Earthlings Welcome Here
Season 2 : Ep. 12 (43:24)
TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES: Sarah (Lena Headey) attends a UFO Convention looking for answers in the “Earthlings Welcome Here” fall finale episode of TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES airing Monday, Dec. 15 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. © CR: Michael Roberts/FOX Sarah’s got a gun and the three dots haven’t been forgotten. Sarah is trying to figure out how her dreams are related to Skynet and Judgment Day at a UFO convention.

Riley is acting shady and has a smacked-in-the-head mark near her hairline which triggers a series of events.

I can get her to tell me the truth...(Cam and John about Riley)

John's reply to Cameron: "Stay away from her."

(Leven Rambin as Riley, Stephanie Jacobsen as Jesse)

But it turns out that John is heavily interacting with a future-past babe as <poor> Riley was a 16 y.o. version of the little blond girl in Aliens. Instead of Ripley “saving her” only to get her killed at the beginning of Alien 3, Riley’s “saviour” was future-past, shady-intentioned Jesse who Riley is dependent on and who smacks Riley when Riley starts losing her shit.. Very heartless.

Meanwhile:

Sarah wants to find resolution to her ” three dots” obsession and she goes to a UFO enthusiasts gathering where she acts inappropriately–kinda snarky and demanding and they treat her like Little Miss Sweetness and Light.

I thought this got kind of got off track, but the upshot is Sarah meets “Eileen,” someone who hides her true identity to an extreme but seems cooperative in helping Sarah with her dots issues. With Sarah’s “help” however she/he gets killed as does his/her brand new regression therapist who Sarah has forced Eileen/ Abraham/Alan to go to as an “emergency case.”

UFO guy/woman “Eileen” tells Sarah that “Abraham” the blogger was the pseudonym for an MIT-educated researcher named Alan Park, who now goes by “Eileen.” who specialized in what is like radar but with used in robotics. Before Eileen/Abraham/Alan’s death, <exhale> Sarah listens in via bug and gleans information which leads her to burst into a desolate warehouse. Sarah gets herself shot in the leg and kills the guy in the front office. Then she hallucinates seeing herself –again–only this time there are two of her, her present, scary self and her in her old-life-as-a-waitress (who she “killed,” in her words) self who beckons Sarah to crawl towards the light.

She crawls out of the structure in time to see what looks like an huge alien vessel above her. It is very loud. Sarah passes out./end Lena Heady last scene.

Lena Heady as Sarah Connor in T:TSCC,

It turns out that Riley cannot cope with the charade any longer. After failing to secure help from Jesse, Riley slits her own wrists. This is John just prior to finding her sprawled on the bathroom floor.

Cast: Lena Headey as Sarah Connor; Thomas Dekker as John Connor; Summer Glau as Cameron; Brian Austin Green as Derek Reese; Richard T. Jones as James Ellison; Garret Dillahunt as Cromartie; Shirley Manson as Catherine Weaver; Leven Rambin as Riley, Stephanie Jacobsen as Jesse, Ned Bellamy … Winston ,William Stanford Davis … Pastor Jonas, Michael Hyatt … Barbara,
Dinah Lenney … Eileen / Park, Barry Livingston … Pete

http://terminatorwiki.fox

On hiatus until mid-February, 2009, then there should be nine more episodes which finish out Season 2.

Whether there’s going to be Season 3 is really up in the air.

John Henry, formerly ” Cromartie” (Garret Dillahunt)

There were a few scenes with Richard T. Jones as James Ellison who is conflicted about helping “John Henry” learn have a conscience. Ellison’s emotional hand-wringing seems like filler to me. We may as well just show a couple of scenes with him praying, talking with his pastor (which he did), and reading his Bible.

Honestly, I have more emotionally invested in Cromartie (now John Henry) than I do former Agent Ellison.

Shirley Manson was particularly snake-like in this episode–that’s a good thing.

It’s hard not to think of “Saint” Angelina when one sees photos like this one.
Regardless of what she did when in her twenties, adult, responsible Angelina continues doing good works. I think those that criticize her have every right but how many of us even if we could afford it would travel to a place like “war-torn Afghanistan?”

