January 2008

The “Sarah Connor Chronicles?”  Wait, isn’t she, you know, dead?  The new FOX series resurrects (a less masculine) Ms. Connor, and puts her and her boy on the run from Terminators and cops on a weekly basis.  Continuity problems abound, but the cast seems solid enough.  After two episodes I’m not convinced enough to give the series a passing grade, but I will stick around for a few more to see where it’s planning to go.  At least it’s better than Flash Gordon (although that’s not exactly a high standard).  Check out the full review inside the Full Diagnosis.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
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Totally ignoring the events of, the much under-appreciated, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, this new series starts up a few months after the end of Terminator 2: Judgment Day with Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) and her son John (Thomas Dekker) once again facing robotic assassins from the future.  This time along John’s got a new protector in the form of a young hottie Terminator played by Firefly‘s Summer Glau.  Forgetting for a second how this rips the movie continuity to shreds (we’ll get to that in a bit) first let’s examine the show on its own merits.

In terms of look and tone the show comes off a little disappointing compared to the big budget films.  Acting wise Headey makes an interesting choice for Sarah, but so far I haven’t seen anything to make me care whether Dekker’s John lives or dies.  He’s certainly no Nick Stahl or Edward Furlong.  Glau, who seems to have carved out a niche for herself playing odd characters with powers far beyond her nimble frame, seems to fit well into the show and adds some much needed humor to the proceedings.  Sadly, the castings of the other Terminators come off more like Arnold parodies (Aaron Cash) than serious threats.  The writers also seem to have written themselves into a corner with the Federal Agent (Robert T. Johns) on the fugitives’ trail.  If he gets anywhere near the Connors he will realize the truth, and if he stays away he’s not really a player.  This severley limits his involvement, at least for the time being.

In terms of continuity this show makes changes similar to the Highlander franchise in keeping pieces the creators want and ignoring the rest.  The difference here is the Highlander films are mostly forgettable and the television show was, for the most part, certainly of a higher quality.  Here the stakes start off much higher, with all three films being good, each in their own way, and the show having a much larger standard to live up to right out of the gate.

Ben Franklin once stated that the definition of insanity is doing the same action over and over and expecting different results.  Sarah and John know, even if they won’t admit it to themselves, that any action taken against the creators of SkyNet will not stop it from coming into being.  The audience learned this lesson in T3 and I’m not sure we need 6, 12, or more, weeks for the show to come to the same conclusion.  In fact there’s a scene in the pilot where this is brought up and then quickly dismissed, because any serious discussion of SkyNet’s creation and the inability to stop it would seem to end this series before it ever starts.  If SkyNet is never formed there is no war and John Connor never becomes a leader.  If John Connor never becomes a leader then no Terminators are sent back in time to kill him, or his mother.  If no Terminators of sent back to kill Sarah Connor then Kyle Reese is never sent back to protect her.  If Kyle Reese is never sent back in time, John Connor is never born.  If John Connor is never born Sarah Connor has no reason to destroy SkyNet.  (Follow that?)  The complex issue of time travel and consequences can’t simply be ignored just because of a writer’s strike, an abundance of Terminator fans, and an hour of television needing to be filled every week.  Whether you liked or disliked T3 the film did deal with these issues and raised the entire franchise from a simple monster/action adventure to a true sci-fi franchise with rules and consequences.  I’m pretty sure devolving it back into a simple action/adventure story isn’t the best way to go.

The other issue with making the series based in this particular time period before anyone knows about SkyNet is how impossible it is to keep it secret.  In only two episodes the show has created elaborate stunt sequences involving multiple homicides and explosions and left evidence (including the remains of a Terminator and countless witnesses, many of them police officers) which simply can’t be ignored, especially if the trend is going to continue with trying to maximize these events weekly.  If authorities see physical evidence that Sarah isn’t crazy there’s no reason for her to stay on the run and the series would seem to go nowhere, unless there’s some great twist coming.  And what’s up with all the Terminators being old school versions based of the T-100 from the first film?  Are they saving the cooler new versions for sweeps week?  Or is it simply not in the budget?

The show isn’t a total loss, and despite it’s many story issues I think it has the possibility of being an okay action/adventure show.  Time will tell; right now it seems still a bit incomplete and not entirely thought out.  Don’t expect much from it and you’ll probably be okay, but I think those looking for good sci-fi are going to be disappointed.  Still, there’s not much sci-fi that’s even watchable on television right now, so this B-action show might be enough, at least until something better comes along, or we finally get more new episodes of Doctor Who and Torchwood on this side of the Atlantic.