Today is blogger day here at T:SCC! FOX has invited some online friends to breakfast and an amazing day with our talented cast and crew, so keep your eyes peeled for report backs soon.
Meanwhile, did you enjoy last night’s premiere? Pink Is the New Blog is already smitten with Shirley. Entertainment Weekly one-upped their original review. BuddyTV backs us up, insisting that “anyone who continues to hate on this show is just being stubborn.”
Check out our composer Bear McCreary’s blog as he details the process of working with Shirley on the incredible opening song. And because there’s so much interest, Shirley and Bear’s “Samson and Delilah” track will be available on the upcoming T:SCC “Volume One” soundtrack and on iTunes in the days to come. We’ll let you know where you can get it as soon as it’s available.
Meet the T-1001. The new face of Skynet.
Who sang the song Samson and Delilha?
Do you have any idea how significant it is that I have NOTHING but total love for this episode?
Well, there is the little matter of the new intro (please can we have the old one back?) and Sarah’s missing VO (didn’t expect it at the beginning, but I’m hoping we’ll get them back next ep), but we’ll just ignore that for right now so I can keep telling you all how much I love you.
That episode was everything I hope for and more. How did you do it? How did you manage to make it so perfect? Every single character engaged me and every single scene was awesome.
LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE
Absolutely enjoyed it! Kudos to everyone involved with the show. Would love to have seen a 2-hour premier, but that’s alright! It was great fun. We can tell this is going to be a great season for T:SCC
Fantastic work, everyone.
In a world where you can’t please everyone, I think you guys (and girls) pretty much managed to please just about everyone.
And it just goes to show how much over two hours of T3 sucked, compared to less than an hour of TSCC, that opener rocked!
I would like to say also how much I was impressed with all the actors on the show, they have lifted TSCC to whole new level with their performances last night, truly awesome.
Particularly I would single out Shirley, who did a sterling job in her acting debut and Lena who just owns the role of Sarah.
And Summer, just how she manages not to blink or breathe or even twitch when the camera is on her playing dead (inactive) is beyond incredible, she didn’t miss a trick. Her performance throughout the episode was completely mesmerising.
Thank you one and all!
I absolutely love Terminator:SCC, first season.
If the rest of the second season is anything like the the season premiere, I am going to love it.
The plot was great and kept me interest, while the acting was awesome. I love Lena, Summer, Thomas and Derek. This is a great quartet.
The only thing I did not like about the premiere is that you used a man’s voice in the opening sequence. It’s called the Sarah Connor Chronicles
If possible, please adjust the opening sequence to use Lena’s voice 
With this said, I’m not sorry I bought the first season and I will definitely be buying the second.
Great episode! However, you guys missed a couple of great opportunities to pay homage to the first to Terminator films:
1) When Cameron stepped on Sarah and said,”Call to him,” she should have followed it up with,”I know this hurts — call to John.”
2) John when pulling Cameron’s chip out should have said,”you’re terminated!”
Anywho, great show — keep up the good work.
Awesome! I just hope that it doesn’t bash Christianity, but I don’t think it’s going that way.
Very good show. It shows what a single parent goes through when the child they raise starts to realize the world is not all candy coated love.
You realize of course that this is the opener to the season and the follow-ups must live to this standard. Great opener keep up the good work.
John had his work cut out for him right from the start. You really will have to watch Cameron from now on.
I’m new to TSCC, and I’m a huge fan already. I don’t know why no one told me about this before. I think it’s right up there with Lost (and I’m usually very nit-picky about my TV shows).
This was the best premiere episode I’ve ever seen. There were just so many great moments. The quality is amazing (like a movie) and the emotion was just right too. When John’s Mother says that Machines can’t feel, I understood by his pause and his answer that the point is: but he CAN feel, and does…
So many great things to even enumerate.
And the whole time I’m thinking to myself that I wish he’d get a haircut (I don’t like long hair on guys) and I felt so justified in the end.
I’m super excited all the way around!
I just have so much to say!
I loved Shirley, of course, and was happy to see her.
I think it was so brave to have the whole first act (about 7 minutes!) without any dialogue and just have a great song. Totally brave and it totally worked! I can’t praise this show enough.
I really want my friends to see it, but I know they’re not going to see the whole first season. Do you think they’ll get it if they just watch the first episode of the second season? It’s that good I think.
What can I add more to Intrepid’s remarks? Fantastic job guys.
