Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

I just recently finished watching the second season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. And I'm in love. This is some show. And I'm heartbroken, because it hasn't been renewed for a third season.

I like so much about this show, and I wish I could give a better and more critical review than the one I'm about to do. I wish I could be a more critical reader and watcher in general.

This is a very spoilery post, so please avoid it if you haven't watched the series. Seriously.

edit: I thought that James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd were involved with this show as they were credited as writers, but further digging revealed they were credited with the (characters) so I am unsure whether they actually had any input!

The first series took a little to get going. It looked like it might be all about running and running and chasing and so on. I thought there were dropped storyline threads, especially around the school. But it picked up. And the second season is great.

It's clear that the writers are not making this shit up as they go along. They have story arcs and character arcs planned. This means I found the show satisfying. I want shows to be satisfying. Like, Battlestar Galactica or Lost never were – those shows ultimately disappointed me.

I felt like Chronicles wasn't trying to reinvent the mythology of the franchise, but build on it. For instance, there's an episode where John finds the polaroid photo of his mother, the one of her and the blue heeler in the desert, the one he will give to Kyle Reese in the future. It's just a moment, but it's there.

The characters are layered, developed. I even found the secondary characters more interesting sometimes. Perhaps this is because they are able to have more scope simply by being new to our screens compared to Sarah and John, with their familiar struggles and needs. Derek Reese is just awesome. The scene where he watches Cameron dance, in the first series, could be one of my favourite moments on screen, ever. He brings scarred, he brings internal struggle.

Cameron the 'good' cyborg has these wonderful touches of humour, and then can be so unsettlingly inhuman. The final episode has her echoing Arnie's rampage through the mental hospital in the second movie, as she breaks out Sarah Connor from prison, and she is a much finer and more competent and threatening cyborg than Kristanna Loken ever was. Then there is Riley's final scene, when she confronts Jesse about the truth of her mission, and I could really feel it as a desperate struggle of life and death.

Although - I felt Jesse was miscast, and I'm not that interested in Mr Ellison. During his scenes, I was always waiting for the rest to come back. And there were some episodes that I didn't care for - especially the dream sequence vs dream sequence one about Sarah.

But the second half of the second season got particularly interesting, with the development of John Henry, and Mrs Weaver starts saying more than, "Ah, Mr Ellison." It became clear than Savannah is very important. We already knew she must be important because Mrs Weaver – a cold-blooded liquid metal monster – had kept her alive when she'd killed her parents, and was concerned for Savannah's wellbeing and mental health. What is her motivation? I'm still super intrigued but I guess we'll never really know. Mrs Weaver – she of the moray eel – and the eel that worms its way out of the doomed submarine – I think are one and the same. They ask and reply to the same question, in the present, and in the future. She isn't Skynet after all, as she is actually against Skynet, but what she is creating with John Henry is actually not on the same side as John & Sarah either.

The end of this season – gosh. The loss of Derek, so brutal and sudden and then pushed aside because John & Sarah don't have time to grieve – nor do we, not yet. My heart broke a little bit.

And the final episode is brilliant. It ends on this note, this perfect and sad note, as John Connor looks at Derek and Derek does not know him, as he sees his father Kyle for the very first time, and as he sees Cameron - and then realises that she is not Cameron. That change of expression on his face is done so, so well.

There's references to the Wizard of Oz several times – the last names they take on as part of their false identities (Baum, Gale), the reading of the book by a child in one episode. I noticed the references and I'm still thinking about why - the tinman, maybe, who wanted a heart. The search to go (find) home? The wizard behind the curtain – perhaps this was John Henry. It has been a while since I read that book, feel like I need to do so again.

What else? I keep thinking, churning it over. I'm sure more will come up in my brain.

And there it goes. I fell in love with another amazing and cancelled sci-fi show. I can't believe that hohumblahmeh Dollhouse got renewed, and Chronicles didn't.

three little words

The other day, some of my colleagues and I held a brainstorm as part of an internal project. Following a few fun exercises to warm up our brains, we went on to think more specifically about the project.

Later on, I looked down at the page where I had been jotting down words, as part of the warm up exercises, and saw:

Sick

Urban

Stone

And I think they are such a nice clump of words, they need to be made into something. Use them as a writing exercise prompt, perhaps, or even to build a poem.

Anyone keen to join in? Take those 3 words and make them into something...

writer's cafe

I hope you all had a lovely Easter! I did, even though typically the weather was shite. I had the flat to myself, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I went to the gym, surfed around the net, watched bad television, ate delicious food, drank delicious red wine - and did some writing!

I got up to 15,000 words on Molly, writing some fun scenes. Again, more dialogue. I am really loving the dialogue between Molly and her best friend Geordie. I can hear them in my head, bantering and teasing.

Not so much written on Tom yet, although I've been doing lots of research for him. I found a great archive of WW2 memories, on the BBC website, which helps me get to know what people thought, how they felt, in wartime Britain.

