Sarah Connor's helplessness:

As you may have heard, season two will show John Connor stepping up more to become the hero we all know he's going to be. And that means Sarah Connor will be taking more of a "backseat," said Friedman and Headey. "I think this season for Sarah is her losing slight control over everything, pretty much," said Headey. "I think there's a slow madness sort of happening in her, she feels that everyone's kind of out of reach right now." Side note: Color me a bit concerned. I'm not sure I'm on board for watching another show about a strong woman character unraveling.

Sarah Connor's rage:

I asked Headey about the anger that drives Sarah Connor. Is she partly mad at John, because he's the reason she can't have a normal life? Said Headey: "I think there's some truth in that. I think Sarah's pretty complex." She was a normal girl who suddenly gave birth to the savior of the world. Plus, she was truly in love with Kyle Reese, and then he died and left her with this legacy. "I absolutely think her anger is partly at her son and at her situation. Her frustration is being that, she can't slow down with her son. I think her rooted anger is with everybody who comes to advise her, and say she can't do this or that. And she would like to tell them all to fuck themselves and go away"

The mysterious death:

People asked Friedman a lot about the announcement he made at Comic-Con: that one of the show's main cast members will die. He wouldn't elaborate very much, except to say that Summer Glau's pseudo-death in the season opener doesn't count. And when it happens, you'll know. And it's for story reasons, not just for shock value or to save money on actors.

Shirley Manson's character:

She's not evil, just... focused. She has a plan to grow the Turk (that chess-playing computer that eventually becomes Skynet) and she's not going to let anyone stop her. She's the CEO of a big tech company, but it's not Cyberdine.

Rock'n'Roll High School:

We have pretty much seen the last of John's high school days. Sarah will be home-schooling him (in pain.) No more scenes of John sitting in a classroom doodling IEDs. But we will see him interacting with kids from high school.

Sarah Connor's cancer:

Her cancer, which was dealt with in one or two episodes of season one, will come up again at some point. Something happens that brings it up again, and it's investigated "in a bleak way" in some early episodes. But we won't be seeing her in bed with chemotherapy any time soon.

Religion in the Terminator verse:

Religion has always been a big part of the franchise, with Sarah as a sort of postmodern Virgin Mary, and John as a rocket-shooting turbo-Jesus. It became a part of the TV show because Richard T. Jones, who plays FBI agent Ellison, is very religious, and that became part of his character. In season two, we'll be exploring how his discovery that Terminators are real impacts his faith. You might think Skynet proves God doesn't exist, but that's not necessarily true, says Friedman. (Any more, I'm guessing, than the atomic bomb or the Holocaust did.)

Brian Austin Green's role on the show:

He's the "human face" of the future war, and he shows what it'll do to people if it's not stopped. He's a "damaged war vet," says Friedman. Incidentally, we'll see more flashes of the future war this season, but it'll always be there to inform the emotional context of what's happening on the show now. And Derek will not be getting together with Sarah — they're more like bickering exes.

A big surprise in the season premiere:

Friedman alluded to a huge surprise in the season opener, in which we meet a new antagonist for Sarah and John, who's more than "a basic corporate type." (Presumably having to do with Shirley Manson's character.) And it sounds as though there's a surprising twist involved.

The porn episode. I mean, come on. John Connor is a teenage boy. His mom has forbidden him to go near a computer, so he can't just surf to NoodMortalKombat.com or whatever. He's not supposed to leave the house without his bodyguard. Does he sneak away and try to steal some magazines? Does he order Summer Glau to flash him? The therapy episode. One of the things that made The Sopranos so great was Tony's relationship with his Lorraine Braco's therapist. And judging from the first couple of episodes, Sarah Connor really needs some hardcore Jungian therapy. Or maybe Adlerian, we're not picky. Could she find a therapist who'd keep her secret and wouldn't try to have her committed? She could bring Summer Glau and have her show off her cyber-bits. Or maybe she'd try online therapy. Or just order Summer Glau to be her therapist, which would be hilarious. Actually, in episode two, we already saw hints of Summer becoming Sarah's therapist.

