You thought me finished with The Terminator franchise, well, here's the infamous TV iteration of the series.
The war against the machines begins here, with these following reviews:
Name: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete First & Second Season
Created by Josh Friedman
Original run 2008-2009
Genre Scifi thriller
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (aka T:TSCC) was a Terminator spin-off series produced for the television and aired on FOX.
The show was co-created by 20th Century Fox Television, Warner Bros. Television and C2 Pictures from the previous movies. In the second season C2 Pictures lost the franchise to The Halcyon Company who simply took over the production.
The series was originally meant to tie-in with the 4th movie's release and promote it.
The Sarah Connor Chronicles was developed by Executive Producer Josh Friedman.
It takes place right after the events seen in T2.
The first season picks up not long after Sarah and John Connor destroyed the T-1000, but before the third movie.
t is now 1999. John is now a young man, enrolled in a new school, trying to lead a normal life. Sarah still has some bad dreams about the future. John is still far from being this legendary human resistance leader he's destined to be. But there's a new danger coming, because they settled in these new lives (why wouldn't they stay off in the desert like at the end of T2?!), and leaving a trail in the past they are now easier to pinpoint and locate from the future.
A new machine is sent into the past, a T-888 Terminator Infiltrator code named "Cromartie". Cromartie finds the school and is sent after John to kill him for good.
But another robot made the trip back in time. "Cameron", a T-900 Model TOK715. This new female model Terminator is much more advanced, able to adapt and show some human traits and quirks to fit in better. It is later found out that she was based on an actual person they would end up meeting later on. Cameron is able to infiltrate the school as a student and locate John Connor befoe the "Triple 8" Terminator.
Long story short, they break into a bank, guns ablazing. In the vault, in a safety deposit they find parts of a time machine device Resistance Scientists sent back in the time for just this sort of occasion. They travel from 1999 to 2007, jumping over the events of T3. Why? Because they jump that way over the year Sarah Connor would have died of cancer. And also because it makes the production much easier, not having to care about era the story is supposedly taking place. (cars, phones and whatnot - yet they still were able to show John listening to a song not yet released in the beginning.. oh, well!)
The show actually had some pretty good production values.
You might fear a television take on the Terminator franchise wouldn't be able to pull off the series into the smaller screen, but they managed to retain some great quality by TV standards, not losing much from its original theatrical format. Apart from a few explosions, granted.
The special effects were handled pretty nicely. Though it's a shame we only get to see one Terminator endoskeleton (which looked pretty decent).
Sarah Connor Chronicles was, actually, good TV science-fiction.
After a pretty weak first pilot episode - both in its original director's cut or the TV edited release to avoid the tragedy that happened at a school at the time - the show does find its groove early on. Let's be honest the time traveling, the whole "avoiding T3"/The Judgement Day thing was unnecessary and so contrived.
It's a fun and intelligent series (when it avoids time travel).
Lena Headey (from the movie 300) plays a pretty convincing Sarah Connor. Sarah does seem to regress at first to her end of Terminator 1-state but she finally grows some strength as a mother to a future legendary hero thanks to the fear she has for the future. She's no Linda Hamilton exactly, but she does seem to portray her with the same intensity and is quite decent in the role. John Connor on the other end... To be honest he's probably the weakest link here. Never capturing any of the other iterations of the character, Thomas Dekker tries his own thing. Which is great. The writing's here, but he just seems so scared or angry all the time. Never mind his avoiding his "destiny", he just doesn't match the character in my eyes. Finally you have Summer Glau in the role of Cameron. Summer Glau who isn't new to science fiction series. She's easily the best of the main cast, even if she plays here basically River from the Firefly movie, Serenity. She fills in Arnold's role as the friendly Terminator on the show.
The entire show lies on the backs of our trio of unlikely heroes.
They attempt to stay under the radar in the
Going through time travel in to
The first season was really good. It only last 9 episodes, thanks to the writer's strike. It establishes the role of each character leaving us wanting for more.
But then Season 2 happened.
Perhaps it was due to the Halcyon Company's meddling into a working formula. Or just the writers being carried over. Or the entire shaky promise that couldn't subtain itself for far too long without a precise end goal...
The second season was a full 22 episodes order. The show was then canceled by the end due to pretty poor ratings.
It picks up after resolving a pretty nice little cliffhangers from the first season, but they end up not wrapping any single plotline but introducing more and more side stories one after the other.
There's finally the introduction of the T-888-combined-chess computer The Turk ("John Henri"), a dangerous AI that could either evolve into Skynet... or it's opposite. Kyle Reese's younger brother Derek Reese, another Human Resistance sent into the back along some others. Because Skynet's just sent several more Terminators through time. And James Ellison now knows the future and is both persecuted by it and trying to put a stop to it. And some people are trying to reverse engineer Terminator parts. And more machines. And aliens (?). And.. and... and..
The show just tries a bit too much to rewrite the series' mythology. And keeps on introducing way too many subplots. (where they wishing to fill in 10 Seasons or what?)
There are some interesting bits. Such as Catherine Weaver, CEO of ZeiraCorp, a big name corporation. Aka another T-1000 similar to T2's Robert Patrick. Only she has a daughter! So she needs to fake an entire family life! And Sarah Connor's illness seems slowly catching up to her.
The problem is that the supporting cast never is as important as our trio. Or as interesting at least.
It was a much slower second season.
There are still some redeeming qualities about it. I like the little tributes and nod to creator James Cameron every now and then. (such as Cameron's name!)
The score was composed by Bear McCreary. The Terminator theme is only briefly heard in the opening title. It's a pretty decent soundtrack, much better than Salvation's. Mostly composed of eerie themes, lots of drums and metallic sounds.
Overall, it was... okay for a while.
I personally had some problems with the entire premise of the show. They should have just focused on the characters and their interaction and not take useless detours regarding time travelling to the present. (it didn't bring anything useful for the show, that shows a way out for both the characters and storylines)
By ignoring both T3 and T4, the series tries to distance itself from the overall franchise.. yet it then delves in the likes of Kyle Reese and his brother(?), lots more resistance soldiers and Terminators in the past, an AI, possible cyborg/human hybrids, etc.
Don't misread me, the series started off really good, even despite its useless complicated false start, it then lost its focus (and viewers) throughout its run.
The first season simply repeat the first two films in a way but then season 2 diverge a bit too much for its own good. And you can only imagine a third season would have proceeded to further delve in useless fillers and intoxicate its genuinely good core comprehension of the Terminator series. There were some talks of a young John possibly traveling to the future while some storylines would have proceeded simultaneously in the past...
For me, TSCC is mostly missed opportunities. A show that was decent which I won't be missing in the end.
I give it:
1.5 / 3 UFOs!
I could never get into this. I hated the first ep I saw.
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