REVIEW: 'Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep' and miss Sarah Connor uniquely endure what is required of her mission

"Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep" is a cleverly deceptive episode of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" that forces Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) to tragically face something viewers thought she already did.

Most compelling about the episode are Sarah's nightmares, which feature her talking to the security guard she shot toward the end of "Earthlings Welcome Here." This is because of how its practicality calls into question whether the conversation between Sarah and someone who has since been presumed dead is occurring.

Further adding to this deliberately unclear storytelling formula is the guard's judgmental tone toward Sarah as though her own guilty conscious is manifesting nightmares and a later scene in which fatal gunfire appears to make Judgment Day all but inevitable

Driving home this point for less observant viewers is passing dialogue that suggests nightmares develop when the person having them is avoiding facing something. In other words, do not expect to be able to distinguish reality from nightmarish fantasy from the get-go.

What makes this episode more than just filler is how it forces Sarah to deal with the consequences of her actions even more than she sparingly did in "Desert Cantos." Through the story, viewers learn indirectly that even though Sarah is single-minded in her mission to protect John (Thomas Dekker) and stop Judgement Day, she had not before killed anyone. One would have expected someone so seemingly emotionally absent to have killed many people by now, but this is not the case.

And again, the series exploits Sarah's seeming guilt-ridden conversation with someone she wronged to show how the character looks forward to dying presumably because it is easier than keeping up the fight against SkyNet.

When woven together, the aforementioned story elements serve to reveal in the end that Sarah is forced to live by different ethical standards than most normal people that guide certain actions sure to slowly kill her on the inside over time. Especially hurtful to Sarah is that she inadvertently involves John, the only reason she chooses to keep living, in her misdeeds.

Not working is how Sarah checks herself into a sleep clinic that just happens to be responsible for the red mark she beforehand found on her body. No explanation as to how the clinic's workers managed to sneak into Sarah's house to make the red mark or why it is significant makes this an even more frustrating aspect of the episode that could perhaps be elaborated on later.

A nice, minor touch is how Jesse's previously mentioned mission to keep John away from "her" is complicated when noticeable female tension develops between Sarah, who cannot play overprotective mommy while she is out of commission, and Cameron (Summer Glau), who has seemingly stepped up to be the woman of the house.

Machines apparently have no sense of shame when it comes to how they dress and can cook a decent plate of pancakes.

Though vague and not as exciting as more action-packed episodes, "Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep" is a unique and necessary setup for what is sure to make Sarah an even more interestingly complex character to explore in the future.

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Popcorn rating:

(4 out of 5 pieces)

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REMINDER: Sarah Connor's insomnia to bare fruit in a creepy sleep clinic in 'Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep'

Even though she avoids exposing herself to hospitals, Lena Headey's Sarah Connor checks herself into a sleep clinic in the "Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep," tonight's episode of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles."

Sarah must really be on the brink of desperation to do something so risky considering that she is a fugitive and generally does not like being kept in clinics as demonstrated in "Terminator 2: Judgement Day."  

Overviews of the episode on the series' official Web site and TV.com indicate that Sarah goes to the sleep clinic after not napping for two weeks and begins to experience nightmares there that the video promo shows involves being abducted and severely choked by the security guard she seemingly kills at the end of "Earthlings Welcome Here."

It is implied in the video that John (Thomas Dekker) suspects that his mother is making up the nightmares given her vision of the three dots, her obsession with which lead to the discovery of a similar-looking aircraft. This should provide Sarah with enough credibility for her son to go along with what she is saying.

While being studied like a lab rat, Sarah thinks about how her nightmares might be tied to whatever SkyNet is cooking up next, but suspect events conveniently start to take place there, the video promo and the overviews show. 

Clips from the video promo and a photo still imply that the attendants at the sleep clinic are up to something tied to a new red scar on Sarah's body. 

A sneak peek of "Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep" shows that the presumed dead security guard is alive and true to the nightmares ends up kidnapping her.

