Trivia / Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

• Acting for Two:
  • Garret Dillahunt plays four different roles: the second face of the Terminator known as Cromartie; George Laszlo, the actor whom Cromartie killed after having Magic Plastic Surgery to look like him; John Henry, the innocent child AI who occupies Cromartie's body after Cromartie is killed; and, very briefly, Skynet.
  • Summer Glau portrays both the cyborg Cameron and the resistance fighter Allison.
• Actor Allusion: Several:
  • Shirley Manson, who portrayed the liquid metal Terminator known as Catherine Weaver has several:
    • She played a killer robot copy of herself in the video for Garbage's "The World Is Not Enough".
    • When we first find out that Weaver is a T1000, she has disguised herself in the form of a urinal. During the height of her fame with Garbage, Shirley Manson wrote her Top Ten Commandments of Love, which included the immortal line "I want a man who will let me pee in his belly button".
    • Inverted when Savannah tells Weaver that John Henry has to be the one to sing her father's song with her, because Catherine can't sing.
  • Cromartie takes the form of an actor who'd starred in a Conan the Barbarian ripoff. Now, who played Conan again?
  • Obscure enough that it might be a coincidence, but during "Dungeons and Dragons", Charlie mentions a one in 200 chance that John might have AB Negative blood (see the entry on the page for details). Who else has AB Negative blood? Ryan O'Reilly.
  • Weaver's gopher Walsh says in "Desert Cantos" that he used to be a cop in Baltimore. He's played by Max Perlich, who is well known for his period playing Brodie (actually a civilian technician working for the police department, not a cop) in Homicide: Life on the Street, which was set in Baltimore.
  • Rita says "Yeah, and I'm Angelina Jolie." Jillian Armenante appeared in Girl, Interrupted with Ms. Jolie. It can't be a coincidence.
  • Word of God on the DVD commentary states that the actress who plays Jordan, the young woman who jumps off the school roof in Season One, was cast because she looks a lot like Hayden Panettiere... and in fact doubled for her in the first episode of Heroes, as Hayden's character jumped off an oil rig. And who was playing her friend who filmed the whole action? Thomas Dekker!
• The Cast Showoff: Summer Glau's ballet skills pop up again. Subverted by "Catherine Weaver" (played by the lead singer of Garbage) because Savannah says her mommy can't sing. Though Shirley Manson's vocal skills are still used, as Season 2 opens with her version of "Samson and Delilah".
• Cast the Expert: "Rosie", the Terminator who Cameron ties in a knot in "The Tower Is Tall But The Fall Is Short", was played by Bonnie Morgan, a contortionist who could suffer that with no need for special effects.
• Content Leak: The debut episode was leaked online a couple of months before its initial broadcast.
• Continuity Nod: Multiple references to events in the first two movies, even a few in-jokes referring to the third movie.
  • Sarah's death from cancer in the timeline averted by their jump forward is a ref to Sarah dying from Leukemia between T2 and T3.
  • The picture of Sarah that Kyle Reese carries around as a good luck charm in the future is a re-creation (with the new actress) of a very similar pic seen in the first movie. Derek finds it burned when he gets back to the camp, revealing that he missed the Terminator attack from the first film.
  • Sarah doing chin-ups in "Queen's Gambit."
• Dawson Casting:
  • Summer Glau as Allison (a teenager), and as the cyborg named Cameron that is based on Allison. She was 26 when the series started, playing a teenager.
  • Pointed out by John when he said that he's technically 23 but he's still biologically 15 because of time travel. Thomas Dekker was 20 in the first season.
  • Averted with Leven Rambin, who was 18 in season 2, playing a teenager of Vague Age. Since Jessie found her in the tunnels and brought her back to 2008 it's likely she was older than her 2008 persona.
• Disowned Adaptation: Like the previous movies (Rise of the Machines, Salvation, Genisys), the series has been dismissed by James Cameron as an alternate timeline series after Dark Fate was confirmed to be the true sequel for Judgement Day.
• Fake American: Sarah is played by English actress Lena Headey.
• Friday Night Death Slot: 2007-8 season: on Monday nights. 2008-9 season: moved to Friday nights. 2009-10 season: Terminated.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Catherine Weaver is played by Shirley Manson of Garbage fame, and she even performed the cover of "Samson and Delilah" that opened Season 2, but Savannah notes that she can't sing.
• The Other Darrin: Sarah, John, Dr. Silberman, Mrs. Dyson, played by different actors than their film equivalents
• The Other Marty: A different actor, Tim Guinee, played Charley Dixon in the pilot. His scenes were re-shot with Dean Winters.
• Refitted for Sequel: The character of Sumner comes from one of the earliest scripts of the first Terminator film, where he was a fighter sent to the past along with Reese who died by accidentally materializing into a fire escape.
• Screwed by the Network: Fox did its best to build hype for season 1, and it paid off in spite of the Writer's Guild strike. Their reward? Season 2 had the show moved to the Friday Night Death Slot and cancelled while Left Hanging.
• Shout-Out: "The Turk" is a chess playing computer, named after "The Turk", an eighteenth century hoax. The original was a box with a mechanical human upper torso that would move chess pieces, within the box a midget would sit and manipulate the arms with levers.
• Stock Sound Effects: During one episode, you hear the "modem screech." Also an odd example of Technology Marches On, as John says "it sounds like it's dialling into the Internet." Perhaps the writers believed a 2008 audience wouldn't recognize the sound.
• Throw It In!: While training with firearms for the pilot episode, Summer Glau was hit in the face by an ejected bullet casing. Rather than cover up the resulting mark with makeup, the injury was left visible on Summer's face throughout filming for the pilot, as one of the "wounds" Cameron picked up in combat.
• What Could Have Been: See the franchise's page.

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