. It will play an important role in the finale of one of our upcoming Fall episodes. This may or may not include Cameron in a bikini. You’ll just have to wait and see…
Your comments, Alastair’s in particular, also got me thinking about another topic we talk a lot about in the Writers’ Room: Why does Skynet want humans dead? What the hell, robots, did we ever do to you? Why can’t everyone just get along? Friedman himself will address this issue in a big way in Episode 13, so it’s something we spend a lot of time musing about. It’s definitely something the entire staff is interested in exploring creatively – well, that and Terminator sex.
For those of you interested in the more prosaic Writers’ Room going ons, it’s a bit slow in there this week. Friedman is holed up in his office working his magic on a re-write. John Wirth is busy in post and casting. So that leaves us proles to play with our iPhones, bitch about the lack of good junk food in the kitchen and plot out the last half of the season. That’s right, we are already thinking about how to mess with your minds in Episodes 14-22. Making your heads explode is what we live for.
Speaking of the Room, Toni “Battlestar” Graphia is back from her Starbucks walk. She and the other women on staff will be the topic of my next blog. I promise not to post pictures, as I assure you we are nowhere near as cute as our cast — though we will take them on at Scrabulous any time. p
We’re out and about in Santa Monica today (shooting the climax of episode 203), and while we’re shielding ourselves from the sun we thought we’d take a moment to dig into the world wide web of T:SCC fan sites.
We’re linked up to some great ones (like Sarah Connor Society, Cameron and John, and the Terminator Chronicles), but we want to hear about the sites we’re missing! Where do you go for all things Sarah Connor (like, say, the original title for “Dungeons and Dragons”)? Who’s got the most comprehensive guide to the characters (extra credit for the name of John Connor’s teacher in the pilot)?
Comment away, fill us in. And as always, pass the word on about this blog. Take Back the Future is the two-way highway connecting you, the fan, and us, the show. It’s the Skynet mainframe with no network interference. So what are you waiting for?
Hi. I’m Dan Thomsen. I wrote “Vick’s Chip” in season one. You remember that episode…creepy Terminator with a human wife? Sinister traffic control system? Riiight…
Side note: Anyone who’s ever lived in or visited Los Angeles has to admit it’s a bit shocking we don’t see more TV episodes and movies that demonize traffic as a potential slippery slope towards the robot apocalypse. It’s about time that traffic got held to the flame for being a scourge to humanity, and until the movement catches on (Cuse/Lindelof: Help me out here!), it’s a torch I’m delighted to carry.
TPTB will probably revoke my access to this blog as the season goes along, I have fewer and fewer things to say, and my mind goes a little turgid after way too many hours of contemplating the temporal implications of the various FutureVisitors we have planned for season two. Until then, I’m only too happy to contribute more noise to the blogosphere.
Right, so… Vick’s Chip…
The idea to tell a story from the recorded “memories” we see in Vick’s T-Vision originally came from Josh “How can we make this more complicated?” Friedman. Karina Logue (as Vick’s wife) embraced the acting challenge. Scott Buckwald, our prop master, worked hard to come up with a design for John’s chip reader that looked sophisticated enough to actually read a T-888’s chip while still being raw enough to have been plausibly constructed of parts that John would have access to. We ended up with an episode that was cool, contributed to the SkyNet mythology, and had some emotional juice to it as well.
But the moment I get the most compliments on is something that I actually fought Josh to keep out of the episode. It’s the wink that Cameron gives to John as she leaves his bedroom. Almost all of the best moments on this show are these kind of little, idiosyncratic interactions between the characters. It’s not stuff that can be deemed “right” or “wrong” on a story level. It’s stuff like Cameron dancing in “Demon Hand”, or Derek and John watching the Reese boys play baseball in the finale.
And whenever you write something like that, it’s a little gut wrenching, because it either works or it doesn’t, and most of the time you can’t tell until you see it up on the screen. The easiest thing to do is to just cut it… sure, the script is a little bit more bland, but there’s no potential for failure!
Anyway, Josh came up with the wink and my gut said, “No way, it’ll never play.” I told him what I thought about it, we argued a little, and in the end it stayed in because he’s the boss.
And then when I saw it on screen and it worked 100%, I was reminded of WHY he’s the boss.
(Also: It helps when Summer Glau’s the one delivering the wink… I’m quickly figuring out that she can sell any moment that any of us can dream up for her.)
So, yeah. I was happy to eat crow on that one. And that’s my little story. Yay.
Wait…was it too long? Is blogging supposed to be a concise medium? The business development people keep telling us that people on the Internet have short attention spans. That hasn’t been my experience, but whatevs. Guess I’ll wrap it up.
Hope everyone enjoys the comic con coverage. Only a few more weeks until season two…
Thanks to everyone who came out to support us at Comic-Con this past weekend. Our panel was a lot of fun and it was great to meet some of our biggest fans over the course of the weekend.
Josh moderated the panel (which was so packed that unfortunately nearly four thousand people were turned away), and had only two rules: no mention of “Linda Hamilton” or “River.” But Lena, Summer, Thomas, Richard, Brian, Garret, and Shirley did give insight into their characters and what’s coming up for them in season two. We also premiered the exclusive first look, season two, sizzle reel to the boisterous room of thousands.
Couldn’t make it down to SD? Don’t worry, here’s the play-by-play of the T:SCC panel courtesy of the TV Addict. Oh, and did you hear about John Wirth’s big announcement? (Beware, spoiler). Also, the Sarah Connor Society posted a video of the panel and Entertainment Weekly has a few charming things to say.
“Yo, Derek Reese hopped time from 2027.” “No, Derek’s totally back from 2029.” Who’s right? Luckily, we’ve got the perfect solution — the new and improved Terminator wiki. Take advantage, solve ongoing mysteries, and sound off with other T:SCC fans. It’s like your own, personal little Turk.
We might have left off last season on John Connor’s birthday, but today is Cameron’s big day! That’s right, a big happy birthday to the lovely and talented Summer Glau from all of us here at T:SCC!
Make sure to wish her a belated if you run into us at Comic-Con this weekend! Two days…
