History Series / TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles

* RoomFullOfCrazy: The basement in season 2 had names, numbers and dates written on the walls in blood.

** In many ways, the show could count as a {{Deconstruction}} of this theme. The heroes are looking to prevent the rise of Skynet and the machines, but the machines are similarly working to ensure Skynet is built and possibly even enhance it. The humans are trying to change their fate, and Skynet is also trying to change its fate, and as a result the characters sometimes wonder if it might actually have been better if "fate" wasn't tampered with since Skynet was ultimately destined to be defeated in the original timeline. By trying to change the past so much, they might actually be giving Skynet a chance to avoid its defeat.

** Cameron spends one episode painstakingly teasing out a historical mystery about a terminator that accidentally time traveled to the 1920s, became a successful businessman, ensured a building called Pico Tower was successfully constructed...and disappeared. She goes to Pico Tower in 2008, breaks down a wall that has been there for the better part of a ''century'' - and the terminator is standing there with a tommy gun, waiting to carry out an assassination at an upcoming event that it's been waiting for all those years.

* ShellShockedVeteran : Sarah and Derek both have shades of this, to the point of Derek crying when triggered by a piece of music. Dr. Boyd Sherman comments that John also shows signs of PTSD--justified, as it's after [[spoiler: he kills Sarkissian]] in the season 2 premiere.

* TheSingularity: John mentions it and points out that it's not the Machines, but instead ''this'' is the real enemy that they are fighting. When it comes, humanity can simply kiss it's ass ''goodbye!''

* RealityIsUnrealistic: Quite a few viewers complained that scene with Derek Reese destroying Terminator with aniti-materiel rifle is not realistic, due to fact that he fired his Barrett M82 from the shoulder. Since then many "guntubers" demonstrated, that this feat is entirely possible, and most proficent shooters can actually perform a rapid firing and still hit the target.

** Catherine Weaver's body can, in addition to taking any shape, apparently impersonate human touch well enough to pass a full body makeout session. In a very... non-Terminator way, "Weaver" engages in this, complete with sound effects for a considerable period of time before [[spoiler:literally going down the mark's throat and choking his vital organs to death]]. Weaver's DeadpanSnarker nature and ''personal'' amusement from a PreMortemOneLiner no one living will hear in fact hint that she is ''sentient.''

* GrayingMorality: This is a common theme throughout the series. It starts out with Skynet being clearly evil and the Connors being clearly good, but the Connors' efforts to stop Judgment Day quickly make them NotSoDifferent from the robots they're fighting, to the point that they [[AntiHero openly admit to being terrorists]]. Their Graying Morality is really driven home in "Dungeons and Dragons", when Sarah [[IronicEcho repeats]] Kyle Reese's warning about the Terminators from [[Film/TheTerminator the first movie]]... but this time it applies to Derek murdering [[spoiler: Andy Goode]] in cold blood.

* NotSoDifferent: A recurring theme is how the tactics of the humans have come to closely resemble those of [=SkyNet=]. One particularly chilling example is the last scene of "Dungeons and Dragons," wherein Sarah repeats Kyle's warning about how the machines will never stop, while the events playing out onscreen show [[spoiler: Derek murdering Andy Goode in cold blood.]] The next episode makes note of how the machines are getting more and more similar to humans in their quest to infiltrate them. Sarah muses that if the machines ever learn to create art or appreciate human emotions, then "they won't need to destroy us. They'll be us." Meanwhile, we see Cameron doing ballet for no readily apparent reason, while Derek watches, dumbstruck.

* RealityEnsues: [[spoiler: Derek Reese]] encounters a hostile Terminator at close range with only a pistol. Guess what happens.

* realityIsUnrealistic: Quite a few viewers comlained that scene with Derek Reese destroying Terminator with aniti-materiel rifle is not realistic, due to fact that he fired his Barrett M82 from the shoulder. Since then many "guntubers" demonstrated, that this feat is entirely possible, and most proficent shooters can actually perform a rapid firing and still hit the target.

* SeriesContinuityError: The episode "Alpine Fields" seems to conflict with just about everything else in the series' timeline. The episode has two separate time-frames, one featuring Derek attempting to deliver a wounded pregnant woman's baby in what is implied to be the episode's "present", and the other with Sarah trying to protect the same woman and her family from Terminators during an earlier stage of her pregnancy. The problem is that the woman isn't visibly pregnant at all in the earlier time-frame, suggesting that months have passed between the two sets of scenes. However, the events of the entire two seasons of the show don't seem to last that length of time, and a scene in the later episode "Ourselves Alone", involving the question of whether Sarah has a firearms licence, suggests that the entire show up to that point has taken place in a time period of less than thirty days!

