It’s Thursday, December 11th. Our holiday break is still some days away and we intend on making the most of our time. So what’s going on in the different facets of Sarah Connor-land?

You’ll catch the fall finale, Earthlings Welcome Here, this coming Monday night. It’s our last show before the big move to Fridays in February, so jump online afterwards and discuss. Meanwhile, the writers are spending long, mind-bending days in their room nailing out the specifics of the end of the season. As for production, they’re plowing through late nights and complex scenes for episode seventeen, as directed by Jeff Woolnough (who did an excellent job directing our fourteenth episode, the first one back in February). Yesterday’s shoot featured a real helicopter on set. Today? Rehearsal for one important climactic scene that will take the entire day to shoot tomorrow.

Fun, fun, fun…

In another scary case of real life catching up to our fictional world, The Sun recently profiled a Canadian inventor, Le Trung, credited with developing the first successful “fembot.” Let’s just hope no one gives Aiko her first 9mm anytime soon…

We recently put together this great behind the scenes piece with our multi-talented visual FX guru (and previous Emmy Award nominee), Jim Lima.

“You’re a mother. You’re a seeker. You’re a soldier. You’re everything but you’re nothing.”

Earthlings Welcome Here
Monday 8PM/7PMc
FOX Fall Finale

“Many believe tactile experience is integral to AI development.” -Catherine Weaver

Three stories. One ending. Last night’s Alpine Fields hit home for Derek — and some of us here. Can your actions in the present really change the future? Yes, it seems there is hope after all.

You may have noticed that writer John Enbom took a little influence from the Michael Haneke film, Funny Games, for the Sarah/Cameron story. “Anne” is the name of the mother/female protagonist in both the film and our episode, and both dogs meets a similar end (complete with a sad, fated yelping).

Alpine Fields is the first episode in Sarah Connor history to be co-directed. Because of our crazy production schedule, we actually shot half of the episode (”six months earlier”) during the beginning of August and the rest of the episode (Derek/Anne/Lauren and the future mission) in October. Allison from Palmdale’s Charles Besson directed the Sarah/Cameron/Fields cabin story and Bryan Spicer (Goodbye to All That) directed the present day and future stories. Both are credited on the episode.

Did you recognize the light blue sanitation suits worn by the resistance members in Serrano Point at the end of the episode? While you might remember them from the film Outbreak, their reappearance is actually more significant than that. Purposely, they were the same ones worn by our cast during the present-day story in Serrano Point in Automatic for the People. Seems somehow the nuclear power plant did end up in the resistance’s hands…

Last night also featured the return of Lena’s 300 co-star, Peter Mensah, as General Perry. If you were paying close attention to his conversation with Derek, you can deduce when these Alpine Fields future scenes take place in relation to those from Dungeons and Dragons. Piecing it all together, you’ll realize that they fit into the implied time lapse between certain scenes from that season one episode. But just how much time lapsed? Spoiler alert! This certainly isn’t the end of the story — we’ll be filling in more details of that future later on this season. Even more, you may have realized the story of Derek and Jesse’s first chance encounter seemed familiar — because you’ve heard them talk about it before in The Tower is Tall…

Hey, did you catch the name of the Fields family dog? Charles Barkley. Wa-ha-ha. And they say we’re all doom and gloom around here. We do funny too. And for the record, while breaking this story in the writers’ room, he was simply nicknamed “Scraps.”

Continuity alert! When Sarah gets a call from John she explains to him that “We got a hit on a name on the list. Alpine Fields, it’s a family…” Let’s go back, dear friends, and take a little look at the bloody list on the basement wall at the end of Automatic for the People. Yep, there it is! “Alpine Fields” — right below “Greenway,” “P. Alto,” “Dr. B Sherman,” and… ?

We learned quite a bit more about Jesse and other facets of the resistance in this episode. For starters, it’s an international war. “Been making troop and supply runs back and forth to Perth for months now. Seawolf sub. The Jimmy Carter,” she tells him. “You’ve got a nuclear submarine?” Derek retorts. Do a little deductive research and you’ll quickly uncover where exactly Perth is — Western Australia. Even more, Jesse explains to Derek later that they’ve started growing food again there. She offers Sydney a delicious snack of Plumpy Nut– “Peanut butter mixed with baby formula and vitamin powder,” as she describes it. And it’s real, too.

