Anticipate Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles with someone else...

<quote>Characters

* Sarah Connor (portrayed by Lena Headey) is a major character in the Terminator series and is seen as a deranged fugitive by the authorities, who do not believe her story about the Terminators.
* John Connor (portrayed by Thomas Dekker) is the son of Sarah Connor and a major character in the Terminator series. He is fifteen years old in the show.
* Cameron Phillips (portrayed by Summer Glau) is a girl who attends school with John. She is an unknown Terminator model, the most human yet,[15] programmed to protect him.
* James Ellison (portrayed by Richard T. Jones) is an FBI agent pursuing Sarah Connor.
* Cromartie (portrayed by Owain Yeoman[17] and Garret Dillahunt[18]) is an unknown Terminator model sent back to kill John in the pilot episode. He is shown to take damage to his biological covering, similar to the Model 101.</quote>

What is it with Garret Dillahunt? He's always playing two characters, or a half a character or some weird shit like that.

'The series, initially titled The Sarah Connor Chronicles, will focus on the character Sarah Connor, who is on the run with her son after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Regarding the character, Middleton says, "She has the weight of the world on her shoulders "'

Weight of the world? She's just averted judgment day!

"the writers and producers are going to avoid the Terminator of the Week plot device"

boooo

"the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines have no bearing on this timeline, but do occur in an alternate timeline"

nooooooooo

"the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines have no bearing on this timeline, but do occur in an alternate timeline"

translation - "That movie sucked, so we're pretending it didn't happen."

Summer Glau is possibly the most typecast person working in entertainment.

In that timeline, the Terminator fought against Robocop.

no mention of T4 here?

i hope this is much more like battlestar than it is like bionic woman or something
for some reason i'm just assuming this is filmed in vancouver tho

wait wikipedia says pilot filmed in new mexico and subsequent eps filmed in burbank back lot
sweet
i hope it is like the a-team then

battlestar and bionic woman were both brought back by the same person!

Why is this on a regular cable channel? Yay! Commercials, a reduction in run time, a great reduction in explosions and no chance of any skin.

that's kinda funny that they're ignoring t3

that movie did kinda suck but it had a good ending.

I really enjoyed T3. The one thing that bogged it down were the lame attempts at humor (the 70's drag queen glasses, the "I am not shitting you" line, "talk to the hand"), but it had great action scenes, and yea...the ending! No happy ending!!!

I coulda sworn this tv show was being planned before T3 was made though, which might explain it

looks like a big pile of suck to me guys!!

Ithink it'll be good. the special effects look sweet from the trailer.

I'm gonna watch tonight.

I just wish this was on a premium cable channel

i saw a version of the pilot episode last summer. i wasn't terribly keen, but it wasn't awful. i'm sure it's been done up since then, so i'll have to give it another go.

I thought T4 with Christian Bale was going to be a continuation of the T3 timeline. Are they really pursuing alternate realities within the franchise? I can kind of understand it with Smallville/Superman Returns, etc..., but I don't think the Terminator series warrants that kind of respect.

I hope it is. I really liked T3, and the ending of T2 was hideous.

OMG WE STOPPED JUDGEMENT DAY OMGOMGOMGOMG

i would totally "run up on" Lena Headey.

the ending of T2 was hideous.

that is totally insane

I really enjoyed T2 no doubt, but the ending was so cheesy.

The thumbs up sign as the T-800 is being lowered into the fire?

The "oh there is no doomsday after all" copout.

The really bad insertion of the Kindergarten Cop line "I need a vacation"...

The way the T-1000 is quite easily defeated despite being impenetrable for 2 hours....

"PEACE AND LOVE FOREVER DUDES"

So, this wasn't great, but it also wasn't horrible.

altho I thought the robot was too human, but I think they're going to explain that soon.

Summer Glau is possibly the most typecast person working in entertainment.

-- HI DERE, Monday, November 26, 2007 6:47 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Link

Ha: apparently even people just walking down the street look at her and think "I'm not sure she's a normal human. I'll bet she could totally flip out and kick lots of people's asses at once with some kind of non-human fighting abilities. I'll bet if she did, though, it'd be for a good reason, like for good guys."

She is the Darryl Hannah of the modern era

Ha!

is this worth watching

On the one hand, it's pretty stupid. But it's like other Fox dramas, in that it does have some addictive qualities.

I.e. Lena Headey.

yo this is almost as boring as Bionic Woman. something really missing from this new wave of network sci-fi shows.

i watched this with sound off in the laundromat and then the pizza place. looked pretty silly! heavy exposition, but it is the 1st ep.

getting them all naked was some rank pandering tho, lol fox

sorry, "spoilers"

less spoiler than "hey, maybe I ought to give this a go"

MORE SPOILERS being transported a only short amount of time into the past (a few months?) is kind of a neat idea, tho.

xp ha

yo this is almost as boring as Bionic Woman. something really missing from this new wave of network sci-fi shows.

-- Alex in Baltimore, Tuesday, January 15, 2008 7:24 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

too bad

less spoiler than "hey, maybe I ought to give this a go"

-- milo z, Tuesday, January 15, 2008 7:29 PM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

ya rly

I am glad that this is getting panned. I was a little disappointed that life hadn't let me watch it.

you scrooge

This was really good, too bad it was only nine episodes or whatever.

