First, we saw that Cameron wasn't simply learning from Allison by interrogation. She was treating her as a lab rat, testing how she would act and behave in certain situations. When Allison is trying to escape, she's still in a controlled environment... she was led to believe she could escape to be able to study her.I loved this episode. The fact that Cameron is not just a random machine but she is actually based on another human. At first i started to think that Cameron might have been a kind of cyborg or that she somehow was made from Allison and that she had her full memory or something. But it looks like she just got the info from interrogations.
What confuses me though is that she actually thought she was Allison and at that time she actually acted as a human being. She laughed, got happy, got sad. She wasn't just a stiff terminator with a very awkward human behavior. So is that just a unique ability to Cameron (keeps getting back to the fact that the other terminator got an "Unknown model" reading, which indicates she might be a prototype) or does all have it? I would like to think only she has it.
How does it work? Does she have like two different modes? A terminator-mode that is the Cameron we see and a human-mode that was the Allison Young impersonation we just saw?
The other thing you need to remember is that Cameron's chip is currently fucked up. So the way I look at it, is that Cameron inside her has a program that enables her to imitate to perfection this Allison person. There was some sort of glitch that caused that specific program to take over. So I really don't see Cameron as being as human as it was made out to be, it's simply that this "Allison program" started running by itself without Cameron's control. Because it would be one thing to have Cameron's program access this other program or whatever to imitate Allison. It's another to have that Allison program somehow takeover Cameron. So I don't see it as there being two modes. I see it as Cameron having one main program and various others that she can access in order to perform certain tasks. I see it as a program suddenly going rogue.
I parallel this situation to the "sometimes they go bad thing". It's pretty much the same phenomenon. An underlying program overtakes another.
Another good thing from this episode is that we really don't see that angsty John, but see a more angry one. I think that's a step in the right direction.
As for the ratings, they have been quite bad. Second episode had worse ratings than the premiere, 3rd episode went up from the 2nd episode a little bit. One good thing is that the DVR viewings (which the numbers came out for the first episode yesterday) were quite good. For that particular week, Terminator was 3rd in DVR viewers behind Fringe and Bones. But ratings are still the main thing networks look at.
Prison Break isn't performing well. Monday Night Football has had some record breaking viewership, so that hurts. A hurricane 1 or 2 weeks or so left 8 markets or so without power. It's like the universe is working against Terminator.
So, we only have one more episode before Terminator goes on a 1 month break because FOX is airing MLB Playoffs. Hopefully this break will help the show somehow. It can give an illusion of "premiere" when it returns (hopefull next episode is a very strong one). Maybe they can have a ton of advertising, promos, commericals, during the playoffs. People will have the time to catch-up to the latest episodes, etc.
We'll see. I'm not overly worried, but things are not looking that hot at the moment.
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