Terminator-208 "Mr. Ferguson Is Ill Today" - Discuss/Grade <SPO>

[Wouter2]

You know, aside from Riley, this episode was all season one plotlines. Nothing with Weaver or Jesse.

And was it just me, or did Cameron sound genuinely scared in the police station when she said she couldn't let anything happen to John?

Yep she did. Could be because she has an attachment to John, as the bed scene suggest she did in the future, but John's safety is also her primary mission (unless all programming has been erased by her glitches and she is entirely autonomous now) so if he's dead she may lose her purpose.

She also seemed to show emotions when she was killing Cromartie - unlike when she killed those 3 fellow last week. I think she doesn't like killing those of her own kind, even if their agenda and her agenda are diametrical opposites (unlike Athena on BSG).

Something is up, because she never had a problem taking out any Terminators before.

I don't know about that. In the episode were Vick-the-Terminator (the one from the chip) was killed, she did write a "goodbye-note" - possibly for him. When she went against the nuclear plant Terminator, she first "had to think about what to do" - as Sarah noted, really abnormal for a Terminator, it was not like she was asked to set a new record for calculating Pi as precise as possible. When she disabled the contortionist Terminator, she was seemingly affected by the self-Termination of the chip (she was looking at it thoughtfully while reading the suicide prevention pamphlet). And now, she does seem to be affected in the final moments of Cromartie, the most clear display of (suspected) emotions regarding the killing of others like her.

Sarah learned a little about Cameron's glitching in this season. I think this is going to come into play in later episodes again, as she will probably try to learn exactly how Cameron messed up. Her Allison impression will come out sooner or later, I think, and it will be interesting to see Derek's reaction when it does.

 

[Aragorn]

No one's gonna get this joke, but maybe Cromartie will come back played by Cole Hauser.

 

[John Picard]

Yep she did. Could be because she has an attachment to John, as the bed scene suggest she did in the future, but John's safety is also her primary mission (unless all programming has been erased by her glitches and she is entirely autonomous now) so if he's dead she may lose her purpose.

She also seemed to show emotions when she was killing Cromartie - unlike when she killed those 3 fellow last week. I think she doesn't like killing those of her own kind, even if their agenda and her agenda are diametrical opposites (unlike Athena on BSG).

Something is up, because she never had a problem taking out any Terminators before.

I don't know about that. In the episode were Vick-the-Terminator (the one from the chip) was killed, she did write a "goodbye-note" - possibly for him. When she went against the nuclear plant Terminator, she first "had to think about what to do" - as Sarah noted, really abnormal for a Terminator, it was not like she was asked to set a new record for calculating Pi as precise as possible. When she disabled the contortionist Terminator, she was seemingly affected by the self-Termination of the chip (she was looking at it thoughtfully while reading the suicide prevention pamphlet). And now, she does seem to be affected in the final moments of Cromartie, the most clear display of (suspected) emotions regarding the killing of others like her.

Sarah learned a little about Cameron's glitching in this season. I think this is going to come into play in later episodes again, as she will probably try to learn exactly how Cameron messed up. Her Allison impression will come out sooner or later, I think, and it will be interesting to see Derek's reaction when it does.

Hmm. I missed those previous mentions. I will pay closer attention in the future.

 

[zephramc]

No one's gonna get this joke, but maybe Cromartie will come back played by Cole Hauser.

Due to Dillahunt taking over Hauser's character (Steve Curtis) in ER?

** I had to look that up, otherwise I'd have had no idea what you were talking about **

 

[nx1701g]

^ I remember that

 

[nx1701g]

PS: If John doesn't kiss Riley soon, there is something wrong with that boy! My god! I hate, HATE, *HATE* when they drag teen romances out. That's so unreal! My god!

Spoiler: Will Frontier be happy?

 

[Quantum]

Good Episode, but I was dissapointed with Chromaries send off. It was so anticlimatic....

 

[nx1701g]

Good Episode, but I was dissapointed with Chromaries send off. It was so anticlimatic....

I have a feeling we have not seen the end of Cromartie. T-888 have three CPU processors according to the producers.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Good Episode, but I was dissapointed with Chromaries send off. It was so anticlimatic....

I have a feeling we have not seen the end of Cromartie. T-888 have three CPU processors according to the producers.

Shouldn't Cameron be aware of that?

 

[nx1701g]

^ Why? She wasn't aware that Skynet was developing Terminators with self-destruct mechanisms in TTITBTFIS.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I guess I don't really remember the details of her story too well (need to rewatch those I guess) but I figured she'd know about the design specs of the other terminator models but I guess not.

 

[Quantum]

I would be surprised if he didn't comeback in one way shape or form. The Ellison terminator is still mostly intact and that equals alot of spare parts. If the Chromartie terminator had spare chips why would they take so long to activate if they are thier? However, I will bet my trekkbbs account that they are going to did up Chromarties body and his remains will be gone....