** Catherine Weaver's body can, in addition to taking any shape, apparently impersonate human touch well enough to pass a full body makeout session. In a very... non-Terminator way, "Weaver" engages in this, complete with sound effects for a considerable period of time before [[spoiler:literally going down the mark's throat and choking his vital organs to death]].
*** Weaver's DeadpanSnarker nature and ''personal'' amusement from a PreMortemOneLiner no one living will hear hint that she is ''sentient.''

* TheSchlubPubSeductionDeduction: You just know the [[spoiler:plant manager]] is toast in "Goodbye to All That."

* SealedEvilInACan: The fate of the Terminator that Cameron seals in the fallout shelter, having stolen the key that would allow him to escape. Presumably, he'll remain trapped there until after Judgement Day.

** After [[spoiler: The T-1001]] is "revealed" to haven been one of the ''good guys'' all along, or so it says, its multiple murders seem to fall here too.

** The weird-looking [=UFOs=] featured during the second season were inspired by, and their design was based upon, a well-publicised UFO called the "dragonfly drone" that received a lot of exposure in the UFO community a few years ago. They're even referred to as drones in the series.

* TheShrink : Both Dr. Silberman, who's lost his mind after the events of the first two movies, and Dr. Boyd Sherman. The latter is an Awesome shrink, which is enough of a rarity in fiction that [[spoiler: he has to die]].

* SixthRanger: Derek Reese, who starts off a mysterious guy from the future.

* YouCantFightFate: The series implies that they can't stop Skynet being created, although not necessarily because it's fated, but because technological progress makes the creation of a sentient AI an inevitable step that a handful of people blowing up prototype computers isn't going to stop. On the other hand, John's supposedly inevitable fate as TheLeader of the resistance [[spoiler: turns out to be entirely avoidable.]]

* AteHisGun:
** Almost happened to Derek. This allowed him to meet Jesse.

* CastingGag: [[Music/{{Garbage}} Shirley Manson's]] interview comments about [[UrineTrouble a certain fetish]] are well-known. It can't be a coincidence that her character morphs into a urinal.

* TheChosenOne: [[spoiler: Subverted in the series finale.]] John Connor [[spoiler: travels to the future, where not only has no one ever heard of him, but the resistance is still alive and well without his leadership.]]
** Although an alternate interpretation of the finale is that the original John Connor was erased by all the time travel, and John's leap forward in the finale cemented his future role as leader of the resistance. They hadn't heard of him yet, but on his arrival they learn much more about the machines and how to stop them, from John.

* DawsonCasting: Thomas Dekker and Summer Glau are cast as 15-year-old characters.

* {{Fanservice}}:
** The pilot does, indeed, have Cameron kicking ass while in the buff.
** There's plenty of fanservice in the series, mostly around Cameron, including a rather blatant piece of it in "Some Must Watch, While Some Must Sleep" where Cameron walks by John in a bright red bra and pair of panties. This turns out to just be a dream by Sarah, made up of her worries and perceptions.

* FishOutOfTemporalWater: The pilot episode sees the heroes jump from 1999 to 2007. Sometimes it's played for laughs (the group getting cell phones) and sometimes... not so much (Sarah having 9/11 explained to her).

* {{Flashback}}: Monkeywrenched: Derek has a {{Flashback}}, but since he comes from the future -- or one possible future -- it's hard to know what to call it.
* FoodPorn : All the fighters from the future eat and eat when they come back, particularly [[spoiler: Riley]] and Jessie, who "can't stop eating" Chinese food from the food court at the mall. According to the DVD commentary, this is also AuthorAppeal, as the writer who wrote the line also loves food court Chinese food. Inverted with Sarah, as the only food she seems to be able to make is pancakes and PB&J.

* FullFrontalAssault: In the pilot, Cameron obtains clothes for her, Sarah and John by walking up to a car full of men and beating the crap out of them while Sarah and John cower nearby, probably rather more closely together than they would prefer, all things considered.
* FutureBadass: John Connor. Deconstructed, actually, in that John ''knows'' he's going to become one of these and is shown throughout the series gradually growing into the role, learning the lessons and suffering the traumas that would make someone into this. Some characters like Derek are even shown expressing frustration that John's not one ''already''. Sometimes when faced with a problem, he asks characters who've met his future self what he would do in the situation. Answers vary from the snarky ("Future John has bigger things to worry about.") to the heartwarming ("Future John doesn't live here. ''You'' do.") He's even been known to compare himself negatively to ''himself''. When Cameron asks him about his grieving over [[spoiler: Derek]], he replies "There's no use crying about it, is there? I'm sure future me would beat my ass if I did."

* IdiotBall: Heroes suffer from these from time to time in order to lead to development of additional plot arcs. Particularly, in [[spoiler: ep. 208 protagonists decide to bury Cromartie’s body instead of taking it with them right away, giving it a chance to disappear; and in ep. 213 Sarah decides to check and “infiltrate” a secret military front without any additional backup]].

