“The Turk”

Episode 3 takes the first steps towards trying to find it’s own two feet, but it’s still stumbling around in the darkness.

Going tried and true, Sarah goes back to the widow of Miles Dyson for information. She shows her a ton of pictures that they found in the safehouse, wanting to know if she knows anyone. She points out one specific person, named Andy Goode, who was working with Miles. Is this going to be the crutch? When in doubt go to Miles’ wife?

Andy is easy to track down as now he is working at a cellphone store. Sarah is able to schmooz with him and make plans for dinner. She learns that he has built a thinking computer for playing Chess. It’s obvious that this innocent computer is the precursor to judgment day.

John panics at this idea and wants to know everything that is going on with the computer. He brings up the idea of Singularity when the technology becomes so advanced that machines can better design themselves making humans nearly obsolete.

Sarah unfortunately grows close to Andy and can’t kill him in cold blood although Cameron thinks it would be best.

This I don’t get, because it is well within Sarah’s established character that Judgment Day>anyone. She would kill anyone without hesitation if that person was involved in creating the Terminators. And now she gets soft?

It’s a part of a long string of inconsistencies in the show. This is not an uncommon problem for shows within the first season.

Sarah decides to set fire to Andy’s house, destroying the computer, but saving Andy’s life.

John and Cameron try to adjust to their new lives in school which is a somewhat humorous sequence with John teaching Cameron how to act in high school. The humor is straight out of T2 though which tempers it somewhat.

In a “hard to relate to the rest of the saga” type subplot, Cameron meets a girl who is in trouble with some kind of sexual situation. She later kills herself by jumping off a building. John sees her and tries to stop her, but Cameron won’t let him go to her. This makes John question his ability to be a heroic leader.

It’s a jumbled mess of an episode first, but it does strive to take steps in the right direction. The best sequence involves Cromartie who finds a doctor to make new synthetic flesh. At the end Agent Ellison arrives at the doctor’s home and finds the doctor’s body, dead and eyeless.

“The Turk” is the epitome of a show that knows kind of where it wants to go, but just doesn’t know how to get there yet.

C-

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Next – 1.04