Everyone Dies For You

That's the last line from the latest episode of Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, where Team Connor has to protect Martin Bedell, a student at a military school who's destined to help John fight the Terminators in the future. That line is said by Derek, who tells John that Martin is destined to rescue Future John in a suicide mission. After all, protecting John, especially when he grows up to be Christian Bale, is job one. Job two is getting more viewers away from Chuck.

The show is really picking up the pace as far as the battle against the Machines is concerned. John is coming into his own as a future warrior, especially this past week. He dared to change a T-888 model to save Martin in an "exercise" that was all too real.

Meanwhile, Sarah and Cameron had to protect a kid with the same name as Martin from the T-888, and also help him with a book report he has to finish. Never mind the crazy robot; he's worried about his teacher asking where his book report is. Sarah helped him by showing him The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a favorite of John's. It's no coincidence that Little Martin reading the climax of the book was juxtaposed with John's battle with the T-888.

The week before, Summer Glau had a chance to shine when Cameron suddenly lost her memory by looking at a mylar balloon. While she tries to remember, we learn something interesting about her....she is based on a human from the future named Alison Young. Not only that, apparently Alison was a friend of Future John, and maybe more. It was quite a trip seeing Alison being questioned by the Terminator that would replace her...in more ways than one. The whole episode looks at identity, and the stories we tell to "define" who we are. When Cameron finds her way into a halfway house, she is asked about her past by a counselor. She recalls a birthday party that would be her last before the Terminators took over. Of course, that's not Cameron's memory. It's from the girl she interrogated in the future, and now assumes later on. That's just one example. We'll get to an evil example later.

It does bring up something: remember the season opener, when John is about to put Cameron down because her chip was broken, and she said "I love you, John, and you love me." Now, if Cameron was able to join John in the future by pretending to be Alison, and he figured it out, what kind of relationship did they have after that? Did he love Cameron because she could be Alison, and does that chance now that she's been sent to the past to help 2008 John? How's that for a psychological paper?

Now, while Team Connor battles the Terminators they do know, they are still unaware of the T-1001, also known as scary businesswoman Catherine Weaver. She's been able to recruit Ellison in her plans, whatever that may be. We know, at least, that she wants to find another Terminator, even if it's a lesser model than herself. She also thinks she has Ellison fooled, especially by her story about how she lost her husband in a helicopter crash. That's part of her human illusion, which will make him do "the Devil's work". She even throws in a "daughter", possibly four years old. Any question about whether she's a real girl, not a T-1001.5, will be resolved in due course. There's been some speculation that the T-1000 Weaver is impersonating the real Catherine Weaver who died in the crash. Considering who Cameron is, and how she came up with her persona, that makes sense.

Anyway, she also tells Ellison to investigate the meltdown at the Serrano nuclear power plant, and he finds a lot of inconsistencies. He also learns the plant manager is asking questions, which could stop plans to have the plant automated with, naturally, done with something that will eventually be SkyNet. Weaver solves this problem by disguising herself as a sleazier version of herself, and killing the manager in a way that's a little less sleazy than how she killed another guy a few weeks earlier. However, Ellison also knows that Sarah was around when the power plant broke down. After all this time, shouldn't these two people meet? Maybe he'll finally admit she was right about evil robots and all that, and come up with a way to take care of Weaver. There is word that day is coming, and about time!

There is some concern about whether season two will last longer than 13 episodes. At the very least, we should get a showdown between Cameron and Weaver. Let's hope that Fox will keep this show going long enough to finish its story, and somehow connect it to the Terminator movies that are coming next year.

From Slayer to post-Gossip Girl?

By now, devoted Whedonistas are aware that Sarah Michelle Gellar is about to return to TV, but not to fight vampires, zombies or assorted hellspawn. Instead, she'll be fighting demons, the internal kind that are smaller than Gachnar but much, much worse.

Variety broke the news that she's in a pilot for HBO called The Wonderful Maladys. It's about three adult twenty-something (I'm guessing) siblings who lost their parents when they were young, and are still grappling with that problem. She plays someone with "agressive immaturity". That sounds like what happens to anyone from Gossip Girl five years after college.

I remember interviews when Sarah was asked if she could be type-cast, since she's always known as Buffy most often. Well, judging from her list of movies, she's never fighting vampires. The only action heroine she's been was April in the CGI revival of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. She was Daphne in two Scooby-Doo movies, but I don't consider that "action hero". She's been in two Grudge movies, been a bad girl a couple of times, and even a romantic lead. Still, many of us still wish she'd be Buffy just one more time on TV, possibly bringing enough of the current comic book series to life. That could be done, if you had $700 billion dollars to cover the special effects budget rather than give it to incompetent banks. Besides, a mini-series is still tbe best bet to give Buffy her last hurrah...and still live...then hand the stake over to a new generation. If Heroes tanks after this season, that should provide three Slayers and five Watchers right there. Imagine Summer Glau battling vampires, only because Eliza Dushku could be busy next year.

Still, Sarah's new role could give her career a boost. It's worked for Glenn Close, Kyra Sedgewick and Holly Hunter, even though they played strong women. Sarah will play someone who is still struggling with her future because of a past tragedy. This could work well for her. We shall see if she winds up being the girl who gives HBO its comeback after losing The Sopranos.