Terminator Talk With Boss Josh Friedman

Fox's Fall Eco-Casino Party went down in Hollywood last night and one of the festive highlights was the chance to corner Terminator boss Josh Friedman and grill him about last night's shocker of a season premiere

By Kristin Dos Santos Sep 09, 2008 8:47 PMTags
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Fox's Fall Eco-Casino Party went down in Hollywood last night, and one of the festive highlights was the chance to corner Terminator boss Josh Friedman and grill him about last night's shocker of a season premiere.

Click in to find out if Cameron really loves John, about Shirley Manson's secret mission and about what's in store for the new girl Riley...

Jill Greenberg/FOX

Those Infamous Electric Sheep: I don't know about you, but Summer Glau broke my heart last night as her character, Cameron, pleaded for her life, begging her brother-father-lover, John (Thomas Dekker), to save her and promising him her love and everlasting devotion. But given that she doesn't have people feelings like the rest of us, was it real, or was it just a trick?

According to Josh Friedman: "Well, either she truly has feelings for him and she's expressing them, or she's a manipulative, crafty cyborg. She desperately wants to not be destroyed, and she's not going to leave anything in the cupboard. Cameron was not born yesterday, and she knows him pretty well. But I think she may have made an error or two in what she did. My feeling is she may have stepped over the line a little bit—she may have pushed her luck."

Ah, yes, Cameron is the latest version of a timeless combination: Femme fatale and killer robot. OK, maybe not that timeless, but still cool!

Upgrade: Sure, she has the awesome liquid-metal trick Robert Patrick debuted in Terminator 2, but despite what you might think, Shirley Manson is not playing a T-1000. Said Josh, "No, she's a T-1001! We want our own." Duly noted.

Jamie McCarthy/WireImage.com, Carolco Pictures Inc.

Destroyer of Worlds: After last night's T-1001 reveal, it would seem that Los Angeles is positively infested with cybernetic killing machines, but not so. Said Josh: "There are only three. And maybe a couple from last year that are still hanging around. But you know what, if you were a Terminator, why wouldn't you continue to try to find the dude and do what you gotta do?"

One Terminator, however, may not be hunting that messiah kid who causes so much trouble in the future. Shirley Manson's character, Catherine Weaver, is up to something bigger. According to Josh, "I think Catherine has a larger purpose. She doesn't seem to be looking for John." Is her purpose something, like, oh, apocalypse now? "I think Skynet is a very flexible entity."

Hang In There Kid! Last but not least on the Terminator front, the new character played by Leven Rambin, Riley, is 100 percent human and mortal, and she is absolutely, positively not from the future.

I have it on good authority that she's just a pretty girl with a crush on John Connor, and I am therefore concerned that she's going to be an early casualty in the war against Skynet.

(Stupid evil robots ruin everything!)

Did you guys like the season-two premiere of Terminator? Will you be watching the rest of the season? The comments await your critique!

—Additional reporting by Jennifer Godwin