There are a few inconsistencies though. In the wiki we discuss them, so please Dear Writers, follow the wiki from time to time. I know that you guys love the fans but don’t take their views seriously (hmm maybe I put this out wrongly…). Let’s not be so “dense”. So please. The wiki.
{{{hugs this blog}}}
I wasn’t too thrilled to see John purposely put his entire family at risk just so he could save his robot girlfriend on the off chance she might get betta. If he had just risked himself that would be one thing but he could have easily have gotten Charley, Derek and Sarah all killed with his selfish stupidity in bringing Cameron back. He certainly doesn’t seem any closer to being the leader of mankind than he was last season.
Anyway, overall I’d give the episode a B. Lots of great action and a great reveal at the end with the T-1000. Wish there has been more Derek but I liked his banter with Charley. Derek’s such a great asshole. He’s pretty much the reason I watch.
Glad to see the show back even though I’m not liking John all that much right now. I hope he gets a smackdown (verbal or otherwise) from one of his elders for that stunt he pulled.
OOOOOOHHHHHH, I can’t wait for next monday!!!! I love the new season already. Few things, I think the learning part of the terminators was starting to show. The FBI agent should have been killed at least twice. Kamern’s little out burst might play in to future episodes. Wow, most shows have, bad guys and love interest and other issues. This may be the first show to have a machine the center of affection.
the future is the present.
the present is the past.
this is future Johns’ view. so everything happens for a reason.
I think Cam was telling the truth in the “BIG” scene…. she loves john & john loves her. this is why he brought her back. (Summer, my hat off to you on how well you played that scene! I was compleatly blown away! and so was every fan out there) this was a huge bombshell! this is going too be very hard to top.
my 2 cents on this….? i think john will realize the does love Cam, but it will be to late and she gets killed doing something huge saving him and this is one of the many reasons he becomes a cold & bitter leader. and is never close to anyone. and this is what drives him to destroy skynet….
it’s obvious that the only survivor for the T4&5&6 is john.
i think the entire cast is doing an incredible job.
thank you all very much, i hope this show goes on for a very long time.
I am pleased that the T-1000 model had been re-introduced into the saga, as this was possibly the most sinister, lethal Terminator ever produced.
The T-800 was an unstoppable tank-like killing machine, but the T-1000 was a sleek, infiltration unit who used guile to achieve it’s objectives.
Kudos to Robert Patrick for leaving an indellible impression on a generation. He will never be topped, in my view. It was all in his eyes and movement.
I think that having Shirly Manson as a female counterpart is a good idea, but I thought the morphing effects in the opener were not that good. Did the show use ILM to produce these?
I know that Fox only has a TV budget, but I thought the morph could have been more seamless and in line with T2’s effects. After all, that film was made 18 years ago!
Also, I thought the guy who was killed by the T-1000 didn’t ‘die’ convincingly. He just stood still, then dropped softly to the floor.
Maybe he should watch how the Stanton twins did that same scene in T2, which was more shocking and therefore effective. No blood, but better acting!
I also hope that somewhere down the line, Cyberdyne Systems is re-introduced. They created SkyNet as per the original storyline (which I know the show doesn’t follow). In T3 and now TSCC, other companies have become involved. Why make it so complicated?
Posting this feedback here as both a theory to the behind-the-scenes story of the terminator universe, as well as free suggestions to the writers:
Eventually human technology would reach the point where Skynet could be created without any visitors from the future. So maybe that original timeline with no future interference created Skynet in 2280 (est.) but humans had advanced enough to defeat it. However, before Skynet was destroyed it created (or stole) time travel tech and sent terminators back in time to speed up it’s own creation further as Kreugen suggested.
In order to ensure it’s successful domination of the Earth, Skynet perpetually sent terminators back through each iteration of the timeline to ensure it’s creation at the absolute earliest possible time in human history. The earliest point happens to be the early 21st century, and is accomplished by utilizing the first AIs ever created (The Turk). However, something Skynet could not anticipate happened: it’s own tampering with the timeline created and molded a single human in the ‘primitive’ past that would become Skynet’s nemesis.
With so many changes already made to the timeline Skynet has become too well known in the past. It cannot undo the mistake of The Nemesis Complex and will never be created after John Connor’s life span. For example it can’t order terminators to delay it’s creation until 2100, because it’s future existence would now be prevented by John. Therefore it has forced itself in a corner where the only option is to ensure it’s creation in this era but still find a method of defeating John Connor in a temporal game of chess.
