Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles S01E01 - Pilot.avi

The story begins in 1999 with Sarah Connor (Heady) and her son John (Dekker), now 15, on the run from the police. A Terminator attacks John's school, and John is supposedly killed by the machine. A nuclear explosion then destroys the school and the Terminator proceeds to strangle Sarah. But it turns out to be a nightmare. Sarah wakes up with her fiancé, Charley Dixon. The date is August 24, 1999 and Sarah and John are living with Charley in West Fork, Nebraska. She tells John that they have to leave once he wakes up.

After she has fled from the house, Charley thinks that she is missing, and reports this to the police. FBI agent James Ellison then tells him that his fiancée is an escaped mental patient who blew up a building and killed the noted computer genius Miles Dyson because she thought he would create a computer system that will destroy the world. Charley gives Agent Ellison Sarah's new alias, Sarah Reese, which is entered into her database file. A new terminator, who has been monitoring the FBI's database, is now informed of her new name, and begins his search.

Sarah and John move to Red Valley, New Mexico, a "hick" town, where John meets a pretty girl named Cameron Philips at school. The Terminator comes to the school masquerading as a substitute teacher. He identifies himself as Cromartie and calls John's name under the pretense of taking attendance; when John answers, Cromartie pulls out a pistol that was hidden within his leg and tries to shoot John, but Cameron takes the bullets for him. John hides near parking space but is found hiding by Cromartie. The Terminator aims his pistol at John. He prepares to shoot him but is run over by Cameron, seconds later. Cameron is revealed to be a reprogrammed Terminator from 2027, sent back in time to protect John. She helps John escape and tells him that Skynet was activated on April 19, 2011, and launched a nuclear apocalypse two days later. John convinces Sarah that he will never be ready to lead an army, and that she has to try again to stop Skynet from being created.

John, Sarah, and Cameron first go to the Dysons' house, in Los Angeles, California, asking about who might have followed Miles' work. Cromartie attacks again, but they escape in the Dysons' car. Cameron takes them to a bank. Cameron pulls out a gun and forces an employee to lock them up inside the vault. Inside, she uncovers a time displacement transporter, which had been surreptitiously built into the vault by an engineer sent back to 1963. Meanwhile, a SWAT team is preparing to raid the bank outside. After Cromartie is supposedly destroyed by an isotope-fueled weapon also built by the engineer, they use the time machine to travel from September 10, 1999 to September 2007. The time machine generates an explosion that destroys the entire bank. Because nothing can come with them, they appear in the middle of a highway naked. They steal clothes and a car from three drunk men. This news gets reported on TV as a college prank, but Charley Dixon sees the report and immediately recognizes Sarah and John.