“One bag. Plus guns. I’ll make pancakes.” That’s the order from commitment phobic Sarah Connor to her son, ultimate saviour of the human race, when she gets spooked by a marriage proposal from her boyfriend and decides to clear out of town.

That she can say ‘pack the guns’ and ‘I’ll make pancakes’ in the same statement shows how much protecting John Connor from the terminators has become her entire life.

Spot The Terminator

Even after moving to a new town, it isn’t long before a terminator known as Cromartie manages to track John down at his new school. Cromartie is even intelligent enough to pose as a substitute teacher. He takes a roll call while slicing open his leg to reveal a concealed gun (inconvenient, since he just took a load of papers out of a briefcase). He’s even programmed for witty one-liners - making sure to say “Class dismissed” before jumping out the window in pursuit of John. Ah well, it’s better than “I’ll be back”, and who wouldn’t want the human race to be wiped out by wisecracking cyborgs?

Thankfully, future John Connor had the good sense to send back the sexiest Terminatrix in the history of the franchise - Cameron. Yes, even hotter than Kristiana Loken. Unlike her musclebound predecessor, this cy-babe (yes, I invented that word) doesn’t have to peel off her skin to prove her inner robot - she simply lets her eyes pulse with an electric blue colour. Comes in handy when the Connors pay a visit to Myles Dyson’s wife.

Continuity Bits

It was a nice touch to bring the Dyson’s back into the story. It re-establishes that part of the Terminator mythology and helps us to move on from there rather than the third movie.

Also, a nice piece of detail in the storyline is John’s checked shirt. Remember back in 1992 when T:2 came out, everyone was wearing those damned checked shirts? Well I do.

Sexy Bits

Finally, the titillation begins when Cameron takes John and Sarah to a bank vault which contains a time travel machine - the first time we’ve ever seen the actual device which caused all this trouble. Of course, our three heroes end up in a future date, naked in the middle of a busy road. Summer Glau’s perfect curves are more than  one great reason to keep watching this show.

John, on the other hand, has just experienced a variation of that nightmare where you’re naked in front of your class. Except it’s not a dream, he’s in the middle of the motorway, and everyone’s got cameraphones.

Oh, by the way: Cameron’s name is a hat tip to James Cameron, the guy behind the first two Terminator films. If you were a fan you’d have known that. We’ll ignore Cameron’s involvement in the Titanic movie for the moment…

Lena Headey v Linda Hamilton

There’s been much debate about Headey’s portrayal of Sarah Connor, especially as it differs a fair bit from Linda Hamilton’s last crack at the role. T:2 was a 1992 movie, which was - yikes - 16 years ago, but Linda Hamilton’s role has become iconic by this stage. I actually preferred the wide-eyed, more innocent Sarah of the first movie, so I’m more in favour of Headey’s middle-ground portrayal.

Why? Because she showed that Sarah has no problems offing herself when she think’s John is in danger. She only really has a problem when it comes to killing other human beings. If you think about it, her reticence to kill people is what differentiates Sarah from the cyborgs. I’ll cover this in a more detailed post, but Sarah Connor is a complex character and I vividly remember that soft waitress from 1984 who had no idea of what the future held for her. Her enemy is always the Terminator, not human beings - I think she’ll always assume that people will fight together against the cyborgs. Is she right?