TTSCC Characters in Scene Counts thru Season 2

Something that comes up on various forums a lot is how often some characters are appearing on the show. For Terminator – The Sarah Connor Chronicles, there has been a fair amount of debate about whether Cameron is getting short-shrift when it comes to air time. Of course there are also many who complain about a lack of time for John, Sarah, and Derek as well.

In an effort to put some data behind the grousing, I’m setting up a table that addresses what characters are in what scenes. This is not a scientific gathering. Instead of defining a scene as “per shot” as it would appear in a script, I’m being a little more flexible in the interpretation. The through-line has to be continuous in the same set, even if editting broke it up into separate shots. Also, a character is only counted if they actually do something “useful”. This means that someone who is only in the background generally isn’t counted.

The tally includes only the main characters and major recurring characters. This does not directly relate to screen time, but does correlate. (I.e. While the time on during a given scene could be over 5-minutes or just seconds, generally speaking, the more scenes you have the more air time you get.) Note that for 0204, I’ll be counting Summer Glau scenes as Cameron regardless of whether she was playing Cameron or Allison.

Analysis follows the table.

Green cells: Character in 50% or more of the scenes.
Yellow cells: Character in 33% to 50% of the scenes.
Lt. Red cells: Any of Sarah, John, Cameron in 10% of scenes or fewer.
Lt. Gray cells: Sarah, John, or Cameron in fewer scenes than supp. character (not including Derek)
Dk. Gray cells: Active character did not appear.

Episode	T O T A L   S C E N E S	S A R A H	J O H N	C A M E R O N	D E R E K	E L L I S O N	W E A V E R	C R O M A R T I E	J O H N   H E N R Y	C H A R L E Y	S A V A N N A H	J E S S E	R I L E Y
0101 Pilot	62	37	34	30		6		12		4
0102 Gnothi Seauton	59	36	19	29		1		2		2
0103 The Turk	36	15	11	11		6		6		0
0104 Heavy Metal	41	20	19	19		7		3		0
0105 Queen’s Gambit	47	24	17	16	12	5		2		4
0106 Dungeons & Dragons	42	13	8	12	26	0		0		10
0107 Demon Hand	49	19	8	14	9	15		0		0
0108 Vick’s Chip	54	24	21	20	21	0		4		0
0109 What He Beheld	47	19	18	13	15	9		5		6
0201 Samson & Delilah	36	18	16	15	6	3	4	3		8
0202 Automatic For the People	50	27	10	19	13	3	2	0		3			6
0203 Mousetrap	39	13	14	9	12	3	2	12		12			5
0204 Allison From Palmdale	41	8	10	24	0	4	2	0		0	1		0
0205 Goodbye to All That	46	19	18	10	25	4	3	0		0	0		0
0206 The Tower Is Tall…	46	14	14	13	10	3	14	0		0	8	5	0
0207 Brothers of Nablus	44	16	7	15	8	8	5	12		0	0	3	5
0208 Mr. Ferguson Is Ill Today	42	14	18	15	7	11	0	10		0	0	0	12
0209 Complications	44	14	10	9	16	2	1	1		0	0	14	0
0210 Strange…	38	19	7	10	9	10	6		2	0	0	4	5
0211 Self Made Man	42	1	6	24	0	0	0		0	0	0	0	4
0212 Alpine Fields	40	15	0	4	23	0	0		0	0	0	7	0
0213 Earthlings Welcome Here	43	24	6	4	0	3	1		2	0	0	6	12
0214 The Good Wound	40	17	5	4	8	2	6		2	0	0	3	3
0215 Desert Cantos	34	19	12	9	11	2	3		0	0	1	0	0
0216 Some Must…	41	35	13	4	0	0	0		0	0	0	0	0
0217 Ourselves Alone	34	12	13	13	5	0	0		0	0	0	6	11
0218 Today Is the Day, 1	33	6	8	7	5	5	5		4	0	4	12
0219 Today Is the Day, 2	26	5	6	5	3	1	1		2	0	0	15
0220 To the Lighthouse	47	22	17	10	9	5	5		4	8	1
0221 Adam…	61	18	15	14	4	14	10		8		18
0222 Born to Run	52	17	14	14	1	11	13		7		0

Analysis

The fun part of any table of data is making sense of it. I did a little pre-processing with color some cells, but obviously there is much more information to be mined. Let’s see what we can see…

First, let’s take a look at a chart that maps out the total scenes as well as the scenes of our three principles:

The first thing that we notice is that the number of scenes per episode has steadily dropped as the series has gone on until the last 2 or 3 episodes (coincidentally, considered by the writers to be the best episodes of the season). Part of this is because of fewer inserts of recorded info (DVD, VHS, Vick’s Chip). We see a similar drop for the main characters as well, but there is a precipitous drop for John around the time of 0210, and a similar drop for Cameron at 0212. This was about the time that the series delved into Sarah’s private adventure of the mind. John and Cameron rebounded at the end of the season to levels not seen since 0209.

