TSCC 1x05: “Queen's Gambit”
Jan. 13th, 2020 08:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urth posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tori_reviewsTSCC 1x05: “Queen's Gambit”
In spite of it being a general metric of mine, it's actually kind of rare that I get such a clear example of the five episode line. Generally speaking, unless a series really pissed me off in the first couple episodes, I wait until about five episodes in to decide whether a show is worth committing to; a series does need time to establish its rules and what type of story it's going to tell, and by episode five we should have taken a couple steps forward in whatever arc it has or at least seen a few things start connecting even if we don't quite get the main picture yet.
By that sort of logic, this is like the perfect episode five to have me lock in. I definitely want to watch more of this now, I like the connections we're seeing and the escalation we're getting and how it's furthering several pieces of the story. If I wasn't stopping to do reviews I probably would have kept right on watching several in a row after this; not that I would have been against binging it before, but this was a next level ep.
This does feel like a very abrupt end to Andy's part in the story. Sure I was surprised he came back into it this soon, but then he was dead ten minutes into the episode. And in that time I have to again talk about my read of this. Because if Sarah hadn't gotten involved with him in the first place, and burned Turk 1, then Andy wouldn't have been at this event with Turk 2. He might not have been there at all, the destruction of Turn 1 seems to have set him blazing and in need of a backer who seemed to be the one pushing for this competition and wanted the defense contract. And whoever killed Andy and took Turk 2, might well be running straight to whoever is going to make Skynet in this timeline. To argue against myself, it was said the Turk 2 wasn't quite as smart as Turk 1 yet, so if Andy had brought Turk 1 to this competition, maybe Turk 1 wins and everything goes down a direct path between Turk and Skynet. Alternately, if either Derek or Sarah had killed Andy *and* torched Turk 1 a couple episodes ago, then there is no Turk 2, but my lingering feeling that this is part of the time loop idea remains.
I suspect we're going to get a lot more info on Derek's timeline in the coming episodes, but right now I'm confused. Both in universe and on a viewing level, obviously we're not dealing with quite the same circumstances as were presented in T1, or even T2. This is a time war, and things that happen before and after other things get very screwed up. That said, the idea that this resistance team was sent to 2007 to help the Connor family does not track. In the original timeline this is a good ten years after Judgment Day, so they're not from that time line; but had Chromarty not been sent back to 1999 and then Cameron sent to protect John, then Sarah and John would not be here in 2007 needing a team protecting them; but unless we're saying they're in a different time loop, future-John couldn't send a support team back to a time and place he had no way of knowing Cameron would bring them.
If the resistance team was there for unrelated reasons, such as stopping various infiltrators apparently running around trying to do things in these last few years pre Judgment Day, they could be from another whole different timeline than Cameron.
But then of course where does that put Derek compared to Kyle? And what was future-John's relationship with either of them like in this different but similar circumstance future? That version of future-John (who would know enough to send people to 2007) would have to live through failing time and time again to change the future before it got there, and is now the one sending people back to fight the war for the future in the past, either trying to think of something that hasn't been tried before or always knowing it can't work.
The situation with Derek is also hard to track now because it seems a bit contradictory. If he's not surprised that she knows after future stuff, is the fact that future beings kept showing up in her life part of the publicly known story of Sarah Connor? Which sort of makes sense if the time war is a huge part of this version of history, but then I feel like a lot more about Sarah and John would be among common knowledge, and therefore more questions raised about if they're actually changing history or preserving a still crappy version of it.
I'm just talking in circles about something that will hopefully be a bit more addressed soon. On a more direct note, I'll be surprised if Charlie survives the season, even though it's a short season. I don't know that I believe he has a lot to do in this story, but so far he's still around, so I won't be too surprised if it doesn't last. Doesn't mean I won't be kind of sad, I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with his relationships with Sarah and John, for them they ran away something like a month ago, while it's been eight years for him, that should be an interesting dynamic that I hope they do something good with. Before he almost inevitably dies, that is.
I'm not quite sure what's up with Cameron at the end, but again I don't think they'll leave us in the dark for too long. But I'm also confused why they don't break the other AI chip, if that's all it takes for terminators to be able to put themselves back together (as we saw with Chromarty) then breaking that is pretty key to not having another robot after them. Obviously in the future they have some ability to reprogram AI chips, but even if they can cobble it together now, what would they do with a reprogrammed chip?