Consequently this explains how such advanced technologies like time travel or bio-organic liquid metals exist. Such things could not be created within the next 30 years, but since Skynet is really from centuries ahead of our time it was able to send the knowledge back within the T1000s which are from the original 2280 timeline. All of Skynets secrets are kept within T1000s which are the only terminators which have been sent back multiple times. Perhaps there are only a finite number of T1000s left over and Skynet will not have the capability to mass produce them between now and 2029. This is why it could only afford to send the one after John and when that failed, it re-prioritized the remaining T1000s, with the primary mission to protect Skynet’s creation.
At the beginning of season 1 I said the show would be nothing without Arnold, but I was wrong. This is by far my favorite show on TV. Actors doing an awesome job. Mondays are now my favorite day of the week.Are yall going to put Shirley Mansons song “Samson and Delilah” on Itunes?Good luck with the show! I sure hope it lasts a long time.Awesome Season premiere!
I forget to ask if yall are going to explain everything from season 1 because their was a lot of twists like the music basement where Derrick went?
AOL.com is having a poll for best show on television for their respective time slot. You can vote for SCC. Here’s the link. http://television.aol.com/feature/fall_tv/night-by-night-faceoff-poll?icid=100214839×1209043045x1200544922
Currently, through the efforts of us over at the Wiki, we have pushed SCC into second place. Dancing With The Stars is still in first place, but I know we can over come them. Also, after your done casting your vote for SCC, refresh the page. It will allow you to vote again as many times as you want.
That song “Samson and Delilah” by Shirley Manson was HOT!!!!! Please hurry up and release it on I-Tunes. I have to get that song!
That Shirley Manson song “Samson and Delilah” was HOT!!! The best version of it ever! Hurry up and get it to I-Tunes so I can have it!!!!!!!
Not having seen the first episode yet, as it won’t air here in the UK until the 22nd of October, I’m having fun reading spoilers, sigh, all I can do for now:-)
So he puts his entire family at risk putting Cameron’s chip back in? Sounds like a heroic thing to do, I noticed a comment up there that got me thinking about the Hero’s Journey as posited by Joseph Campbell, and turned into Writer’s Speak by Christopher Vogel in The Writers Journey.
Strictly speaking it wouldn’t surprise me if he re animates his favourite terminator. This fits in well with the hero mythology. The hero starts out on an adventure, often unwillingly and crosses a threshold and once across the threshold they can never go back and if they do go back they find the old world is nothing like the world they once knew. They go through various tests, meet mentors along the way, often become reconciled with their parents, or discover that their parent’s views are flawed, maybe meet their love interest, who usually proves to be a mirror image of themselves, and eventually return to the ordinary world after defeating the monster (skynet) and come back with a boon or elixir.
Just about every story, film etc follows this form in one way or another, the fun part is seeing how the characters achieve their goals. I think one thing that has stuck out for me in the first season was John’s defence of Cameron, a machine. He is often at odds with his human counterparts, and I suspect his own humanity. But it follows form in the future because future John is master of two worlds, which once again holds true in the hero mythology. The hero/heroine returns to the ordinary world after a terrifyingly, exciting journey and is master of two worlds.
I could get a sense from Derek’s reactions in the first season that he disapproves of John’s pets, and is trying to change it for reasons of his own. But perhaps that is the reason skynet hates John so much, because unlike his fellow humans, John is not afraid of the cyborgs, he embraces them, even lets them carry guns in his presence in the future. Such a man would be feared by both human and cybernetic intelligence.
So it shouldn’t surprise people to see him putting her chip back in and risking losing his family and his life. Heroes will do strange things and it has a cathartic effect on the audience. I know as a writer myself I do it all the time, take people to the very edge and leave them hanging for a moment before pulling them back.
I think we are seeing John become the future leader of the resistance, a man who can travel between two worlds. Perhaps Cameron does love him, I noticed someone mentioned that above as well. She is on her own hero’s journey, trying to find her identity.
Well that’s enough writers talk for one day, can’t wait to see this episode for myself.
Thanks for posting your comments up here, it gives me something to look forward to when it airs here.
Now back to my own little book.
Cheers,
Alastair
There are so many things to love about this show that it’s hard to talk about them all.
One of my favorite things about the first season is just HOW SMART THE SHOW IS.
I’d say it has to be one of the smartest and best written shows that i have EVER SEEN.
The pilot was great BUT from the second episode on it became crystal clear that i had fallen in love with t.v. again.
I really hope that the writers/directors keep the same feel going forward and please if at all possible i love the time travel aspect to all this. For example one of my favorite parts to the first season was when Derek took John to the ball park where future Derek was playing ball with his bro, and gave John a chance to see his father (even though he was a kid) That was such a great moment.