Also included in the episode is John possibly discovering some kind of massive supercomputer, as shown in one photo still, and explaining to Cameron (Summer Glau) how humans perceive dreams, as shown in the sneak peek below. WATCH THE PROMO!

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REVIEW: Mournful events of 'Desert Cantos' emphatically weigh in on Sarah Connor's conscience

"Desert Cantos" is a cleverly formulaic way to have the title character of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" smell the roses of tragedy that might transform her from a victim to the cause of suffering.

Also notable about the 15th, season two episode of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" is that it provides promising opportunities for the development of its lesser utilized main characters. 

Instead of moving on with some other episode, "Desert Cantos" features Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) confronting her actions from tracking down the source of the three dots in her dreams. With John Connor (Thomas Dekker), Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green) and Cameron Phillips (Summer Glau), she visits the town of Charm Acres to track down anyone who knows anything about what was being built at the blown-up factory.

While there, Sarah meets the wife of the security officer who she killed when he attacked her at the end of "Earthlings Welcome Here." Perhaps what works most about this episode's premise is that the title character is not allowed to live by some convenient code of TV morality and allow viewers to assume her homicide was justified. Forcing Sarah to confront her past demons in this instance also provides a setting of grieving suitable for the victims' families to extol a lot of exposition.

A member of one of these families, Zoe McCarthy (Alanna Masterson), noticeably does not grieve so much as she does not seems to care that her father was apparently killed in the explosion. 

Serving the episode well, Zoe provides a sense of uncertainty as to whether she is handling her distress in some frivolously adolescent manner or has reason not to fly off the deep end of depression. As difficult as it to find the character compelling, her annoyingly erratic presence does serve a purpose.

Zoe, and Diana Winston (Cyd Strittmatter), the dead security guard's wife, represent a possible foreshadowing of how anybody seemingly normal can suddenly become a rogue. Who in the main cast this is meant to allude to might be Sarah, who remarks, "Decent people get caught up in things."

Off, but also relevant to the episode is a line suddenly said by Cameron out of nowhere about Native Americans' belief that photos steal people's souls. Her comment alludes to something that has been implied in past episodes about Sarah having died as a person when her picture was taken at the end of 1984's "The Terminator." She thereafter became a soldier solely dedicated to protecting her son John Connor from termination.

One parallel to this aspect of Sarah Connor is the mentioning of the death of Lachlan Weaver, who was a great guy, a genius and funny man along with his wife while alive. 

Attributing this pathetic fallacy to Catherine Weaver (Shirley Manson) is a subtle allusion to how Sarah is becoming very much like the machines against which she is fighting.

Another parallel is Sarah and Derek commenting to each other that they should let go of the memory of the late Kyle Reese, hinted as being an important element in the story when Cameron asks Derek whether he would always look at a picture of his brother if he had one.

Cameron's comment about Zoe's feelings about her father, and toward Henry, in this regard cleverly utilizes the character for a change as a dispassionate observer among people who have lost sight of their own priorities in tragedy's wake.

Strange about Sarah and Derek's interaction is this uneasy tension between the two that hopefully is only there because the two characters have become paranoid of trusting anyone. Having them hook up would be very difficult to justify in terms of being suitable for the overall story being told. While they are both battle-hardened, having Sarah and Derek struggle with their ability to dismiss Kyle as a war casualty makes them more than just action stars.

Not too serious of an episode, Derek of all characters in the supporting cast is allowed to do more than just act intense. He is allowed to crack a few subtle jokes at the expense of Cameron and the absurdity of spending time at a funeral chasing what is hitherto considered to be nothing more than Sarah's bad dream.

Though frustrating, only a bit more is known about the three-dot spacecraft by the end of the episode because presumably the series is building toward something worth the wait. Hopefully, patience may pay off in a shocking revelation that any other TV series would diminish in importance via needlessly expositional dialogue.

Only four, season two episodes remain to see if the deeply methodical "Desert Cantos" lays down further the foundations of worthwhile character and overall story development.