I'm getting closer to the point where the story begins to get... "unwieldly" is the word that comes to mind - at least, in my experience. Where it has grown enough that there are so many strands to hold in your hand, to keep weaving with, trying not to leave any sticking out and forgotten about.

Maybe this time it will be easier to hold all those strands, as I have just started using a piece of software called Writer's Cafe. Geoff told me about this, so I downloaded a trial version to play with.

The best way to describe it - at least the way I'm using it - is a digital version of using post-it notes to build your storyline. You can write a scene on each note, assign it to a thread, and see how these threads align with each other as you proceed through the story.


I've set up two storylines for Molly. In the first, each column is a day, so I can keep track of how time is passing, and what events happened for each character on each day. I don't want to start writing that autumn has arrived, when it should still be summer. The first day is Saturday night, when Molly gets her heart crushed by Lucas. This storyline works as my continuity editor.

The second storyline is more like the 'heartbeats' of the story - the scenes and chapters - who has screentime, what did they do, what information was shared in that chapter, etc. I think this will be the most valuable display, but it's also the hardest to set up in a way which makes sense for me - I'm still working on it. But this will give me visual snapshot of my story and all its threads and, hopefully, I will be able to quickly see where one is beginning to unravel.

There's a lot more to the software (see the features here) but as I only have the trial version I haven't explored any further than these basic storylines.

books books!

Last weekend I went bookshopping (yay!) and bought a couple of books from my wishlist. I also tried to find Frankie magazine - artsy cute indie magazine from Melbourne - their website msg board says you can buy it over here in Borders, but I was not successful. Boo. Perhaps I just need to try a different Borders?

I have read this book already because it was so very fascinating:

The Unthinkable: who survives when disaster strikes - and why - by Amanda Ripley

I can't remember how I found out about this book, I actually think someone on my LiveJournal flist mentioned it.

It's a look into disasters and how we react in them - the common reaction of individuals and crowds. Denial, deliberation, decisive moments. How we more often than not just totally freeze up and very few will act quickly enough. How some people are 'heroes'. The author uses real disasters and survivors for reference - from 9/11, to the July 07 London attacks, Hurrican Katrina, plane crashes, fires & tsunamis.

There's something... voyueristic about reading this book as well, getting these glimpses into the absolute horror that some people have experienced.

It makes you think - how would you react?

I know that I'll definitely be reading the safety card in planes from now on...

I'm now reading:

Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed - by Jared Diamond

I've read part of this book before, as my Dad had it, but I never got to finish it.

I don't always agree with Jared Diamond, especially on some of his approaches to human sexuality (he's got a very, very masculine-centric view), but I did enjoy this book when I first started reading it a couple of years ago.

It's environmentally focused, but includes other elements, looking at how societies have failed or succeeded in the past - for instance, he looks at Easter Islanders and Mayans as those who did not manage to succeed, and Tikopia in the Solomon Islands as an example of a society which is in harmony with its resources and environment.

I'm also reading:

Half of a yellow sun - by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

- which I got for Christmas 07 and have only just cracked open! This is fiction, set in 1960s Nigeria, and so far is fine, although I did put it down to read The Unthinkable instead....

just write

A little bit of something for today. It's a Saturday morning and I'm about to start some writing... thought I would warm up with a blogpost. Or does this count as procrastination?

I'm going to sit down with my gargantuan cup of coffee and work on my current WIP, Molly - we know how brilliant I am at coming up with titles. A few weeks ago, it was just a wee scrap titled Chick lit with promise. When on holiday in NZ, I found it in my folder of writing, and really enjoyed re-reading it. So I've picked it back up and am now running around all over the show with it. The main character, Molly, is kind of irrestible and I'm having all sorts of fun with dialogue.

It's become a paranormal romance, because it is impossible for me not to inject some kind of speculative element into my stories. The 'element' is Tom, who is challenging to think about, because I've upturned the tragic box on his life. In 1940, as a 23 year old, he was called up for WW2. He had a spell cast on him to protect him, so that he would survive the war and come home to marry his sweetheart. Only he came home to find his sweetheart had killed herself... and that the spell was twisted and meant he would never grow old or die. Be careful what you wish for.

So at the point in the story when Molly and Tom meet, she is heartbroken after her boyfriend has broken up with her, and Tom is the kind of lonely I find it hard to describe. The word 'lonely' doesn't even touch the sides. Imagine a lifetime where everyone you ever loved or loved you in return is dead. You look 23 years old but you were born in 1917. You are nearing the end of a normal human lifespan without having lived or enjoyed everything we take for granted – growing older, finding a partner, getting married, having children, having grandchildren.

I'm not sure where the story is going, but I'm really loving thinking about it and writing it, and that's essentially my goal this year – just enjoy the writing. Don't worry about audience or sellability or wordcount or publishing. Just write.

