Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles

[Bmeansgood]

I am planning to watch this tonight.  I think the previews look pretty good.  I will just have to let go of my frustration that I won't get to see Linda Hamilton kicking ass while running around in a little white tank top.

[Torgo]

I thought that it was complete crap but that's just me.

I wasn't even planning on watching it but I kept watching it to see how much worse that it was going to get.

The chick playing the female terminator is hot but that's about it. I've seen Sci-Fi channel originals that were better than this.

[Oldskool138]

Is it possible for a show to jump the shark in it first episode?  Terminator did just that by having terminators eat, show emotion, travel in time multiple times and have a show set in 1999 jump to 2007 for no good reason.

And, why would SkyNet send a normal terminator back to 1999 when the T-1000 did a damned good job in T-2 (he just needs to stay away from molten metal.  Hell, if I were Sarah Connor, I'd move to Pittsburgh or to any city with a steel mill or smelting plant.

I'm going to watch tonight to see how bad it's going to be.

[Bmeansgood]

Wow.  I totally disagree.  I rather liked it.  Of course I liked Cavemen too. 

Sure, it has some interesting plot choices, but I am assuming they will be explained in the future. I don't have to understand everything right away. 

[Ash]

I liked it too!
At first, I was expecting somewhat low budget production values , bad storylines and casting choices right from the WB stable of actors.
You know...kind of like Beverly Hills 90210 vs. Terminators.
There was none of that in this show.

It definitely has a high budget and a pretty decent story so far and really does nail the overall feeling of the Terminator movies.



Can't say I agree with the casting choice of the woman who plays Sarah Connor.
She's definitely no Linda Hamilton.

And Summer Glau as the friendly Terminator...Wow! 
That is one fine lookin' woman! 
If I were John Connor, it'd be hard...I mean difficult...to not lust after her every second.
I'd be torn between wanting to bang her and knowing that underneath, she's a cyborg killing machine.

I recorded the second episode earlier and will check it out sometime later tonight.

From what I've seen so far, I give the show 3 out of 4 stars.  

[trekgeezer]

This probably going to be like most tv shows that are made from movies, the continuity is not going to be the same.

Actually the time travel part is explained in the second episode, Sarah Connor died in 2005 so they jumped past her death so hopefully the Terminators wouldn't find them.

I did notice that the Terminator that took out the group of fighters from the future didn't recognize Summer Glau's character and ran from her.  I won't spoil some of the rest of the second episode for those who didn't see it.

It looks like it good be a pretty good show.

The lady playing Sarah is Lena Headley who played Queen Gorgo (Leonidas's wife) in 300.  The kid playing John Connor (Thomas Dekker) played Zach the flying kid on Heroes.

[Oldskool138]

Actually the time travel part is explained in the second episode, Sarah Connor died in 2005 so they jumped past her death so hopefully the Terminators wouldn't find them.

Lame.   

The show is entertaining but doesn't make any sense.  And what's with the fiancee sub-plot?  There's nothing else to watch that's not "reality" TV so, I guess I'll keep watching...against my better judgment.

[Mr_Vindictive]

So far I'm enjoying the show more than I have any new show in a long time.  I'm a huge fan of the original two Terminator films, and this show seems to be in the same vein.  I disliked T3 quite a bit and am enjoying the fact that the TV show quite cleverly skipped it over completely.

I for one never cared for Linda Hamilton.  Sure, she's a good actress and she certainly kicked some ass in the original two films, but IMHO she is uglier than dirt.  At least now, we get Headley who is pretty decent to look at and does a decent job here.  She looks much more feminine, which I believe is part of the story.  She wanted to live a normal life, so she gave up the butch persona for something much more normal.

I also like Summer Glau as the female terminator.  On Firefly, she was great and she brings the same detachment here to this show.  Although I never found her to be very attractive on Firefly or in Serenity, she is really quite beautiful here.  I also like the idea of a small feminine kickass terminator as a counterpart to the huge lumbering juggernauts that have ruled the films since it's inception.

I highly recommend the show.  We've been watching it on our local Fox affiliate which is HD and the show is gorgeous.  Like Ash, I figured it would have an extremely low budget, but it has been pretty classy so far.  Can't wait for next week's episode.

[ulthar]

I for one never cared for Linda Hamilton.  Sure, she's a good actress and she certainly kicked some ass in the original two films, but IMHO she is uglier than dirt.  At least now, we get Headley who is pretty decent to look at and does a decent job here.  She looks much more feminine, which I believe is part of the story.  She wanted to live a normal life, so she gave up the butch persona for something much more normal.

Sarah Connor was anything but 'butch persona' in TERMINATOR; she was the epitome of soft feminism.  So, I'm not sure of the contrast you are painting here, unless it is specifically with the character in T2.

I watched part (ie, half or more) of each night.  I found the show irritating and trying just a bit too hard to capture the mood of the original with the action of the second.  That said, it reminds of the pilot of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" which I disliked extremely upon the first airing, but later became a BIG fan of the show.

I"d be willing to let this one breathe a bit to see how it matures, but at the same time, I'm not holding MY breath.  Just put me in the underwelmed category, and I sure won't go out of my way to watch it in the near future.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Yep, not enough clarification in my original post Ulthar.  I was referring to T2, despite having said the first two films.

[Kester Pelagius]

I agree with most of the comments made so far but was I the ONLY person bothered by the gaping black hole continuity error represented by the severed Terminator head, sans flesh, ending up in the future?

Aside from that, and the fact they should have called this series TERMINATOR: SEXY MYSTERY CYBORG, well and that I felt having the titular character AWOL from their ads was a bit of foreshadowing of things to come, it was otherwise a decent series.   

I wonder how many episodes they managed to get in the can before the writer's strike. Then again IIRC this on the same network that cancelled Firefly so even if they had a hundred naked Summer Glau clones I don't think the series would last long.  Sad.

[Killer Bees]

This show starts in a couple of weeks here and I'm looking forward to it.  From what I've seen Lena Headly as Sarah looks okay.  She's feminine but strong enough to kick arse.

There was much debate in our house about which Terminator Summer Glau would be - good or bad.  Nice to see she's the good one.  And with her ballet background, she'd be pretty flexible to do jumps and all manner of stunts you'd expect from a terminator.

I particularly liked her in Serenity.  Her kick arsery was poetry in motion.

[Bmeansgood]

3 episodes down and I still like the show and am looking forward to the next one. 

[Ash]

I've got a question about the 2nd episode.

Why did Cameron (the female terminator) shoot Enrique?
I wasn't paying full attention while watching it and when I backed that scene up and re-watched it, it still didn't make any sense.

Can someone please explain?
Thanks.  

[trekgeezer]

Enrique's nephew had called him some name in Spanish that meant "informer", which Sarah was calling him on, but  Cameron took the Terminator route to making sure he didn't rat on them.