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 for the insight Dan. The episode was an interesting look into the way Terminators work.
The wink was one of those special creepy/fun moments that bring us back to the show each week. And yes, Summer is terrific in the role.
You know what makes the very idea of this blog so totally awesome!?! I’ll tell you what. It pretty much terminates the niche of the T:SCC Superfan. But seriously! Why would anyone start a fan blog, fan forum, fan wiki for your show now!?!
Wait, don’t answer. It gets better. You guys can give yourselves your own exclusives! Wow! And scoops too! Won’t that be a gas. Quite the coup, if I don’t say so myself. You’ll blow the competition (read: your most loyal fans) out of the water.
Someone would have to be a total moron to try and compete with you. A total moron. Oh wait, you’ve snuck up on them. You waited until all the good intentioned fans went out and poured their hearts and souls into building online communities for your show before springing your super blog on them. Well damn. I guess you tricked them didn’t you. Pulled the rug right out from under them and you didn’t even need to time travel to do it.
But seriously you goofs. You really don’t get it. The idea is to let the fans ‘create’ the buzz and in turn get something out of it for themselves. With your official blog and your official wiki, you all but guarantee that the only fans going out of their way to ‘promote’ T:SCC now will be the poor saps who are already so invested that they have little choice but to make the best of what has become a suck-ass situation.
What’s really sad is 1 search and I found dozens of T:SCC fan sites. DOZENS without even trying. Sites that you people probably read. But what’s your brilliant idea? Give interviews to these fan sites? Nope. Give them scoops? Nope. Guest blog, or join in the discussions on their forums? Not even close. Your brilliant idea was to make them obsolete by creating blog of your own.
But hey, I get it. Internet fame is the new brass ring. Screw the show, you’re all going to be famous bloggers some day. That’s the ticket.
p.s. I’m not bitter. On the contrary, I’m thanking my lucky stars that I chose to be a superfan of a writer/producer who has better things to do than blog.
No, your blog post certainly isn’t too long, it’s a very interesting read from beginning to end. Also, you can give us more moments like “the wink” any day.
I’m really glad this blog was created, reading these insights make me love the show that much more.
It shouldn’t be a surprise anymore that Summer is so talented. After watching TSCC and her previous work, I’m convinced she can do anything.
Edward is crazy. That was quite the rant. I think people on the show do go to other boards and occassionally post on them. The official blog is a good central resource to find information and random goodiness. The fan sites are just that… fan sites.. where fans can get together and talk about it. I don’t see the big deal on who has the “scoop.” Who really cares where it comes from? I guess the people who get off on that sort of thing, but so what. Anyway, so yeah, Edward is crazy.. and thank you for this blog.
It worked great, Dan, just as you described. But the initial reservation was completely understandable. Agree about Summer, she’s a wonderful actress.
I hope you’ll share another story with us when you get a chance. Some of us are huge fans of the show and really enjoy a little inside look at the work behind the scenes from anyone involved. I’ve pre-ordered the Blu-Ray DVD for season one, can’t wait to see the extra material on it.
Thanks so much.
The wink is one of the best part =/
I love Cameron =/
I LOVE THIS BLOG \o/
Cousin Dan, MB Thomsen here. Great work, keep it up!
Thanx for the blog. It takes copious amounts of time to keep up with the fan sites on a regular basis. Spend the time writing! But, DON’T stay completely away from these sites - they’ll give the pulse of the various fan bases.
The wink was fantastic! Don’t over use this concept, Infiltrators still have a whole host of things to learn about humans.
Cameron as an infiltrator has learned one thing: a female smile will go a long way.
Keep up the great work. Don’t shy away from sharing your thoughts, concerns, and ideas here.
—JET_Fusion
the “wink” by cameron was great, episode was good too. I also liked when john was caressing cameron before she came back online.
I think the john /cameron attraction/romance interests alot of tscc fans.
How the heck could you NOT want to get with Summer Glau as bad-a** terminator chick???