So I better.

The advances of plastic surgery in WWI

Nothing to do with writing, but this has been distracting me recently -

While I was in NZ, I read a fascinating article in the Listener about Sir Harold Gillies, a New Zealand-born surgeon who is credited as the 'father of plastic surgery'. Gillies worked during WWI at Queen Mary's Hospital in Sidcup, south-east London. His patients were servicemen with horrific injuries to their faces and hands - burns, gunshot and grenade wounds - from across the Allied forces including NZers. The Gillies Archive website includes an online portfolio of watercolour paintings of patients. The paintings, along with other records, were located in NZ and donated to the Gillies Archive in 1989.

Queen Mary's Hospital, Gillies seated at right.

His surgery techniques were revolutionary at the time, although crude by today's standards. They gave his patients a quality of life that otherwise they may not have had, but the reconstructions took place over months - even years - and during that time, it surely must have been hard to bear not only the injuries, but the in-between surgeries which caused even more destruction to foster the reconstruction.

He was one of the first surgeons in the world to discover and use the 'pedicle tube' - a method of skin-grafting where the new skin would be taken from, say, the chest, stitched into a tube and then the end applied to the area requiring the skin, to ensure blood flow in the grafted skin - this was a time before antibiotics and microsurgery and the ability to attach blood vessels together. Gillies used pedicle tubes, over months and months of surgery and treatment, sometimes 'walking' them up a soldier's body from stomach to wrist to face.

Following WW2, Gillies and his colleagues were also involved in pioneering gender-reassignment surgery, both female-to-male and male-to-female.

Artist/researcher Paddy Hartley has created Project Facade in response to Gillies work. He has looked at case studies of some of Gillies' patients and then created these amazing works of art, using army uniforms, to reflect each man, his history and treatment. The Project Facade site is really fascinating - not just for the artwork that Paddy has created, but also to read the individual stories about the men who were involved with all this groundbreaking surgery. It can be quite heartbreaking.

One of Hartley's case studies was William M Spreckley - you can see here the progression from admittance to the hospital through to a photo taken later in his life.

From the BBC: Spreckley was hugely grateful to Gillies and even named his son Michael Gillies in his honour.

Nevertheless, he was psychologically scarred, and his grand-daughter Alexandra Kingman says,

"He must have felt like a freak when it happened. All his life he still thought he looked hideous."

all about books

I've decided to keep track of the books I read this year:

a) so I can look back at the end of 2009, and remember and review, and pick favourites

b) to make sure I keep reading

In 2008, my bestest book was The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It made my insides cave in, filled my head up with ash and despair. I read that so fast, consumed by it, I don't even know how much I actually read. I have since learned from an Empire magazine that it has been made in to a movie, with Viggo Mortensen as the lead. I'm not sure about this. The book is intense, especially with what isn't spoken, and so grey. Ashen. I will be interested to see how that translates to film. (if you go to IMDB.com and look it up, the character names give away so much of the most awful parts of the story, the parts as a reader that are sprung on you. Especially the role played by "Mark Tierno". If you haven't read the book, don't visit IMDB and read about the movie until you have).

Books so far in 2008:

Does This Make Sense to You by Renee
- I love how Renee writes humour into sad or tragic situations. She has a gift. I was rooting for the main character the whole way. A Kiwi author, one of our tutors at Whitireia, an inspiration.

Stiff by Mary Roach
- I've started this before but didn't finish. This time I got to the end. A good non-fic read about the 'lives' of cadavers.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
- Love her writing, one of my newer discoveries. I think the first one of hers I read is still my fave though, Case Histories.

Tales from the Town of Widows by James Canon
- Reminds me a lot of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which seems inevitable. Everyone will make that comparison. This, though, I found more accessible. I devoured it at the bach in Tata, got sand in the spine.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- Picked this out of the bookshelf at the bach at Tata. It wasn't what I expected, yet now after finishing it, I'm not sure what I did expect from this book (something more like Zadie Smith?). This book made me feel... unsmart, and I know there was more to it than I was getting.

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
- Cheat entry, as did not complete. Got bored. Tried very hard and some parts were great, but then it would skip to a character who was uninteresting. Had a feeling she killed off the best character in the first few pages. Won the Pulitzer Prize in 95. I really wanted to like this one.

Mr Pip by Lloyd Jones
- I'm cheating a little bit with this one too, because I read this on the plane to NZ (e.g., 2008), but as it kicked off my holiday reading, I'm still counting it. I haven't read Great Expectations. I feel I should! Kiwi author, nominated for the 07 Booker.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
- A fantastic collection of short stories. I like the one, god I can't even remember the title now, of the kid being babysat by the Indian woman learning to drive, and the one with the woman having an affair.

Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood
- Mum gave this book to me for Christmas. I love Atwood. The stories in this book feel kind of autobiographical and I'm curious how much of it mirrors her life.

And currently.... The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.