American Gladiators Has Found Its Own Terminator

Let's face it, no matter how much we wish it were different, life's not fair. It just isn't and it never will be. I just wish that television reality shows could be more fair. Maybe "even" is a better word for it.

Take a look at last night's American Gladiators. I know that it can't be easy to establish any sort of parity between the contenders. They may all perform spectacularly in whatever tests and trials they are given before being on the show, but that doesn't ensure a close match (not everything, after all, can be as spectacularly even an event as my Giants taking down the "perfect" Patriots this past weekend). Evan was just head and shoulders better than his competition, Anthony, last night. It wasn't remotely close. As much as I may have wanted Anthony to win (and I did), I'm not sure that Evan is beatable. He flies through the Eliminator unlike everyone else in the competition.

Evan doesn't look like anything special, and to have him become a Gladiator next season may be a disappointment as he's in no way as built as the muscle-bound male gladiators (he may most closely resemble Siren on the women's side), but in his two appearances he's been unstoppable. He held a record in the Eliminator after his first round that was head and shoulders better than everyone else. Then, last night, he beat his own record. Short of an injury it seems like he's got this thing wrapped up (but the same was said about the "perfect" Patriots before the Giants gave them what for).

Maybe the best analogy for Evan is that he is to American Gladiators what Summer Glau is to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. You look at Summer Glau and think to yourself, well, she's clearly fit, but that doesn't make her strong. Then she does something that requires ridiculous strength and you realize that she (fine, her character) has a metal endoskeleton and is far more than she appears. I'm not necessarily  suggesting that Evan has a metal endoskeleton, but he is definitely out to terminate everyone that stands the way of his vision of the future.

Obviously Evan's vision of the future is him in Gladiator spandex. What exactly is Summer Glau's character, Cameron, imagining when she sees the future? Last night she visited the warehouse that would become the Terminator factory in which she was built. Perhaps I'm reading a little too much into her computerized gaze, but she seemed almost reverential when discussing it. She went home again last night, though it wasn't yet her home because she wouldn't be built for a number of years still (ah, the paradoxes of time travel). Is it possible that Cameron's model of Terminator has a Data-style emotion chip? Why would Skynet have gone out and pilfered an idea from Star Trek anyway? Surely Skynet would have realized that Data's emotion chip didn't work out so well for the android.

Okay, great, nice digression there, but back to the matter at hand, which I'm going to turn over to you to answer: did Cameron seem reverential to her future home? Does anyone think she may actually have feelings?