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Popcorn rating:

(4 1/2 out of 5 pieces)

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REMINDER: Sarah Connor and the gang set to play detectives while visiting Creepsville in 'Desert Cantos'

Anyone who has seen the promo for the 15th, season two "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" knows that the main cast acts like shameless creeps and hits people up for information at a funeral.

The official "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" Web site and TV.com provide overviews for "Desert Cantos," elaborating that Sarah (Lena Headey) and John Connor (Thomas Dekker), Cameron Phillips (Summer Glau) and Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green) go to a "company town" nearby the warehouse that Catherine Weaver (Shirley Manson) blew to pieces in "The Good Wound." The funeral is for the workers she killed T-1000-style before lighting the fuse.

Weaver decides to leave behind no loose ends, sending a minion to make sure no one survived, one of the overviews for the Feb. 20 episode shows.

Although it might sound like a run-of-the-mill story, "Desert Cantos" is worth watching to find out what is going in what is shown in the promo to be a creepy town of people who cannot say anything about the warehouse because they are under surveillance by secret cameras. 

What the workers were building in that warehouse when they were alive, as well as the spacecraft-like object Sarah saw at the end of "Earthlings Welcome Here," likely plays a role in the answer. 

Whoever is watching the townspeople might very well have been also keeping tabs on Eileen (Dinah Lenney), the transvestite UFO aficionado who was suddenly killed by an unknown person who knew exactly where to find her two episodes ago.

Remember that time travel can be a factor in the episode's premise, so that does not rule out SkyNet or its metallic lackeys as the culprits. 

Or it might just end up being Weaver who is watching from the other end of the surveillance cameras. No sense in sending too many Terminators back in time, after all.

A time traveler herself, Leven Ramblin's Riley character is listed as being in the episode maybe to explain to John why she took off from the hospital or possibly to expose herself as complicit in everything that is going on. Her mission to keep John away from "her" is still not entirely clear.

Not clear either is what TV.com's overview and official promotional photos stills for the next episode say about what happens in "Desert Cantos." If anything, they indicate that SkyNet might be behind whatever was being built at the warehouse or that Sarah's vision of the three dots is something for which she seeks out psychiatric treatment.

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REVIEW: Insightful judgement day arrives for Sarah Connor's parenting skills in 'The Good Wound'

"The Good Wound," the 14th, season two episode of "The Sarah Connor Chronicles," manages to remind its title character of her priorities while at the same time telling an incidental love story before Valentine's Day.

Lena Headey's Sarah Connor exemplifies the tremendous extent of her sacrifice to keep her son alive until Judgement Day when the Kyle Reese hallucination (Jonathan Jackson) says to her, "I die for John Connor." She responds, "I die for my son."

Contrasting how Kyle dies for a man who stands for a cause with how Sarah suffers for someone she loves, the latter implies that she has given up her own identity for this one sole mission. Protecting John is all that defines Sarah, and the Kyle hallucination's photo is a reminder of when she discarded her old identity.

Kyle's hallucination continuously stifles her soldier's instinct to hide her identity and trust no one, reminding her in a way that it is her mission to survive. Fighting the war against Skynet is not necessarily her responsibility, after all.

Here "The Good Wound" introduces a few difficult questions to answer, which are whether Sarah as a soldier is being too hard on John, if she is trying too hard out of a mother's instinct to fight a war that fate dictates belongs to him, or both.

All are likely relevant to ponder about because of how Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green) openly questions why John, his future commanding officer, unnecessarily exposes himself to the authorities in choosing to look after a hospitalized Riley. 

Either John is too emotionally erratic, understands something about human compassion that the battle-hardened Derek does not, or both.

A comment made by Summer Glau's Cameron that the future John would have more important things to worry about than the health of one person drives this point home.

Very apropos to introduce this complexity in the development of characters who are less important in the future than John, it implies that he must as a leader learn to think about the bigger picture when it comes to caring for the people in his life, even if that means making sacrifices. Sarah might yet allow her son to learn this lesson through experience.

