PopSyndicate.com

The season two premiere of The Sarah Conner Chronicles starts with the remnant of a bang—and lets us know what has become of Sarah, John, and the gang after we left them in the aftermath of a robot massacre. While not nearly as exciting as the season finale, the premiere packs at least one punch that will leave you wondering who to trust.

Hey, Brenda here. I write and podcast for Geektress, featured here at Pop Syndicate. I’ll be your humble reviewer for The Sarah Conner Chronicles this season.

So, finally, The Sarah Conner Chronicles is back! I was told this time last year that there would be a television show based on the character Sarah Conner with the mopey kid from Heroes playing John, and I remember my reaction very well: I chortled in disbelief. (“Chortled,” seriously.) But the show has quickly become one of my favorites, reaching a fairly poetic climax in last season’s finale ( full recap at Geektress).

When we left off, Cameron (Summer Glau) had just been blown up by the real Sarkissian (James Urbaniak), and Cromartie (Garret Dillahunt) had just killed two dozen FBI agents to the tune of “The Man Comes Around.” (Johnny Cash.) We pick up pretty much where we left off, with a new voice-over guy doing the “Intro to Robots” (which I hope they lose soon) set to—what else—a Shirley Manson cover of “Samson & Delilah.” Oh hey, you hadn’t heard that Shirley Manson was on SCC this year? You lose.

Cameron reboots after her car bomb experience, set to “Kill John Conner” mode. While Sarah and John try to escape her and Sarkissian (Sarkissian getting killed in the process), their safe house gets burned down and they seek refuge for the duration of the episode in a church. After trapping Cameron and removing her chip, John decides he can’t stand being without her, and puts the chip back in, hoping her programming will override the urge to kill him (it does.) Meantime, Shirley Manson is introduced as the unnamed head of an unnamed corporation who recently purchased The Turk (the scary chess playing computer from season one.) Oh, and (SPOILER?) she’s a Terminator, too. (Full recap here.)

First of all, I really liked how they book ended the series together, with the finale’s ending montage set to a song, and the premiere’s opening montage set to a song, both biblical in nature. Unfortunately, I don’t think I like the latter tune as much as the former, and the premiere’s little music video is nowhere near as impressive as that massacre-at-the-bottom-of-a-pool shot from the finale. There are a few leaps of logic that are covered up by the editing, like how Sarah broke free from her bonds and managed to kill Sarkissian before the show even really gets started. (So much for looking forward to Dr. Venture being a villain this season.)

Mercifully, the producers have moved away from starting every episode with a voiceover from Sarah, and have toned down a lot of the angst of John (including getting rid of his damn emo haircut.) I’m always amazed at how much they manage to say in each episode without saying much at all, and “Samson & Delilah” is no exception. It would seem that not much has happened in terms of moving the plot foward in this first episode back from the writer’s strike: They still don’t have The Turk (or have any idea who has it,) no one trusts Cameron except for John, and Agent Ellison is still coming to grips with the whole “killer robots from the future” revelation.

However, I’d have to say I enjoyed this episode based solely on the strength of Summer Glau’s performance. The second half’s scene in the warehouse, where John was trying to remove her spark plug-brain-chip, specifically. It could have easily been played to cast doubt on Cameron’s nature as John’s protector (lying about “loving him” to get what she wanted—I.E., no disassemble), but somehow I didn’t feel like it was disingenuous, and I think that’s the right response. Despite both Sarah and Derek making it clear that Cameron can’t be trusted, I think the audience is supposed to side with John.

Most interestingly, Shirley Manson’s character is a T-1000. Up until now we’ve seen only “traditional” type Terminators (Cameron is diagnosed by other Terminators as “unknown cyborg,” but considering she’s made of the same Coltan as the “first” Terminators, I consider her old-skool.) I’m wondering if it’s in the budget to have Shirley shape-shift this entire season. The “liquid metal” cyborg can’t be an easy (or cheap) thing to animate, and the decision to debut this talent by having her morph out of a urinal seems… questionable. I’m not sure if it was played specifically for comedic effect, but I definitely laughed.

Overall, I’m glad the show is back and enjoyed this episode. Whether or not they’ll get back to the excitement built up by the last three episodes of season one remains to be seen. Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles was only ordered for thirteen episodes so far this season, but hopefully once the show settles in to a regular fall season (against actual competition and not reruns), it’ll prove itself worthy of a full season order.

4