This is far from the first time she’s ventured into places with questionable safety. And I don’t think she’s acting when she sits and listens to the people of these countries with pad and pen in hand. Just that simple act of traveling there and showing that someone cares–what is that worth? Impossible to measure. Most of us assuage our guilt about our plenty by giving to charity. Jolie actually gives of herself as well as giving substantially monetary donations.

source

Before surprising Clint Eastwood this week at the Hollywood Film Festival Awards Gala, Angelina Jolie traveled to the other side of the world for her first trip to war-torn Afghanistan.

Jolie, a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Refugee Agency, met refugees who have returned to their post-Taliban homeland to rebuild their lives after fleeing in 2001. She also visited projects by Afghan Hands, an organization helping women and children, inspired by her work with refugees. “After seeing real suffering,” she tells PEOPLE, “you never complain anymore.”

What’s the first thing she did after returning home? “Hug the kids.” – Mary Green

I perused the Official FOX Terminator website earlier today

but there was nothing fresh. I went back just awhile after watching True Blood for the second time to put together this post as I couldn’t get the goods earlier and when I should be hitting the hay I’m doing the fangirl thing with all the brand new cool new show-related photos/wallpapers/graphics now available for download on the Official FOX Terminator site.

Fox synopsis of where we last left off:

Rocked by the Jeep explosion, John’s 16th birthday forces him to confront the reality of his destiny alone. Meanwhile, Agent Ellison faces off with his faith and the Feds in the aftermath of Cromartie’s massacre, and a new player is introduced, Catherine Weaver, who is the CEO of ZeiraCorp, a high-tech corporation.

Read below for a thumbnail of my favourite scene where Shirley Manson, late of “Garbage,” turns herself into a toilet. Priceless.

From EO9.com:

…And suddenly the urinal itself begins changing shape, moving, taking on a silverly quality. Tuck freezes in disbelief as the urinal transforms into Catherine Weaver! Weaver apologizes for offending him, points her long, metal finger at his forehead and spears him through the skull. He drops dead.

“Meet the T-1001. The new face of Skynet.”

Overall this was a very satisfying episode. The production values were very obviously pumped up–especially in scenes where the viewer sees through Terminator eyes with all the metrics and sensors and such. A satisfying couple of uses of it was when Cameron was following a  blood droplet trail and right after her going splodey in the Jeep when, barely functioning, we see an important command line going kerfluey.

Fun stuff.

I wholeheartedly agree with the Greek chorus’s sentiments about Thomas Dekker as John Connor, though. I just think it’s a case of miscasting. John Connor as played by Dekker is hugely annoying. Despite his vital-ness to everyone’s well-being John Connor is really hard to care about because he is such a snot. I know it’s late but I wish for the sake of the series that they would recast him.

Another thing that doesn’t help the show, IMO: The name of the series and it’s stated focus doesn’t match what we see on screen. T:TSCC doesn’t really focus on Sarah Connor all that much or shouldn’t. I’m guessing because in truth, she is a one-note character. Her job: fighter mom.

That’s it.

Sarah in stitches

The true star and the most fun to watch of the women is Summer Glau as Cameron, the Terminator that Future John builds then sends back in time to save himself and prevent the Apocalypse/Judgment Day.

Equally fun to watch but offered to us in much smaller doses is T-888 model Terminator Cromartie (Garret Dillahunt). Though he had very little to do in this heavily Season One recap episode, it was established “why” he did not blow away Agent Ellison (Richard T. Jones) when he had the chance at the end of last season (E109), giving us a bit more insight into his MO.

From Eo9.com:

Summer Glau has never been creepier and more demented than she is playing a bomb-damaged Terminator who’s lost her shit. She gets a bunch of really classic moments in this episode, but there’s one moment in particular, toward the end of the episode, where Glau really proves that she’s a great actor in spite of her crazy-supergirl type-casting.

