Mania Grade: C-
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- TV Series: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
- Episode: Today Is The Day
- Starring: Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker, Summer Glau, Richard T. Jones, Brian Austin Green, Shirley Manson, Garret Dillahunt, Levin Rambin, and Stephanie Jacobsen
- Written By: Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz
- Directed By: Guy Norman Bee
- Distributor: Fox
- Series: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Sarah Connor Chronicles: Today Is The Day
Jesse on a warpath. By
Rob Vaux
March 14, 2009
Mania Review of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Today Is The Day(2009).
© Mania.com/Robert Trate
While bagging up Riley's inert body, Jesse (Stephanie Jacobsen) has a "flash forward" to a mission onboard a submarine named the Jimmy Carter: one whose captain, Queeg (Chad Coleman), may or may not be cybernetic. She tries to drown the memories at the local bar, where she picks a fight with a Navy pilot and gets the snot kicked out of her. She ends up in jail, and Derek (Brian Austin Green) has to bail her out.
Sarah (Len Headey), decides it's time to move again, and starts packing. John (Thomas Dekker) offers to clean the garage, then insists that Cameron (Summer Glau) hide all the spare robot parts she's been keeping out there. Kacy (Busy Philipps) reveals that a body was found in the river, and Sarah recognizes the description as Riley's. She informs John, who confronts Cameron: the machine denies having anything to do with Riley's death.
In the future, the Jimmy Carter comes under attack from a machine-controlled ship and a submersible Skynet weapon known as a Kraken. Queeg engineers an escape by descending to near-crushing depths, while Jesse notes that the maneuver sets them some 300 miles off-course.
At Zeira Corp, Savannah Weaver (Mackenzie Brooke Smith) is lured into the basement by John Henry (Garret Dillahunt), who offers to play hide and seek with her. Her mother (Shirley Manson) and Ellison (Richard T. Jones) soon come looking for her. John Henry offers to give them clues to her whereabouts if they guess what he's thinking of. They play his game--with Ellison growing agitated and Weaver remaining placid and patient--and eventually find Savannah hiding in a Zeira Corp helicopter. Ellison speaks to John Henry about his stunt, explaining that if Savannah had died, it would have been his fault.
Sarah finds the spare parts that Cameron was hoarding and confronts John about his closeness to Riley. The subject of Cameron's possible hand in her death comes up, but John defends Cameron, despite his suspicions. He then visits Riley's foster parents; while he's there, Cameron calls, pretending to be Riley. She and John apparently concocted the idea to set Riley's foster family at ease.
Aboard the Jimmy Carter, Queeg reveals a new mission, which he claims was assigned by John Connor. Soon thereafter, Jesse's squad boards a distant oil rig and receives a mysterious box… turned over to them by a group of Terminators.
Sarah faces Cameron and tells her that the only reason she hasn't destroyed the cyborg is because John would never forgive her if she did. Cameron claims that the only way John can be safe is if he remains alone. Meanwhile, John finds Riley's body in the morgue and gives it a good long look before discovering pieces of flesh embedded in the nails.
The Good
Once again, the folks at Zeira Corp carry the week's most interesting plot thread. Pity it merely marks time for most of the episode. John Henry is learning, but where his still-forming ethics will take him and what that bodes for the future has yet to be seen.
The Bad
This is the first half of a two-parter, which makes sense because it feels awfully damn padded. Beyond that, the episode makes a textbook case for everything that's gone wrong with this show. A Skynet submarine is mentioned--carrying with it not only the promise of a kick-ass machine to fight, but also the chance to explore a corner of the Terminator universe that hasn't been seen before. Water-bound terminators! Aquatic warfare in the future! Awesome! Fantastic! Except… um, well, the budget's tight, so no incredibly cool Skynet submarine for us. Oh, they'll talk about how cool it is, they'll try to evoke it through a schematic and some scary noises, but they're not actually gonna show it to us. Otherwise we might actually start tuning in, and they can't have that. Financial restraints notwithstanding, the show continues to plod slowly in circles, consisting of more pointless conversations, teary-eyed admonitions and the sense of building towards some distant pay-off that's clearly never going to arrive. Even Glau's starting to look bored.
The Prognosis
I suppose whatever's in that box on the Jimmy Carter holds some potential. A protean T-1000? A giant mechanical spider? It could be pretty awesome… though this show has a way of demonstrating the vast, depressing differences between what could be and what is.
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This show is awesome and I think people are not giving it a fair chance. They want it to be the movies but it's not and it's not supposed to be. Like some people have mentioned before elsewhere you can't have straight up action through and through or a Terminator of the week. Because if you did you wouldn't be able to tell how everything became the way it did. And it seems slowly but surely every loose end is being tied together.
To me the reviewer seems displeased because the show isn't what he imagined it was going to be.
It's sad that it mostly likely will be cancelled - although the upcoming movie might save it - because I think it's one of the better shows out there. Fox is having a good year and a half with shows like this and Fringe. I hope to hell Fringe sticks...at least that looks like a definite possibility.