Terminator Scoop!

"Journalists had to wait three and a half hours to interview the cast of Fox's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles when they held an autograph signing at the Golden Apple comics store in Hollywood on Sept. 13. Rightfully so, I suppose. Why should I get to breeze through and get quality time with Thomas Dekker when the folks from Dekker Daily had camped out since 8:29 in the morning? The cast greeted the seemingly endless line of fans wrapping around the store and out the block on Melrose Avenue for two hours, while the second episode of the season played on screens.

After participating in a question-and-answer session, the cast members were rushed out the back so that press could finally talk to them, lest more fans surround the stars indefinitely. Dekker (John Connor) was overwhelmed as he was whisked from the store and plopped in front of a digital recorder. But after seeing fans react positively to his new version of John Connor, he was confident that his performance was working. In the second-season premiere, John defied his mother, Sarah (Lena Headey), and his uncle, Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green), by reactivating Cameron, the cyborg played by Summer Glau, even though her programming had become unstable. Episode two introduced Leven Rambin as Riley, a girl from John's high school and a potential new love interest. John again defied Sarah to develop a relationship with Riley.

Dekker told SCI FI Wire--and his fans--to expect even more drastic changes in John as the season unfolds. "It gets worse, way worse," Dekker said in an interview. "This episode, I think, he was kind of still reeling from the whole first episode, so he's still a little bit in limbo in this one. By the time of the fourth one--and especially the fifth one, which is where he goes off with Uncle Derek--you really see, 'Holy s--t, this is the new John!' It's the next few episodes."

Dekker said that shooting the fifth episode was difficult, which he was able to incorporate into his performance. "It was actually very unpleasant for me to film, only because we were really far out on location," he said. "It was so hot, [and] we were all in these crazy army fatigues. It was just this very tough atmosphere that was good for me as an actor. But when you're working 20-hour days in that territory, you [start to think], 'Oh, my God, I want to go home.' But it was cool to shoot, and it's one of the best episodes." The whole issue about preserving Cameron raises a lot of debate in the fan community. Does John have genuine affection for his Terminator, or is he just hung up on why his future self would send a malfunctioning robot back to him? Dekker favored the first answer.

"I just think he's in love with her," Dekker said. "I think that he knows technically that she shouldn't be here. She's this dangerous [thing]. But he can't let go of her. He needs her, and there's that whole weird teen thing where you take out your resentment on the wrong person. And I think it sort of ended up going onto Sarah unfairly. He's sort of on Cameron's side, and, of course, it has huge repercussions in the future. That's why Cameron says he can't be trusted, because John has chosen the wrong side, it seems."

Later in the season, John will finally meet the character of Ellison (Richard T. Jones) for the first time. "Episode 10, we shot it last week," Dekker said. "It was weird after two years to have never worked with Richard T. It was strange. It was interesting." Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

Source: Scifi.com