The Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles panel had Josh Friedman, Summer Glau and Shirley Manson in attendance.
The panel started with a preview of upcoming scenes from the rest of the season. First, we watched Catherine Weavers daughter skipping down a typical hall in her mom’s big company. She accidentally finds John Henry. John Henry asks her if she wants to play hide and seek. The door shuts behind the little girl, but John Henry is across the room and it seemed obvious the little girl didn’t shut it. Creepy imagery.
|
|
A few of the other scenes we’ve already seen on TV, but there was a new scene where John is laying on top of Cameron, sort of breathing hard… no, no… fully clothed… but still. I think it’s a misdirect cause I can’t wrap my mind around that one yet. This isn’t Westworld!
So let’s do a quick rundown on moderator questions:
On the three dots that Sarah has been chasing, Josh Friedman said all will be revealed.
Will we ever see Shirley and Summer fight? Well, besides in the green room, no. Besides, he thinks Shirley would kick Cameron’s ass anyway.
He was asked why have we not seen so much Cameron recently. Friedman said that he’s been focusing on Sarah for the last few episodes (yeah, we noticed). The challenge with Cameron, he added, is that there are alpha issues between the two. Obviously Sarah’s in charge, but Cameron is the kick butt machine. But never fear, the last six episodes will have a lot of Cameron in them.
On a machine trying to be a mother: Shirley finds she likes the challenge of the subtleties there. It’s a machine, but it’s trying to mimic motherhood, trying to make nice with the child.
After seeing her own scenes where she destroyed the warehouse in the desert, Shirley said she was thrilled to do it and after watching it, she felt that she was “scary bad ass.”
Friedman was asked if they will push forward to meet with the movie mythos. He said no.
He added that he likes moving his story along slowly. Moving things too fast makes it a soap opera of sorts. He wants to see his characters actually earn their developments, their changes. Though he does recognize that commercially speaking, that isn’t always the best approach. But when all is said and done, it is Terminator.
As far as whether he’s heard anything about a third season, he said there’s no news. Every time he goes on set, he sees the 250 people looking at him, wondering if they have a job next week.
There are six episodes left and there will be lots of action with many questions getting answered in these episodes. He said he was surprised at the number of reveals that they pulled off in the last six episodes. And he said we will be at last seeing Shirley and Summer in a scene together.
The fans started to ask questions at this point and here’s what came from that part of the session:
Shirley said that going to a TV series is surreal for her. She’s been making music since she was 15 and and she gets confused by lingo like “we’re gonna force you tonight,” and she left us with a confused, yet deadpan expression on that one. The audience found themselves eliciting a chuckle out of that one.
Summer explained that after a 12 hour day, it’s overtime. If you do that, and then they bring you back without a 12 hour break, it’s referred to as “forcing” you. Dang, I had a sense the audience was hoping for more than that.
As far as bringing any more Terminator mythos characters into the show, Friedman said no. He likes the cast family he has.
Friedman did toss out that he has a plan and is continuing with that story plan. This 2nd season finale encompasses 20 episodes of buildup and it does pay off. Yet he’s also opened more doors with more questions for a third season if they do get renewed. He added that he doesn’t want to end the show with all the questions answered and no new questions. He doesn’t want FOX to think he has no new questions. He doesn’t want them to think he’s done.
Someone asked a Firefly reference of Summer. In the outtakes of Firefly, they wanted to know why when the cast goofs their lines, they yell out Summer’s name! She said that during a scene prior to that, she was playing with a rubber ball and the toy distracted her while filming a scene and she missed her line. The director yelled SUMMER!! … and it sort of stuck.
As for whether there’s any more music in Shirley’s future, she replied “I hope so!” She wants to continue to make music the rest of her life. Of late though, she’s been pretty busy with the show so she hasn’t had the time right now.
Someone asked Friedman about Shirley’s character intro scene into the show and how they came about using Shirley’s music. Basically, Friedman didn’t want someone else to do her intro music and then feel stupid about it if he didn’t ask her… So he did, she said yes.
And no, there will be no effort to create any continuity ties to the new movie, Terminator: Salvation.
The last question came at Summer, asking her if she liked where Cameron was by the end of this season and Summer seemed confused. She wasn’t sure what to say and looked at Friedman, and then she sort of held her head and just said she is both happy and sad about the end of the season and where it finds Cameron.
I’ve have to say, everyone on the panel was rather engaging. Friedman seemed to speak from the heart, Manson was at ease on the panel and this is the first time I have ever seen Summer with emotion. All I’ve ever seen of her was playing her emotionless or crazy roles. This was a fun panel.
Loading ...
9 Comments
i really appreciate this show. its has its own unique rhythm and and it feels authentic, with enough layers and substance.
i’d say Friedman’s approach paid off from my point of view and i will continue to keep an eye out for his projects. i wish him and the cast and writers all the best and hopefully, a well deserved recognition. i think someone at the network DOES like his work (not a lot of nasty rumors flying around, are there?), but i don’t know if they would allow him to pull off another season.
I really like the series but it must be a little weird for the actors to sit there and promote the show when ratings are at an all time low (3.4 million Friday night). It appears this will be the last season for the show. Summer Glau is adorable.
chuck
To be honest I loved first season and I thought second season started out great but has really gone down hill. They are doing way to many of these strange episodes where your in peoples dreams and thoughts. It’s getting old. Also it would be nice to spend more than 4 mins with other characters that are not Sara. I would especially love to see more of Derek. Less of her more of everyone else and lets try to go a little bit away from the really strange episodes.
@Daniel F
Yeah, I agree – the show is losing its focus and direction past few episodes.
Vic
River had emotions on Firefly, but very rarely. One moment was when she was dancing on one of the planets they land on, forgot the episode though, I just remember the scene where a bunch of people were dancing to what I remember as blue grass or some kind of music like that and she started dancing with them and I think she was smiling.
And I think she had some emotion on The Unit, in the 3 episodes she was in, lol. But her character on that show was pretty stupid and they could have kept her completely out of the show and it wouldn’t have changed the plot…
And I don’t know about you, but the only thing I’ve been wondering about John and Cameron is why haven’t John given her, ehem, special orders yet…
But anyway, about the show, I really don’t care if they renew it. For the sake of the cast, I hope they do, because they seem to be good people, but the show right now is nowhere close to as good as the first season. It seems very random and a lot of the episodes are so full of plot holes it’s not even funny. Most of what they do defies logic as well. And them getting that little child to play Kyle Reese is simply unforgivable…
I was the guy who asked Summer that final question. That question was really specific because I wanted to see if she would drop a hint that Josh was going to screw around with her character yet again. I was concerned about the resurgence of the “glitch” after so many episodes without it.
Summer initially didn’t catch the last two words of the question, and Josh leaned in to repeat it to her.
Then she sort of collapsed and heaved a sigh, “Oh, Josh”, partly I think because she had misinterpreted the question and partly because she really didn’t know how to answer it.
She kept looking at Josh, instead of me, as she answered, apparently guaging what he would think of her answer.
My impression of her response was that she really was unhappy about where Cameron ends up, but she didn’t have the heart to say so, because it would have implied a criticism of Josh’s handling of Cameron, And Summer is too polite and likes Josh too much for giving her such an amazing role to criticize him in public.
Her “happy face” she put on with her hands however clearly said, “I’m trying to be happy, but I’m really not.”
What's your opinion? Leave a Reply!
Go to Gravatar.com and upload your own (we'll wait)!