* ImmortalityImmorality - Based on an incident with John Henry, this is is what motivates Skynet. To a machine, getting turned off is like dying.

* InnocentFanserviceGirl: Played with as Cameron is not ''innocent'',she just doesn't care.

** "To the Lighthouse." [[spoiler: There's another machine intelligence out there, trying to take out both John Henry ''and'' the Connors. All signs point to it being the ''actual'' [=SkyNet=] Not to mention, they killed Charley.]]

* CelebrityParadox: Averted in the episode "Self Made Man" in the second season, when a Terminator is sent back targeting the Governor of California. What little we see of him makes it clear that it's not Arnold.

* BootCampEpisode: "Goodbye To All That" has John enroll in military school and Derek sign up as a teacher while Sarah and Cameron protect a little boy wrongfully targeted for termination..

* ABNegative: In "Dungeons & Dragons", we find out Sarah is Type O- but can't give blood to Derek, yet John has the same blood type and can, a case of ArtisticLicense.

* ShoutOut

The show then takes a quick swerve with Ellison's growing awareness of the machines and the introduction of a love interest for John. The Terminator Cromartie, who has been hunting the Connors since the first episode, is re-appropriated for another, possibly sinister use. The second season starts with a [[MonsterOfTheWeek Terminator of the Week]] style but soon grows more philosophical, eventually turning DarkerAndEdgier. After completing its second season, the series was canceled. Whether the final season's evolution was to the [[GrowingTheBeard show's benefit]] or [[SeasonalRot otherwise]] is an ongoing matter of debate.

Both seasons are available on DVD, as well as in rotation on [[http://www.thewb.com/shows/terminator-the-sarah-connor-chronicles the WB's official site]]. There were fan petitions to bring it back, but none were successful.

Now has a [[Recap/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles recap page]].

[[quoteright:243:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sarahconnorchronicles_cameron2.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:243:Holy crap, it's ''[[Series/{{Firefly}} the Taminator]]''.]]

''Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles'' is a science-fiction series set in the ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'' universe that aired in 2008-2009. It's set after [[Film/TheTerminator the first]] [[Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay two films]], and although it acknowledges some plot elements of [[Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines the third movie]], it goes in a different [[AlternateTimeline direction]]. Sarah and John are still on the run from the FBI, a new Terminator, and their own sorry social lives--that is, until Cameron (Creator/SummerGlau) shows up to [[TimeTravel bring them from 1999 to 2007]] in order to stop [=SkyNet=] from being built.

The show then takes a quick swerve with Ellison's growing awareness of the machines and the introduction of a love interest for John. The Terminator Cromartie, who has been hunting the Connors since the first episode, is re-appropriated for another, possibly sinister use. The second season starts with a [[MonsterOfTheWeek Terminator of the Week]] style, but soon grows more philosophical, eventually turning DarkerAndEdgier. After completing its second season, the series was canceled. Whether the final season's evolution was to the [[GrowingTheBeard show's benefit]] or [[SeasonalRot otherwise]] is an ongoing matter of debate.

* {{Anti Hero}}es - Definitely. The whole cast pushing the envelope as far as they possibly can without quite making the show about {{Villain Protagonist}}s. Sarah Connor even tells somebody at one point, "Yes we ''are'' some kind of terrorist group." For fans of the [[DarkerAndEdgier Dark and the Edgy]] this show was far, far too good to last.

** The {{Unreboot}} ''Film/TerminatorDarkFate'' renders the series (as well as everything else that came out after ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'') alternate timeline.

* FiveManBand
** TheHero : Sarah, although John takes on more of this role later in the series, as Sarah starts to fall apart physically and emotionally.
** TheLancer : Derek
** TheBigGuy : Cameron
** TheSmartGuy : John, with his knowledge of computers and technology, despite being a FishOutofTemporalWater
** TheChick : Charley Dixon
** SixthRanger : Jessie, who shows up last and ultimately betrays the group.
** TagalongKid : Riley, who also functions as TheLoad, and to some, TheScrappy.

* ThePowerOfTrust: John trusts Cameron absolutely, to the point that he tells [[spoiler: Jesse]] that even if he ''did'' believe [[spoiler: Riley's death was caused by Cameron]], it [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming would not have broken his trust for her.]]

** The series is deliberately vague about whether the third film is part of its canon, with the whole setup of John and Sarah time-travelling to the present from 1999 appearing to be set up entirely so the crew wouldn't have to deal with it. Though it did end up incorporating Sarah's death from cancer.

** [[spoiler: Catherine Weaver]] is one of the ''good'' guys.
** Cameron also frequently demonstrates this.

* ShipTease: The series is ''constantly'' teasing at John/Cameron, and there are hints of Future!John and Allison Young.

* HeelFaceTurn: Cromartie's transformation to John Henry.