*********
Remember when (in the flash of the future) Derek got to meet John. And John ended up sending Derek back to the past~~~~~and apparently just a day or two before he had apparantly sent Kyle Reese back in time also.
This would have been the most perfect time for a cameo of Arnold to show up. It could have showed John sending Arnold back in time to protect him ( ya know in T2.)
Granted i’m not sure if that would make sense to the overall story and all ( it can get so so so so freakin complicated if you think too much about it LOL)
I was just thinking sense John had access to time travel technology it would have been cool to show him send Arnold back in time while he was sending the two brothers back~while they had access to that machine.
Anyway please keep up the good work.
TO THE PEOPLE AT FOX DON’T DO ANYTHING STUPID AND PLEASE GIVE THIS SHOW MORE EPISODES PER SEASON 24 WOULD BE FINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AT LEAST HALF THE PEOPLE I TALK TO LOVE THIS SHOW.
And of course i have my tivo record it each week
Great show. Love the work you guys and gals are doing.
Season 2 has not failed to deliver on the excitement from season 1. One thing that struck me interesting and breifly touched on in postings above, was John reinstalling Cameron’s chip and placing everyone in danger. I understand John is 16 and subject to all the same emotions and decision making ability, but he just recently finished building a docking port for Vick’s chip and started understanding the inner workings of the Cyborg mind. I thought the storyline would have been much more believable had John convinced the others to allow him to experiment in this fashion with Cam’s chip, and then when alone, reinstall it. A great twist would have been finding out things in Cameron’s memory that only he would have access to. That’s just my opinion anyways.
Oh, by the way, I think it will be found out that the first time Derek and Cameron actually met was in the “music basement” behind the closed door; that’s what makes her different. Also, don’t be surprised if John doesn’t eventually need some artificial limbs in the future; that are provided by other cyborgs along with the technology to implant them. That would be one way to allow John to triumph over both worlds.
Great job again . . . Loved the episode I just saw. I like the new mysterious action/thought going with Cameron right now. In the deleted scenes of Terminator 2, they reset Arnie’s chip so he can learn beyond parameters set by SKYNET. Cameron is more advanced. Who knows what John did to her chip in the future? I know the point was brought up about the Singularity. If a computer is smart enough to create smarter versions of itself . . . Could Cameron be a step in that direction?
It looks like that may be the direction we are headed. Does she have the potential to be completely self-aware? Is she already progressing to that point? Her conversation with Sarah touched on that. “AM I?” Does she doubt her purpose . . . her usefulness vs endangering John? We all act upon our life experiences, which you could call programming. We use what information we have and try to make decisions based on that data. Your entire worldview could be considered a sort of program. Anyway . . . the only difference is that we can have selfish motives regardless of our programming. We have seen Cameron investigating and trying to explore the art of dance. She is finding herself. I would like to explore this topic in more depth, but this doesn’t seem to be the time or place for a formal letter to the writers . . .
To wrap things up: Yes, this is the best show on TV right now. Yes, you are all doing a great job, from acting, special effects, writing, etc to marketing . . . great job.
I think that its a terrible shame that you have cast a wooden actress to play the role of the T1000, i love this TV series and until know have not found fault (maybe the Connor emo hair was a bit over the top) However i was truly disappointed to see how badly Shirley Manson was in the season 2 premier, it was so bad that i was feeling embarrassed for her which is not a good thing for a TV show to do, if her acting doesn’t pick up rapidly, i honestly don’t think i will be able to follow the show any more.
With the sheer amount of people trying to get jobs in Hollywood i think its sad that the position was given to Manson merely because she was the lead singer of a semi-popular (at best) band despite her completely abysmal acting skills, and lets be honest they are. Many people may be saying, aah but wait give her a chance, but why should we? why must her lack of acting skills jeopardise a show with falling ratings even more, rumours have already started to surface about cancellation mid season and i think its a terrible kick in the face for fans to have had her cast in an awesome role that was cemented in history by RobertPatrick’s awesome portrayal.
The only upside is that with her role being that of a T1000 she can be replaced with the greatest of ease and the show can get back to being what it should be, an awesome terminator metal fest.
Not related to this post - but I just have to say that tonight’s episode (Oct 6) was fantastic. I love this show. Thank you!
Fox, quit screwing around with the scheduling for the terminator series. Two-week gaps between episodes is too much. Don’t screw up this good show like you did with futurama.