So I guess we'll how much the next episode clears anything up for me. Hopefully at least some of it.
In spite of it being a general metric of mine, it's actually kind of rare that I get such a clear example of the five episode line. Generally speaking, unless a series really pissed me off in the first couple episodes, I wait until about five episodes in to decide whether a show is worth committing to; a series does need time to establish its rules and what type of story it's going to tell, and by episode five we should have taken a couple steps forward in whatever arc it has or at least seen a few things start connecting even if we don't quite get the main picture yet.
By that sort of logic, this is like the perfect episode five to have me lock in. I definitely want to watch more of this now, I like the connections we're seeing and the escalation we're getting and how it's furthering several pieces of the story. If I wasn't stopping to do reviews I probably would have kept right on watching several in a row after this; not that I would have been against binging it before, but this was a next level ep.
This does feel like a very abrupt end to Andy's part in the story. Sure I was surprised he came back into it this soon, but then he was dead ten minutes into the episode. And in that time I have to again talk about my read of this. Because if Sarah hadn't gotten involved with him in the first place, and burned Turk 1, then Andy wouldn't have been at this event with Turk 2. He might not have been there at all, the destruction of Turn 1 seems to have set him blazing and in need of a backer who seemed to be the one pushing for this competition and wanted the defense contract. And whoever killed Andy and took Turk 2, might well be running straight to whoever is going to make Skynet in this timeline. To argue against myself, it was said the Turk 2 wasn't quite as smart as Turk 1 yet, so if Andy had brought Turk 1 to this competition, maybe Turk 1 wins and everything goes down a direct path between Turk and Skynet. Alternately, if either Derek or Sarah had killed Andy *and* torched Turk 1 a couple episodes ago, then there is no Turk 2, but my lingering feeling that this is part of the time loop idea remains.
I suspect we're going to get a lot more info on Derek's timeline in the coming episodes, but right now I'm confused. Both in universe and on a viewing level, obviously we're not dealing with quite the same circumstances as were presented in T1, or even T2. This is a time war, and things that happen before and after other things get very screwed up. That said, the idea that this resistance team was sent to 2007 to help the Connor family does not track. In the original timeline this is a good ten years after Judgment Day, so they're not from that time line; but had Chromarty not been sent back to 1999 and then Cameron sent to protect John, then Sarah and John would not be here in 2007 needing a team protecting them; but unless we're saying they're in a different time loop, future-John couldn't send a support team back to a time and place he had no way of knowing Cameron would bring them.
If the resistance team was there for unrelated reasons, such as stopping various infiltrators apparently running around trying to do things in these last few years pre Judgment Day, they could be from another whole different timeline than Cameron.
But then of course where does that put Derek compared to Kyle? And what was future-John's relationship with either of them like in this different but similar circumstance future? That version of future-John (who would know enough to send people to 2007) would have to live through failing time and time again to change the future before it got there, and is now the one sending people back to fight the war for the future in the past, either trying to think of something that hasn't been tried before or always knowing it can't work.
The situation with Derek is also hard to track now because it seems a bit contradictory. If he's not surprised that she knows after future stuff, is the fact that future beings kept showing up in her life part of the publicly known story of Sarah Connor? Which sort of makes sense if the time war is a huge part of this version of history, but then I feel like a lot more about Sarah and John would be among common knowledge, and therefore more questions raised about if they're actually changing history or preserving a still crappy version of it.
I'm just talking in circles about something that will hopefully be a bit more addressed soon. On a more direct note, I'll be surprised if Charlie survives the season, even though it's a short season. I don't know that I believe he has a lot to do in this story, but so far he's still around, so I won't be too surprised if it doesn't last. Doesn't mean I won't be kind of sad, I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with his relationships with Sarah and John, for them they ran away something like a month ago, while it's been eight years for him, that should be an interesting dynamic that I hope they do something good with. Before he almost inevitably dies, that is.
I'm not quite sure what's up with Cameron at the end, but again I don't think they'll leave us in the dark for too long. But I'm also confused why they don't break the other AI chip, if that's all it takes for terminators to be able to put themselves back together (as we saw with Chromarty) then breaking that is pretty key to not having another robot after them. Obviously in the future they have some ability to reprogram AI chips, but even if they can cobble it together now, what would they do with a reprogrammed chip?
So I guess we'll how much the next episode clears anything up for me. Hopefully at least some of it.