Cast: Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker, Summer Glau, Brian Austin Green, Richard T. Jones, Garret Dillahunt, and Shirley Manson. Guest Cast: Dean Winters as Charley Dixon; Sandra Purpuro as Agent Norgaard; Marcus Chait as Justin Tuck; James Urbaniak as Sarkissian; Shane Edelman as Matt Murch; Carlos Sanz as Minister

GET EPISODE 201 PODCAST
with Exec Producers Josh Friedman and John Wirth
(Click “Save file as” to download the mp3)

Is anyone else experiencing both trepidation and excitement about the WordPress 2.5 release?

The expectation of the built-in galleries (what took so long?!) is enough to get me very interested. Faster loading sounds very enticing, too.  Gravatars–well, I know they are the cool thing now but they don’t really rock my world–fine, if other folks have wanted and are now getting them, tho’. Part of social networking, which depending who you talk to, is  very “now” or yesterday’s news.

It’s always good to hear more than just the opinion of the developers and they in fact state that they welcome input prior to the official release so possibly minor modifications can be done.

Still, I was surprised when I stumbled across some dire predictions about the coming release, specifically that because it won’t play nicely with many of the add on’s or widgets or whatever you like to call them, they will effectively be rendered null upon installation of WordPress 2.5 sending their creators into nervous breakdown mode. Not only that and this is my concern, because well, it affects me: Will my treasured theme still work with the release of WordPress 2.5? Possibly not.

I don’t of course yet have a solid opinion on the big changes soon in our future.

I can say for certain though that as someone for if “coding is art” is still at the crayon stage, I hope that the changes won’t be too difficult and time-consuming for users like me to implement. After all change is good–but not always.

Oh my goodness, I just about had a panic attack just now.

I’ve been installing things, mostly “widgets” on two WordPress blogs all day, tweaking things.

And then I started getting a Google pop-up about a navigational key that I needed to procure from the GOOG themselves. Out of curiosity I went to see if I could activate it. Without a lot of headaches–and without being further into GOOG’s pocket– no I can’t– but the pop-ups were happening at both sites. Every time the page loaded. I felt like my blogs were hijacked–by the eveeel Google!

After waaay too much plugging and unplugging, activating, deactivating, deleting and transferring, I have discovered that a photographic program, which I’d thought way nifty because it’s seeming ease of use and multi-functionality, was the culprit. It’s gone now, not to bring it’s Google-kissing buttocks back to my blog space. Hey developers, You are very nice but could you warn someone who Google is not happy with (in a collective, not personal* sense) about Google program keys embedded in your widgets?

It’s 3 a.m. I have conquered the GOOG for today. I suppose I should do some yoga and go to bed.

*It’s “just business.”

I’m simply a person who lost a ton of work for not following Google’s draconian rules–which I’d not ever heard of in re: my TypePad blog. Watch out for the GOOG!

I imagine most of you are too busy to have noticed my absence the last few days.

It really comes down to the fact that I’m stubborn as hell and won’t give up on something I want ‘till I’m thoroughly exhausted or every option known to humankind is.

The “something” to which I refer is switching my domain host—again, redirecting my domain name—again, and setting up from scratch my website—again.

I’ve done all this in order to not be a slave to my provider—sort of spreading my assets around, as it were.

I’ve not ever tried using WordPress.org and opposed to WordPress.com—very different and guess who didn’t know that until “too late?” I know bugger-all about the type of coding you need to construct a WordPress blog: c-Panel, file manager, directories, uploading and unzipping—all the unpleasantness that I’ve avoided for the decade I’ve been online. All of it has come to this—three days of trying again, getting stymied, doing searches for assistance, thinking I had the answer, finding out that I don’t, starting over and over and over. Yes, I could have paid for help. I would have done that at approximately the same time hell froze over.

What a craptastic time it’s been.

So now that I’m ready to post, I find our Interwebs have been stricken by the Comcastic virus. Best case is back up tonight. Meantime we have Denzel’s Déjà Vu to enjoy. Toodles!

I’m  having a bugger of a time.

I want to add social booking marking widgets or better, an-all-in-one widget to my WordPress and I’ve looked and looked and I’m still ultimately at square one. Boo.

I feel like an ass. I’ve known forever that glancing knowledge of CSS was going to get to be mandatory minimum but I happily let TypePad do the heavy lifting for me.

Not so easy here. I didn’t think it would be but I was was hoping it wouldn’t be so hard.