Despite campaigns by Terminator: TSCC fans, and winning the E!Online save one show poll, with 53% of the votes 
in May 2009, Fox announced on May 18, 2009, that it was not renewing the show. Like the smart, funny, and fun Firefly, living though reruns, expanding its fan base, eventually, the producers came back with a smart, funny, and fun movie like–Serenity.
But now that Terminator Salvation (2009)– has come out, what to do now that we have Batman (Christian Bale) as John Conner in an alternate future universe?
Running from September 8, 2008 to April 10, 2009, Season 2 of Terminator: TSCC ended with an awesome finale– but one that boxed itself into a temporal mechanics mess: Despite elder Spock (Spock Prime) (Leonard Nimoy) meeting young Spock (Zachary Quinto) in the new Startrek, it’s one of the dilemmas of time travel–can “you” or some version of you meet yourself in the past, present, or future? (Frankly, watching Quinto, I couldn’t get young Spock free of images of Sylar on Heroes, which created odd resonances of Spock’s struggling with his half human-half Vulcan self.)
With writing credit attributed to executive producer Josh Friedman, the TSCC Season finale was deeply immersed in the PAST–or more accurately — it was a deep dive –literally and narratively into memory. In a taut juxtaposition of multiple story lines cutting back, forward and across time–the future (or one future), the present (or one reality), and really complex–the future revisited as past memory in the present. Each narrative strand adds a layer of complexity and insight into the characters.
Jesse dives into a pool and she is “back” in her past — her memory from a future that they are trying to prevent. Deep under that future sea, we see Jesse as the XO, and her power struggle with Queeg, the ‘metal’ captain of the nuclear submarine USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23) with a secret mission known only to the reprogrammed terminator captain. It’s clear: Jesse has the leadership capacity to make hard judgment calls amidst crisis.
Sarah Conner watches teenage John sleep and she is back watching over young John– the fire flickering across his face –sweet and peaceful in sleep. And we see a deep mother’s love for the fragile son she is training in that dark forest for his future mission to save the world.
Biblical and mythic stories underlie the last finale- Cain, Abel, “good” and “evil” sons, a powerful image of all the prison cell locks opening– Catherine Weaver suggests to John Henry pondering what he is–perhaps he is neither–perhaps he is God.
And yet–the apocalypse–Judgment Day--still looms–and the season ends in in a future that John Conner, Cameron’s computer chip, Cathrine Weaver, and John Henry has time traveled into. John wrapped in what turns out to be Kyle Reese’s coat, meets face-to-face- with Derek (alive still), with a pre-Cameron-Alison-from-Palmdale — still carrying her human memories, and in the closing scene-Kyle, his father, except that it’s a future where no one knows a John Conner. Sarah Conner is left in the ruins of the present left behind, her voice over — saying I love you too.
So TSCC ends with allot of unanswered questions: Did Derek kill Jesse? Whose side is Catherine Weaver really on and what is her motive in reverse engineering the terminators or trying to teach one human “ethics”? Was she building something to fight Skynet? What? Why? She asks Cameron will you join us echoing the question another future John has posed to the shape-shifting T-1001 in Jesse’s submarine. Is John Henry John Conner’s cyborg brother of salvation for both the machines and the humans? Catherine Weaver says to Sarah: Your son may save the world but he can’t do it without mine.
But one more question remains: HOW was it possible that the network ends such a terrific series?!!Or perhaps the rumors that there might be a TSCC straight to video movie might be true? While we wait–read Thomas Dekker’s interview while at the Toronto FanExpo in August 2009. Or watch his Youtube video thanking fans for their support and asking for another year of TSCC.
