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The Connor Crew cleaned up some loose ends this week on The Sarah Connor Chronicles. First, there was the “Case of the Missing Hand” — tracking down that pesky cyborg appendage that got left behind a couple of episodes ago. Exercising her usual restraint in dealing with issues like this, Cameron blacks out the entire city in an attempt to retrieve said hand from the police evidence locker, but comes up short. Disappointed, Sarah assigns her to the “Case of the Missing Turk” — tracking down Andy’s computer, which is now in the hands of The Russian. Continue Reading »

This week’s episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles picks up where the last left off. Charlie manages to save Derek Reese’s life, with the help of a blood transfusion from nephew John, while Sarah finally breaks down and gives Charlie the whole story, cyborgs and time machines and all. He takes it remarkably well, warns Sarah about the FBI agent (who we know is Cromartie) that’s on her trail, then exits gracefully. I’m sure it’s not the last we’ll see of him, though. Continue Reading »

“Great. Fountain of blood is gone. When Fred Sonja is done, I want you to take that thing and get out.” - Spike to Angel

In issue # 3 of “Angel: After the Fall”, we pick up where we left off, with Angel getting attacked by Illyria. We also learn that life in Hell Angeles is proving peculiar not only for the humans, but for the various supernatural inhabitants as well, because the sun and moon are always out at the same time. And for a Primordial demon like Illyria, this has resulted in some time slippage, similar to what happened in the “Time Bomb” episode from Season 5. After some brawling, Illyria gets the upper hand on Angel, then starts fighting with his dragon. Meanwhile, Angel and Spike talk, then Connor shows up, and we find out that Spike has actually been doing the same thing as Angel — saving humans and keeping them safe.

After coming to the realization that he’s been duped by somebody into thinking that Spike and Illyria were his enemies, Angel brings Wesley along to pay a visit to the council of demon bosses who have carved out control of the various sections of Los Angeles. Including Burges, the demon whose son Angel killed in the first issue. Angel throws down the glove, challenging all of the bosses to a fight for control of their territories, and ends up agreeing to fight the champions of their choice in two days time. Which is a bold enough choice in and of itself. But it’s made all the more bold by the voice-over revelation revealed to us in the final panel — ANGEL ISN’T A VAMPIRE ANY MORE. Huh what?

“Go ahead. Church me. Plenty more where I came from.” - Buffy to Twilight

Issue # 11, “A Beautiful Sunset” is another story written by Whedon himself. We finally get confirmation of whose “true love kiss” woke Buffy out of that sleeping spell back in issue #4. And the winner is … Satsu, the Asian slayerette who is currently the strongest of the Scrappy Doo pack. If you were paying attention, of course, you already knew this; there was a whole cinnamon lip gloss detail that kind of gave it away. But as Buffy takes her out for some one-on-one training, she confronts Satsu on the matter, and tries to impress upon her that historically, falling in love with Buffy is a lethal proposition. As if to prove this, while on rounds, they are attacked by this season’s Big Bad himself, Twilight.

Twilight fights well, lifts heavy things, flies, lifts and throws heavy things while flying, and all in all seems to have a Superman level of power. He knocks Satsu out, then toys with Buffy for a while, both physically and mentally. You definitely get the impression that if he wanted to kill Buffy, he could. But as he later points out, “That’s been done. To little effect.” His plan instead is to demoralize her, “to strip her of her greatest armor … her moral certainty,” by convincing her that creating so many new slayers has not improved the world, and is more likely hurting it. It’s a concern that Buffy already has — that for every good slayer they train, the rogue ones create even more problems — so his words end up having exactly the effect he’d hope for, nudging Buffy into a nihilistic funk.

Well, it happened. I knew it would. After the first 4 or 5 episodes of a sci-fi series, either I decide it’s simply not worth my time — as most recently happened with Flash Gordon and Bionic Woman — or the other thing happens … I get hooked. The latter happened for me with this week’s episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The premise has been firmly established, a few ongoing plot lines have been set in motion, the characters have become familiar, and now it’s as if the writers have just pulled up in a truck and said to me, “Come with us if you want to live.”

Anyway, here’s the breakdown … Continue Reading »