Sarah Connor Chronicles 1x03: The Turk

For the first time, Sarah’s opening and closing voice over actually made sense. Maybe the metaphor this time was less obtuse, or maybe I’m just too obtuse to really understand the first two. Trite as it may be, I liked the atom bomb scientists/Skynet creator parallel that was drawn throughout this episode.


Why does the Glaubot have such a hard time blending in now? In the pilot she fooled John (this ep even pointed that out, so the writers are at least aware of it) and passed as human for 73 days yet she seems almost Data-like now, rattling off synonyms and not understanding idioms. Obviously the producers are aware of this inconsistency, which is good, as long as they actually address it at some point. Don’t bring up your plot inconsistencies unless you’re prepared to address them on the show. I saw a comment online speculating that perhaps the reboot she experienced in the second episode when the safe knocked her out caused all her “act like a human” programming to get wiped. Works for me, if that’s the way they want to go.


The scene at the school entrance with the metal detectors reminded me of an issue of X-Men (Uncanny 158) in which Storm and Wolverine sneak into the Pentagon disguised as Army officers only to have Wolverine set off the metal detector. He produces a card which states he has metal implants due to war injuries. Yes, I am a geek.


I liked how Tarissa Dyson was less than surprised that Sarah was alive. The actress plays the character with a sort of resignation at the fact that this crazy lady is just always going to keep popping up in her life and there’s nothing she can do about. Very refreshing compared to the extreme disbelief or blinding rage that often informs such characters in the same kinds of situations.


Okay, so I get that the blond suicide girl slept with a teacher or something, but didn’t the doorway paintings seem strangely elaborate? I mean, who had the time to do that, without anyone noticing? Wouldn’t someone spray painting “slut” across her locker or something seem more like something a kid in high school would do? Instead some disgruntled painter turns the walls of the school into an enormous comic book all so to subtly drive this girl nuts? Maybe they’ll go somewhere with it, but if the whole situation was just to set up John’s line about how it’s not worth fighting the robots if they’re just going to be robots themselves, it all seems strangely odd and elaborate for such a seemingly throwaway bit.


Curious to see where the FBI agent subplot is going; as he continues to get further evidence that maybe Sarah isn’t so crazy, will he be stubbornly disbelieving or grudgingly accepting of what the evidence is telling him? Or something else entirely?


I’m no judge of good acting or chemistry, but I enjoyed the scenes between Andy and Sarah. I thought he did a good job of being geeky yet charming enough to not make it easy for Sarah to just cap him one. I appreciated her solution to what was essentially the old “would you go back in time to kill Hitler’s mom, even though she’s innocent?” problem. I appreciate it all the more for the fact that it remains to be seen how much destroying the Turk actually delays the war and whether or not killing Andy would have made a bigger difference (particularly since the internet tells me that the original Turk that Andy mentions was actually a hoax (there was a midget inside the box, apparently). With that in mind, was this Turk a hoax too, meaning its destruction (or continued existence) would have no bearing on the future?). I wouldn’t mind seeing Andy pop up again at some point.


When he first came on screen, I recognized the actor that played the scientist who gave the Terminator new skin and his eyes. My brain whirled about for a few moments and finally realized that he had a bit part in Love Actually. Yes, I am lame.


As someone who wants to see more of John being a leader of men and less a whiny teen, I appreciated the scene where Sarah told him about the Turk and the twenty questions he fired off about it, which reminded us that he has always been a “computer person”, a skill that will likely come in handy when he’s leading a resistance army against evil computers.