PS. Maybe Chromartie should swap out one of his backup chips for a better targeting processor.....

 

[nx1701g]

^ The problem with the Ellison Terminator was that Cromartie destroyed its power cell.

Also, just wanted to add, Dodge Ram fans now's your chance. Dodge's dire financial situation has these trucks down to bare bottom prices. Today I found one (fully loaded like the one on the show) for $29,000. The MSRP is $48,000. No I'm not promoting its purchase nor will I say where I found it at.

 

[LutherSloan]

I agree that this was probably one of the best episodes of the series so far. The acting and character moments were the best we've seen. I also liked the several nods to T-2 in Mexico as well.

It will be interesting to see now how the Connors and Ellison deal with each other, now that they are basically on the same side. Clearly Sarah was very uneasy with asking for his help, but she didn't really have a better option. I was somewhat surprised that Weaver didn't appear at all this week, but it would have killed the pacing.

PS- Did anyone else think it was a little odd that a Terminator wouldn't think that Ellison was leading him into a trap?

 

[nx1701g]

And now for my thoughts on the episode (since I couldn't watch it live with everyone else):

I was very entertained by this episode probably more so than any of the others that we've seen so far (minus Dungeons & Dragons which remains my favorite). There were many plotlines that were touched upon and dealt with rather than left dangling for us to think about. I do agree with many that Cromartie was too easily disabled and deactivated for my tastes. It seems to me that his death could have been one for a TOTW rather than the lead Terminator of the series for the first season (but then again he has been replaced by T-1001). I don't, however, think that this is the end of Cromartie. T-888 series terminators have the backup processors, but we just don't know if Cromartie sent them the activation code in time though.

What was truly interesting though was Cameron. She displayed several emotional responses tonight - at least in my opinion. While she did say that she couldn't be happy she did understand emotions; however, she seems to show genuine fear for John when they couldn't find him. Then, in addition, she seemed apprehensive while killing Cromartie. I wonder if Cameron is having a crisis of conscience when it comes to killing her own kind. We saw something similar last season with Vick where she shows some apprehension and writes a note to Vick to apologize for his destruction. Then the Greenway Terminator earlier this season she has a similar reaction to (temporarily not acting after hearing of the threat). She's reminding me a lot of a character known as D-800L. D-800L was damaged during transit to our time in a comic book story called Death Valley. D-800L started to question and wondered if he had a soul. I think that they're going somewhere like that with Cameron.

Ellison seems a bit different to me in those final scenes and I wonder if that brief chord of Cromartie's Theme (the ominous theme we get when an evil Terminator appears) means more than we think. I wonder if we were watching Weaver on the Connor's side to accomplish some mission objective important to her. Then again I may be looking more into it. As of the moment though Shirley Manson still claims she hasn't had scenes with anyone else other than Richard T. Jones (She has met the rest of the cast though).

All in all a very good episode.

 

[nx1701g]

PS- Did anyone else think it was a little odd that a Terminator wouldn't think that Ellison was leading him into a trap?

I think that Cromartie realized it was a possibility, but also believed that Ellison was doing his duty: leading Skynet to the Connors.

I think that they're setting up more than what we see at the moment. Looking at the promo for next week specifically and seeing Cromartie shown back to normal may be driving this a bit.

Spoiler: A possibility (spoiler)

Sarah's having nightmares again so it's possible Cromartie is part of the nightmare.

. However, I'm not counting Cromartie out.

 

[LutherSloan]

I agree that he may be back in some form.

 

[nx1701g]

Hmm.... I knew that Weaver's storyline was familiar:

Spoiler: What's so similar?

In the storyline a T-1000 replaces the CEO of a technology firm who purchases Cyberdyne's research. To accomplish her mission of building Skynet she wants to find a T-800 series terminator and knows that one is out there somewhere.

 

[-Brett-]

Loved this episode, though it the best one since the pilot.

PS: If John doesn't kiss Riley soon, there is something wrong with that boy! My god! I hate, HATE, *HATE* when they drag teen romances out. That's so unreal! My god!

Well, they're both uneasy teens who have had bad childhoods and have trouble forming cohesive relationships. It makes sense, so they're basically getting comfortable with each other. It's better for them to wait and let the relationship develop rather than having them lock lips right away.

It does seem unreal to me, maybe because of the community where I grew up but if a boy got a girl in their mid teens to take a road trip to Mexico he would not be trying to make bubbles as his first act in a hotel room. It reminded me of Wesley Crusher playing tag you're it.

To be fair, John wasn't playing with a soap bottle. He was trying to fix the hot tub. I'd argue that thats a sufficiently manly thing to do in that situation.

 

[MNM]

Liked teh episode a lot. though I despise Riley and she was in it too much to give it an "excellent" rating.

Was I the only one who thought, just for a moment, that it looked like Camerom was actually topless after she took her jacket off before going into John's room??