One of the big differences from season 1 to season 2 was the shift from group scenes, i.e. the team in common cause, to many single and pair scenes. You combine this with a decrease in the number of scenes and you end up with a much slower, less heart-pounding, pace to the series. Again, there was a shift back to this sort of formula with the final episodes of season 2.

The second season found the addtion of the characters Jesse, Riley, Weaver, and Savannah to the recurring cast (for all intents and purposes, Cromartie and John Henry take the same cast position). These additions served to siphon scene appearances away from the three main characters.

An interesting exercise in these sorts of charts is to count up the colored squares. Greens and Yellows show appearances in more than 33% of the scenes. Let’s see how our three primary characters did with those:

Season 1:

• Sarah: 8 (89%)
• John: 5 (56%)
• Cameron: 5 (56%)

Season 2:

• Sarah: 14 (64%)
• John: 7 (32%)
• Cameron: 7 (32%)

From season 1 to 2, this would indicate that both John and Cameron are in fewer scenes relative to Sarah.  While all the characters are now in 25% fewer of the overall scenes, a discrepancy appears when you look at the relative numbers as opposed to the absolute figures. If you do, then Sarah’s decrease amounts to a 28% relative drop, while John and Cameron receive a 43% drop. Yikes.

Let’s look at the negative data: the red and dark grays which say that a character was in 10% or fewer of the scenes, if at all (lower numbers are better).

Season 1:

• 0 (0%) for all main characters.

Season 2:

• Sarah: 1 (5%)
• John: 1 (5%)
• Cameron: 4 (18%)

Wow. Cameron took a hit. Then why were the average numbers more like John’s? Mostly because of “Allison From Palmdale” (remember that I counted both Allison and Cameron, otherwise those numbers would have been much lower) and “Self Made Man”. It should also be noted that the hits for Cameron all occurred after “Self Made Man” starting at 0212.

One last look at the colored squares: the main characters who were featured in an episode less than one of the supporting characters (this also includes the reds where this applies):

Season 1:

• Sarah: 0 (0%)
• John: 2 (22%)
• Cameron: 0 (0%)

Season 2:

• Sarah: 3 (15%)
• John: 8 (40%)
• Cameron: 10 (46%)

Once again, John and Cameron take the hits. Though they both have an equal total, Cameron has come out on the bottom end of the stick by a significant margin.

Now let’s take a look at a comparison of the main characters with the recurring characters. This will take two charts to cover which group Derek is counted in:

There are two interesting trends to note. First, it’s that the recurring characters have a slight upward trend in the second season which is combined with a decline of appearances for the main characters. In fact, if we include Derek as a recurring character, then the primary 3 characters are having trouble getting more scenes than the supporting cast. The second big trend is that the overall number of character appearances per episode drops conspicuously around the time of “Complications” 0209 and never recovers. It seems that the conclusion of the Cromartie storyline had a significant effect in character appearances.

What can we make of all of this data? First, it’s very clear that Sarah Connor is the main character. There isn’t even a close second. John and Cameron are about even for the next tier, though John has historically faired ever-so-slightly worse. Both John and Cameron take a slightly bigger hit than Sarah from appearances by the other characters.

Derek has been a tough character to gauge in this series. He isn’t featured as much as the mains, but gets only a little less scene time overall as John and Cameron.(The reason I didn’t include 4 mains is that Derek’s appearances are spotty…but when he does appear, he tends to get used. But, when he isn’t needed, he is simply sacrificed so other characters can have their day; in that sense he takes the hits that don’t quite reach John or Cameron.

When you combine the data with comments that I read on the boards, I’d recommened that the number of scenes per episode not dip below 40, with the ideal being around 43. There need to be more multi-principle scenes. Sarah does well with being in about 42% of the scenes, but more effort needs to be given to have John and Cameron in at least 30% of the scenes (again, more group scenes help this).

Its been interesting to see that the numbers are bearing out what a lot of fans have noticed as trends. Obviously, with many characters meeting their demise at the end of Season 2, some of the ratios are very likely to change in a Season 3.