The hacking episode. So John Connor isn't allowed to use a computer any more, which means his 1337 hacking skillz were out of date in 1999. And now that he's jumped forward to 2007, his skillz are even more out of date. We got a pretty strong hint of that when he didn't know how to clear his browser cache in the mall computer store. But what if it turns out his hacker abilities were part of why he becomes such a great leader in the future? What if Sarah is actually thwarting his heroic destiny by trying to keep him safe?

(Actually, that should be a theme of the show in general. Maybe she subconsciously wants to keep him from becoming that great future leader, so the robots will stop trying to kill him. Something she could talk about in therapy.)The gangster episode. Actually, the easiest way to make Connor like Sopranos is to have Sarah become even more of a criminal. We already saw that she has to keep dealing with gangstas to get fake IDs and other stuff to help her stay underground. What if she finds, over time, that she has to start running her own organized crime empire to stay one step ahead of the feds and the mean metal guys? After all, crime leads to more crime. It's a downward-spiral thing. We saw it on an after-school special once. Struggling to manage Sarah's own crime family be harder than dodging a Terminator's lousy aim. Which leads us to:

The betrayal episode. Sarah Connor should have a decent-sized supporting cast, with their own agendas and foibles. Not just the FBI agent and ex-fiance who are both obsessed with Sarah for different reasons, but temporary allies of Sarah's who will turn on her in a second when their interests diverge. And hey, here's a thought. Now that we know there are resistance fighters from the future hanging around in 2007 hanging cat posters, it would be interesting to meet them. What if some of them have gone native? Decided to give up on the fight and enjoy the spoils of their future knowledge until the end?

• Summer Glau is a better foil than Katee Sackhoff. Both Bionic Woman and Chronicles give our hero a crazy-ish cyberwoman to bounce off. But Sarah Connor and her pet Terminator are developing an awesome buddy-movie vibe that will be fun to watch. They can play good-cop, bad-cop, except that Glau really is prepared to shoot the criminals that Headey only wants to intimidate. (Like last night's fake-ID crime czar.) The scene last night where Headey pretends to be Glau's stepmom to get out of a sticky cop situation was priceless.

  Sackhoff's crazy lady version of the bionic woman was the best thing about Bionic Woman, but she had no chemistry with star Michelle Ryan. And every time Sackhoff appeared, the message was clear: bro's before ho's. Jaime Sommer is way better off letting the boys tell her what to do than hanging out with other cybernetically enhanced women.

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• Sarah Connor is a good mom. Okay, we maybe could have done without the bit where Sarah tells John where to find the turkey in the fridge. It felt like the show was telling us to go make ourselves a sandwich. But we'd way rather have those unsubtle moments (like the "Sarah used to read Wizard of Oz to John" speech) than Bionic Woman's constant Jaime-is-an-incompetent-surrogate-mom subplot. If we had to sit through one more scene where Jaime apologizes for letting sis down, we'd be rooting for the terrorists.
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• Sarah Connor calls the shots. We see her being competent and making smart decisions, like the motorcycle thing and figuring out that Enrique is a snitch. And the scene where Glau tells Headey that she's the "best fighter," bar none got me kind of choked up. Sarah doesn't need the dumb suits at the Berkut Group stiffening her spine and aiming her at the bad guys.

One reason the pilot moves so fast is to haul us from the status quo at the end of Terminator 2 to the show's new status. At the start, Sarah and John Connor are still hiding out, but they think they've averted the creation of Skynet and the war against the machines. They find out differently when a Terminator shows up to kill John, and a nice Terminator (Glau) comes to the rescue. The Connors decide to try once again to prevent Skynet from ever happening. Several bad-ass action sequences later, they find a time machine and jump forward to 2007, the new start date for Skynet. (And that's why Glau ends up naked and kick-boxing.)

We also meet some new supporting cast members: the FBI agent who's chasing Sarah Connor, Tommy Lee Jones style, and the fiance she ran out on. So the Terminators, the Feds and the fiance will all be on her ass every week. The searching-for-Skynet plot is the show's best hope of not feeling like a weekly cat-and-mouse game.

There are a few bad signs: Summer Glau is great as a killing machine, but not so great when she's pretending to be a normal girl at first. So if it's true that future episodes will feature her character going to school with John and trying to act normal, that could be an issue. Thomas Dekker, as John Connor, has a bit of a mouth-breathing issue.