Two different approaches for the ethical development of the infant-like John Henry by James Ellison (Richard T. Jones) and Catherine Weaver (Shirley Manson) are meant to represent a parallel to the parental roles Sarah and Derek play in John Connor's life.

Slightly confusing about the episode is the scene between Sarah and the Kyle hallucination near the scorched apple tree. 

A good guess is that the apple Weaver eats earlier represents the machines destroying the paradise God gave the human race and how the survivors make do with what little they have left. The burned apple tree Kyle and Derek use as a meeting place where they keep their prized possessions indicates that love, Sarah's photo, is buried underneath the collateral damage of the war against the SkyNet.

At least it is reassuring to know that the series' writers are taking a few creative risks.

"The Good Wound" is a complex examination of its title character that might not necessarily make sense to casual viewers looking for a few explosive Terminator moments. While there is a literal explosion in the episode, the story alone provides very combustible plot devices with which to keep "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" burning this season.

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Popcorn rating:

(4 out of 5 pieces)

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REMINDER RELOAD: First 'Sarah Connor Chronicles' of '09 to reunite lead Terminator heroine with an old love

Kyle Reese (Jonathan Jackson) will return to "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" during the Feb. 13 season two episode "The Good Wound," newly released photo stills reveal.

TV.com's episode overview shows that Kyle will return as a hallucination during Lena Headey's Sarah Connor's recovery from a gun shot wound sustained at the end of the Dec. 15 episode "Earthlings Welcome Here."

Though this is not Kyle's first appearance on the TV series, it is the first time the two characters have been on screen together in more than 20 years since 1984's "The Terminator" at least in terms of official canon. 

"The Good Wound," which might end up having a tragic love story motif, was likely postponed until it could be aired close to Valentine's Day. 

Indicated from the episode overview is that Sarah will use the hallucination to gain emotional strength the way Linda Hamilton's interpretation of the character would have done in 1991's "Terminator 2: Judgement Day" if the scene in question had not been deleted.

Nothing new in terms of story plot should be revealed by this Kyle given that he is just a hallucination, so he will probably simply remind her of something she has long since forgotten.

Perhaps he will represent a more level-headed approach to fighting SkyNet than the progressively more militant approach she has adopted in the TV series.

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REVIEW: 'Sarah Connor Chronicles' episode maintains down-to-earth creative poise while title character hunts UFOs

Rarely getting lost in the series' premise, "Earthlings Welcome Here" strikes the proper creative tone with "Sarah Connor Chronicles" fans who might not understand what it means to fight against fate.

What does not become watered down to appeal to young pop culture-obsessed viewers in the series is the perspectives of its title characters, who live drastically different lives than normal people. Certain lines of dialogue often accurately compare what is going in the real world with their war-oriented mindsets so that viewers understand their plight.

Riley (Leven Ramblin), who is a straggler from the post-apocalyptic future, says in the episode about her foster family, "They don't know how good they have it. All they do is complain about every little thing, and everyone at school is the exact same way. It's like one big whine-a-thon."

Any other TV series with a cast of attractive young stars would primarily focus on the superficial details of intimate relationships, but "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" at least attempts to emphasize to its viewers the pain of not having the luxury of living as though there will be many tomorrows.

Of particular interest about the Riley character is the nature of the mission she is carrying out to keep John Connor (Thomas Dekker) away from "her," whoever that turns out to be.

But "Earthlings Welcome Here" also shows how people respond to the detachment of these characters from the pre-Judgement Day world. 

Lena Headey's Sarah Connor reminds everyone watching that her cat-like readiness whenever gun shots go off would be alarming to anyone outside of her inner circle, even to the transvestite alien aficionado, Eileen (Dinah Lenney). More importantly, Sarah's lack of emotion in this episode might be setting up a character flaw with which she might have to come to terms later in the series.

Dialogue itself is not the only story tool utilized toward this end. 

