Summary

• The Sarah Connor Chronicles introduced a more advanced Terminator model, Cameron, with social capabilities and emotions fitting for a TV series.
• Cameron's unique abilities, like eating and emotions, made her more relatable and helped sustain the series over multiple episodes.
• The fate of Cameron was left open-ended at the end of the series, with her processor chip taken to the future, leaving her return a possibility.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles introduced many new aspects of Terminator lore, including the arrival of the series' most advanced model yet seen. The show was the Terminator franchise's only attempt at a television series, centering around Sarah Connor as portrayed by Lena Headey in the aftermath of Terminator 2. She was ed by Summer Glau's Cameron, a terminator sent back to protect John Connor. It was the typical Terminator setup, with the twist that Cameron blended in far better than any Terminator audiences had seen before or since.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles was a hugely underrated Terminator installment, which holds up better now than some of the franchise's later films. The show explored a period of the franchise that had never been seen before, while allowing crucial characters to develop. Although the series met an untimely end, largely due to a lack of real promotion and the 2007 writer's strike, 16 years later, Terminator has yet to produce one of the titular robots quite like Cameron. That may change in time, but for now, Glau's Cameron has the distinction of being the franchise's most advanced model.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ Cameron Was A Highly Advanced Terminator

She Was No T-800

Cameron was introduced early in The Sarah Connor Chronicles as a classmate of John's, and from the outset, it's made clear that she's very different from the Terminator models that preceded her. Programmed with a level of social capability beyond other models, Cameron was able to act like an average human teenager with feelings and even the ability to cry. A T-900 model, much like the other Terminators over the years, she was reprogrammed and sent back in time, yet with a far greater range of subtle physical and emotional abilities than her predecessors.

Cameron's skills included a range of behaviors that other Terminators have simply been incapable of. While not as strong as the T-800, she's far more flexible and programmed with several martial arts. Beyond that, it's established that she can eat; something that seems like a glaring oversight in other models, given their intended purpose of infiltrating human resistance cells. This establishes Cameron as a key step in of Terminator advancement.

Why Cameron Was So Much More Advanced Than Previous Terminator Models

The Reason Was Ultimately Practical

The Sarah Connor Chronicles establishes that Cameron was made as advanced as she is to better facilitate infiltration, which is a perfectly good in-world reason that doesn't need much more explanation; though it raises questions about why those features were never implemented before or since. Ultimately, though, the real reason was a more practical one intended to help the longevity of the series.

Giving Cameron the ability to feel made her more human and relatable, and allowed her to develop a chemistry with the rest of the cast – essential in sustaining a series.

In the Terminator films, the Terminator models are often taciturn; emotionless robots that only superficially as humans. This works great for a 2-hour film, but on a TV series running for multiple episodes and ideally for multiple seasons, that sort of thing can get boring quickly. Audiences could begin to tune out, and it would likely get tiring for the actor portraying the character as well. Giving Cameron the ability to feel made her more human and relatable, and allowed her to develop a chemistry with the rest of the cast – essential in sustaining a series.

What Happened To Summer Glau’s Cameron In Terminator’s Lore

It Was Left Open-Ended And Unrecognized

At the end of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the Terminator Cameron is left deactivated while the AI John Henry travels to the future with her processor chip, pursued by John Connor and Catherine Weaver. Audiences never got to see what happened after that, with Cameron's fate left in question. While her body remained in the past, her processor chip was taken with her to the future, which could have meant a return for the character provided the characters that had found their way to the future found a new body for her.

After the series' second season left on a cliffhanger, the franchise moved back to the big screen, and the status of The Sarah Connor Chronicles was left uncertain. Every Terminator film since has ignored the television installment, so it's unlikely audiences will get to see a resolution to the arcs of these characters any time soon. It could be exciting to see a resolution to this version of events and what the future might hold for Cameron, though with the movies returning to less sophisticated models, it's clear that the franchise has little interest in revisiting The Sarah Connor Chronicles' trail-blazing approach.