Alpine Fields is the first episode in the series to not feature an appearance by John Connor. For what it’s worth, this episode was not shaped or designed as such. Fear not John Connor-addicts, our boy-wonder will be back next week for the all-new Earthlings Welcome Here.

When Derek spots Lauren’s Saint Christopher’s medal dangling around her neck, he encourages her to take it off — “It’s a target.” Later (after Anne’s death), Lauren takes off with her baby sister, leaving her medallion behind. In the Catholic faith, St. Christopher was a martyr that was killed during Roman rule. He is significant because his story is one “in which Christopher carries a small, yet almost unbearably heavy, child across a river. The child is later revealed to be Jesus Christ. It is this popular story from which Christopher became the patron saint of travellers, and it is the source for the derivation of his name. The Greek word Christophoros translates into ‘bearer of the anointed one.’” Baby Sydney, of course, grows up to save many lives in the future…

Just wanted to take a moment and thank all you loyal T:SCC fans that are followers of this little pet project/blog. Your open and frank discussions on the characters, stories, and complex themes of this series has thus far been respectful of each other as well as reflective of the high caliber of you, our friend. While you frequently express differing points of view, you do so in an honest and intelligent manner. Please know that does not go unnoticed.

You not only encourage us to meet and further challenge expectations on screen, but also to continue knocking down the walls that have traditionally separated fans and producers/writers/cast. As we near the end of our initial thirteen episodes (don’t worry, we’re not off the air that long), we hope to be able to announce some exciting endeavors to keep us all involved during the break. Hang in there, baby.

“Are they nightmares or are they memories?”

In her search for resolution, the three-dots lead Sarah somewhere she never expected. But that’s only the beginning of the episode. Do the three-dots hold some significance or are they merely a figment of Sarah’s regression into insanity? Solve the mystery to find out WHO IS SARAH CONNOR?

Earthlings Welcome Here
Monday, December 15
8PM/7PMc on FOX

Some of you eagle-eyed viewers may notice that tonight’s episode, Alpine Fields, sets a new record for the show in number of onscreen chyrons used to designate the time and location of what we’re seeing. We normally hate to use these little audience helpers, popular as they may be, but we made an exception for this episode, and you’ll probably notice why as well: it’s probably the most structurally complex thing we’ve done to date.

While in the past we’ve used flashbacks and played games with linearity and narrative structure, this is the first time we’ve simultaneously had one character flash back to her past while another flashed back to his. But such is the twisty nature of time-and-cause-and-effect in the Terminator universe that it made the most sense to tell the story of Derek Reese and his multiple connections to the Fields family in the past, present, and future.

And speaking of the future, I always feel bad when it leaks out that an upcoming episode is going to feature scenes from the Future War ™, because I know a segment of our viewership is in for both elation and disappointment. The tantalizing glimpses of mankind’s desperate struggle against the machines are some of the most memorable scenes from the Terminator film series— the closest the franchise comes to pure science fiction action porn. Yet they also tend to be incredibly difficult and time-consuming to shoot, and in this case we chose to use the future to tell a smaller and more intimate story.

So while you may not see flashing plasma rifles, marching endoskeletons and exploding H/Ks, we hope you’ll be intrigued by the hints at the global nature of the man vs. Skynet war as well as moved by the story of a family trying to survive the unthinkable and a man’s struggle to find a reason to live in the midst of devastation and hopelessness. Because while other science fiction worlds have come and gone, the human drama at the heart of the Terminator franchise is the exact ingredient that’s kept people watching for nearly a quarter century.

Top Ten Things To Look Forward To In Tonight’s Alpine Fields

10. Sarah Connor with a sledgehammer.
9. Return of a character not seen since Dungeons and Dragons.
8. Haley Hudson (Weeds‘ Quinn Hodes) as…?
7. Our favorite nuclear power plant turned Resistance Base — Serrano Point.
6. Cameron being that crazy, kooky cyborg, Cameron (you like her paired up with Sarah, you say?)
5. One mini-Firefly reunion (Summer Glau and Carlos Jacott).
4. Funny Games influence on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
3. Double-team directing! An episode brought to you by both Charles Beeson (Allison from Palmdale) AND Bryan Spicer (Goodbye to All That).
2. More insight into the complexities of Jesse (and Derek, for that matter!).
1. Oscar Wilde’s last words.

Tonight. 8PM/7PMc. Only on FOX.