I don't think there's any plan there, just a structure where the main plot drivers -- Sarah and Cameron -- are female. Sarah and Cameron themselves often discuss things, although never without Sarah's undertone of hostility. They even manage to discuss things which are not directly related to John, or indeed any man, only to the plot and its need to go forward in the 42 minutes allotted to it.
It's kind of refreshing.
Indeed, every major female character (and most of the one-offs) on the show has goals, and pursues those goals with varying degrees of finesse, overtly or covertly. Which is not to say all the major male characters don't have goals, but it warms me that SCC consistently avoids passivity in its women and that so many of its female characters have goals besides survival.
Since you've seen charmax's video, you've got a picture of certain themes SCC explores, but there's a lot more. As radiotelescope commented: Here is a show which is pretending to be about killer robots, gunfights, and a war against the machines. And it pretends just barely long enough to get through the credits, because *every* thread of the story is about parenting, growing, creating new life, constructing your relationships to new life. And how terribly fraught and difficult that can be, for both humans and AIs. (As malfeasanceses commented about SCC: I am loving a portrayal of robots that's actually challenging and ambiguous. Did anyone really doubt that Cylons are people with emotions and the capacity for love? Not for long, anyway.) By the end of S2 the show turns its ostensible paradigm on its head, in a way that I'd hoped for almost from the beginning, but hardly dared to expect. rachelmanija, who just finished watching S1, posted a review for that season (with some major spoilers for S1 after the overall review and white space) here (http://rachelmanija.livejournal.com/720046.html?thread=8089774&style=mine).
I want everyone to watch SCC! Which is not to say that there haven't been times when the show's made me angry or upset at casting or writing choices, in ways the showrunners probably wouldn't want an ideal audience to be. (Some of this is related to how, like almost every show that's supposed to take place in L.A., SCC is still way too white. I think the only TV series I've ever seen that approaches an accurate reflection of L.A.'s ethnic composition is Day Break (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_Break), another outstanding show; DB stars Taye Diggs as an LAPD detective who wakes up framed for murder, stuck in a time loop, and trying to solve both of those big problems throughout the 13-episode run. There are a lot of good actors and complex characters, both women and men... plus the show starts out solid, gets better, and hits AMAZING in the last five episodes. Just wow, in case you ever want to check it out.) I can say that if I counted up the number of times I've had issues with SCC, I would probably only need my own fingers and toes. As I always say, there's no prize for being not-the-most-sexist/racist/transphobic, but SCC is truly extraordinary in so much of what it does—and for any two seasons of almost any other show I can think of, I'd need to round up some friends and take off their socks in order to tick off the number of times I've had a problem with the show's representations of people who belong to disprivileged groups.
Sidenote about SCC fandom: after the first season, I elected not to engage with it, for the most part. This is partly because the show itself succeeds to the extent that I usually felt I didn't really want fanfic the way I do with other shows. However, it's also because SCC fandom is 1) overwhelmingly dominated by one or two (one is non-canon, the other is kind of subtextual, both are hetero) pairings, neither of which I'm all that interested in, and 2) not infrequently preoccupied with Angsty White Guys when for heaven's sake, the show's called The Sarah Connor Chronicles and that's who the show IS generally about.
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branchandroot
long comment on SCC, SCC fandom, and fandom in general, part 2
Date: 2009-04-16 08:47 am (UTC)Since you've seen
I want everyone to watch SCC! Which is not to say that there haven't been times when the show's made me angry or upset at casting or writing choices, in ways the showrunners probably wouldn't want an ideal audience to be. (Some of this is related to how, like almost every show that's supposed to take place in L.A., SCC is still way too white. I think the only TV series I've ever seen that approaches an accurate reflection of L.A.'s ethnic composition is Day Break (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_Break), another outstanding show; DB stars Taye Diggs as an LAPD detective who wakes up framed for murder, stuck in a time loop, and trying to solve both of those big problems throughout the 13-episode run. There are a lot of good actors and complex characters, both women and men... plus the show starts out solid, gets better, and hits AMAZING in the last five episodes. Just wow, in case you ever want to check it out.) I can say that if I counted up the number of times I've had issues with SCC, I would probably only need my own fingers and toes. As I always say, there's no prize for being not-the-most-sexist/racist/transphobic, but SCC is truly extraordinary in so much of what it does—and for any two seasons of almost any other show I can think of, I'd need to round up some friends and take off their socks in order to tick off the number of times I've had a problem with the show's representations of people who belong to disprivileged groups.
Sidenote about SCC fandom: after the first season, I elected not to engage with it, for the most part. This is partly because the show itself succeeds to the extent that I usually felt I didn't really want fanfic the way I do with other shows. However, it's also because SCC fandom is 1) overwhelmingly dominated by one or two (one is non-canon, the other is kind of subtextual, both are hetero) pairings, neither of which I'm all that interested in, and 2) not infrequently preoccupied with Angsty White Guys when for heaven's sake, the show's called The Sarah Connor Chronicles and that's who the show IS generally about.