"Earthlings Welcome Here" adds the detail of Riley when she arrives in the present being amazed at a pleasant smelling hotel room and the soft pillows that are likely in short supply in the nuclear wasteland from which she comes.

In another scene meant to evoke the seriousness of her mission, Sarah seeing a much more intense vision of herself spinning a knife serves to remind her to snap out the momentary moments of comfort she sparingly experiences. Though, this and Sarah's vision of herself from when she was a waitress establishes the inner emotional demons she will likely soon exercise.

Still, that this TV series is based in the science fiction Terminator world, which is already a very exaggerated version of reality, takes away from making viewers perceive in the first 30 minutes of the episode that Eileen is just a paranoid UFO nut with nothing to back up her alleged sightings of the three-dot aircraft. Anyone watching already accepts that the premise involves an artificially intelligent computer network ushering in a nuclear holocaust in the near future.

"Earthlings Welcome Here" establishes a lot of promising plot points effectively utilizing several simple TV story telling techniques topped off by the appearance of the mysterious three-dot flying contraption from Sarah's dreams that could very well be an early model of the HK-aerial planes from the past Terminator films.

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Popcorn rating:

(4 1/2 out of 5 pieces)

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REVIEW: Twelfth, season two 'Sarah Connor Chronicles' doubles as a profound life survival workshop at gunpoint

"Alpine Fields," the 12th, season two "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," uses the series' storytelling strengths to teach a valuable lesson about life and survival, especially as it relates to the future war against SkyNet.

It must be difficult to be constantly developing new ideas for a science fiction series such as "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" grounded in a relatively contemporary Los Angeles setting. There are only so many times, after all, that a human portraying a cyborg suffices to convey that the main characters are fighting a futuristic threat.

A continuing storytelling tool utilized is comparing the circumstances of their lives with those of people who do not know that an artificially intelligent computer network will one day trigger a nuclear holocaust. "Alpine Fields" does this by having Lena Headey's Sarah Connor and Sumer Glau's Cameron Phillips protect a family that is being hunted by a Terminator.

Using the aforementioned plot device in the episode allows Sarah to explain the premise of the TV series when she is explaining to the family why they are being chased by a machine.  

In addition, the device provides her with the opportunity to make a temporary leg cast, use a door handle as an electric conductor and do things that few normal people know how to do. 

Uniquely used in this instance, the device in "Alpine Fields" introduces normal characters into the mix to demonstrate how Sarah is perhaps not substantially different or worse than they are. 

Anne (Rebecca Creskoff) in particular, the family's pregnant mother, is shown to have been involved in an extramarital affair that the threat of imminent death makes her realize was a mistake and that her children's survival is much more important in the long run. Whereas Sarah remembers this priority on a daily basis. Otherwise, she would be doing something as seemingly frivolous as making birdhouses.

Sarah relates most of this lesson to Anne's daughter Lauren (Samantha Krutzfeldt), who in many ways has to live out a life very similar to her incidental teacher's once the episode ends.

A parallel is made when Brian Austin Green's Derek Reese remembers Jesse (Stephanie Chaves-Jacobsen) telling him in the future that she was aboard a nuclear sub with a cyborg captain because none were left alive after Judgement Day, stifling his strong distrust of the machines.

Perhaps the lesson of the episode is that the frivolous details of life do not matter in the long run so long as it continues, and this is essentially how Sarah and her son live their lives. Though, Sarah mentions that this is not necessarily a happy way to live, but it works. Also that surviving through it all is natural and not as difficult as it might at first seem. 

Jesse's story about Australian rabbits, Sydney's immunity, the restarted growing of vegetables in the post apocalyptic future drives this point home.

Aside from these storytelling tools, the episode offers interesting insight into the future war such as that it extends beyond American shores and that SkyNet fails to use psychological warfare against humanity.

Everything comes full circle in the end, making "Alpine Fields" an interestingly poetic addition to "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles."

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Popcorn rating:

(4 1/2 out of 5 pieces)

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