And then there's the wimpifying of Sarah Connor's character. It seems to be pretty deliberate, and is a major bad sign for the show. The original pilot which circulated nine months ago showed her character as a non-stop hardass. Her only weakness was an excess of paranoia and rage, which threatened to drive her son away. The televised pilot adds a new scene, where Summer Glau is stitching up Sarah Connor's wounds. Lena Headey, as Connor, whimpers and says that she can't keep running or she'll lose her mind. And her son will leave her. It feels as though the network wrote saying, "Have her show more weakness." And you can bet those moments of weakness will be written into future episodes as well.

And then there's the final monologue. Here's the original version. Note also the original actor playing Sarah's fiance:And then here's the televised version, with a nice outdoor swingset scene instead of the indoor gun-flexing:

• The show ignores everything laid down by Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, especially since Sarah Connor is dead in that movie. Ouch. Although she wasn't originally supposed to be. According to James Middleton, "Early drafts of T3 had Sarah in it, and while that was eventually unable to happen, I think that was a good thing for us because it has allowed Lena Headey to come in and do such a good job as Sarah in this show."
• So during what time period is this new series set? Is it pre-internet? Middleton: "No, it's not pre-internet. Through the pilot, we deposit our heroes in the present day."
• If you're wondering how the T4 film will affect this new television series, Middleton said "I think they will naturally cross promote each other. In terms of the timelines, we've created an entirely new one for the show. We'll be following Sarah's journey through this new timeline, and we'll be staying with her on that journey. Sarah is always concerned about her mortality, if she dies, will her work be done? In terms of our show, the pilot establishes that we move away from T3 entirely. The plot is informed much more by Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
• He's also working on a new animated Terminator project, which will be a series of short animated pieces done by different animation directors, just like The Animatrix. "I'm working on a production called Termination that would use animation directors from all over. It will be like The Animatrix, but will be much more worldwide in flair. We'll have European animators along with Japanese anime auteurs.
• Since production was shut down after only 9 episodes were completed, is there any hope for more episodes this season? Middleton: "I don't know, I have a feeling that the nine shows we have will be our first season. It takes a show about nine weeks to get back up and running. Our show is very involved in terms of CGI, costumes, and sets so that preparation time is crucial. It would really be up to Fox.
• Does that mean episode nine serves as a season finale? "Actually, yes. It turns out that episode has a very big cliffhanger ending."
• Given the shortened season, where does that leave Sarah emotionally at the end of these episodes? Headey: "I think it's such a kind of ongoing evolution. Her relationship with John is reaching new depths. There's a lot of things going on with Sarah, she's learning to be a mother, she's learning what it is to live like this. It's a complete realization of what's going on."
• Are you sick or being compared or contrasted to Linda Hamilton at this point? "Yes, I'm a little tired of that comparison. Linda Hamilton will always be the original Sarah Connor, but I'm hoping to bring fresh eyes to it. It's a new era and I'm approaching it in a new way.
• Did you get banged and bruised up during the filming? Do you have any stunt injuries? "Just a lot of hand injuries, because it seems like every "breakable surface" never breaks. So you have experts telling you to 'Just hit it' and it doesn't break!"
• Given that the show is called Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, it's obvious that there is going to be a lot of interaction between Sarah and Cameron. Can you talk about that at all? "It's very complicated because Sarah has a well-earned fear of machines, yet she must keep this machine close to her in order to protect her own son. But, as the series goes on, it's impossible for Sarah and John to not become attached to Cameron as a being. We're watching Sarah deal with what is her biggest nightmare and have her embrace it each day."
• You had to re-shoot some of the scenes in the pilot because of the shootings at Virginia Tech. Would the network still make you re-shoot it today?? Were you upset about it? Middleton: "No, we actually found very clear headed people at the network, and we were all horrified by the Virginia Tech shootings. One must remember that the premise of our show is that Terminators and others are coming from the future to kill a child, and that might happen in public places. One thing we do in the show is that we really value human life. Sarah is really conscious of this as the show goes on and in thinking about who must die in the fight against Skynet.
• If you had the power to go back in time and change anything, what would you change now to make a better future? Lena: "I can't choose an answer to this one! I guess mine would involve world politics, but I won't go into that right now. Or...give me a time machine so I can erase wrinkles but not my wisdom."

  James: "I think I'd go back and change a certain election in 2000."

  Lena: "Uh, I think that's what I was trying to say, James."

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