The intro states "Skynet sent machines back through time, some to kill him, one to protect him". That ain't right.

thread needs more pix

hmmm

http://nuvein.org/kspr/images/stories/easygallery/resized/88/1195843688_summer%20glau%20terminator%20promo2.jpg

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

http://nuvein.org/kspr/images/stories/easygallery/resized/88/1195843584_Summer%20Glau%20Terminator%20Promo.jpg

I've started catching up on this via Internet and it's not as bad as I thought it would be after a couple episodes. There's some hilarious attempts to work around TV budgets - no showing walking Terminator skeltons, AT ALL COSTS, and a preponderance of knocking Terminators over with cars because explosions and muzzle flashes would cost $$$. But... I kinda like some things about it. The girl Terminator is unbearable, but the whiny, evasive John Conner works a lot better as a teenager (where these characteristics are universal) than as a 20-something in T3 (where these characteristics are kind of unbecoming).

What I really appreciate though is the one new thing it's made me realize about the existing Terminator canon - John Conner is totally irrelevant! Like, the time loop revolves around him, but it's not HIM that saves the world every time, it's SARAH Conner, trying to protect him! Or something! I think it's promising, not sure if the series can really deliver on it though....

Man what a crappy way to end a season. Nothing resolved, loose ends hanging all over the place, whole new cliffhangers introduced.

Well, I think the season was cut short by the writers' strike, no? Last episode was not intended to be the last episode and all that. But I kind of like the result they got, it forced them to stop dragging everything out and have some stuff brought to a head. Agreed that it mostly just introduced new mysteries, but there were at least major plot advancements with the FBI guy (my favorite character) and all that.

In any case, it finally got renewed, so, sweet. It's a really stupid show sometimes but I got into it. The things that really need help are Sarah Connor (she really needs to get beefier and less wussy) and teenage Terminator (she's just plain annoying, mainly because in the first episode she's able to interact normally and ever since it's been this tedious "I do not understand this human 'jealousy'" shit). Kyle Reese's dopey brother (Frank? Milo?) started to finally suck a little less in the episode where he bonds with John, but I'm still unconvinced he really brings much to the table - isn't John already the RARRR HOTHEADED one? Or is it like you need the even more hotheaded guy so somebody can be hotheaded and wrong?

I almost hate to say it, but Lena Headey is just too hot for the role. Not that Linda Hamilton was unattractive, but she managed that balance (with being a tough-ass) much better in T2. I think she will manage it, eventually, but the writers seem to be afraid to really get her hands bloody, since she's the real star and we're supposed to sympathize with her.

I'm glad it's not canceled, and I think the show deserves a real chance, but whoever thought Brian Austin Green was a good casting choice is an idiot. Personally I love teenage Terminator, but I will watch Summer Glau in pretty much anything, and of course the "unfeeling robot learns to become human" is the most well-worn modern sci-fi TV cliche, so I guess I've learned to just be amused by it by now.

Also, they really need to start beefing up John as well, at least as a smart, tactical mind of the future, if not someone who goes around beating random hooligans and terminators up. And oh god, the hacking shit was lame in T2, and they had to bring it back, didn't they?

I love how when late 90's John Connor travels to 2007, he is AMAZED AND BEWILDERED by the world of cell-u-lar phones, and has to be told the details of deleting his internet browsing history....

It's baaaaaaaack.

I didn't know the Beeper King was in this.

Reading that, I can see the SC's arc a little better, but I'm not sure that I care for this kind of storytelling from this show, especially since "character-driven" is usually mangled on shows like this. (The acting tends not to help -- three of the four principals are doing that annoying 24-school of acting where they try to convince us of the importance of the situation and their earnestness through the POWER WHISPER.) Instead, I think TSCC's strengths lie with twisting scifi ideas around, and Cameron walking around in her undies and Cameron and John kissing.

I thought the back-and-forth of the sleep clinic episode was poorly done, since I was positive that dude was dead but the sleep clinic scenario was obviously fake, too. Was the real version of what went down close to that blogger's take, or something else entirely?

"Goodbye, bird. There was a 51% chance I wasn't going to kill you."

i.e. Summer Glau is slaying me. Really good episode, too.

It was sad and funny watching this episode with two people who had never seen an episode... every five minutes I was like "well, yes, she's killed his girlfriend but this guy, who is her boyfriend from the future, doesn't know it... this guy's a terminator, and the woman knows it, but this dude does not..." yeah, this show gave up on getting new viewers long ago. In a way I respect that, though! Hopefully they'll give us a real ending, knowing this show is so obviously doomed.

Forgot to mention Cutty! That makes two Wire alums on the show now.

The two-parter almost made up for some shitty scripting in the prior episodes! I think that they could set up a new entry point soon, by redefining the Connor family relationship with Cameron.

I keep wondering if this is 100% in a different continuity from the new movie. I still assume so, but who knows?

and, continuing thoughts in a second post as I tend to, I think that the title premise is wearing thin and when it becomes the Now and Future John Connor Chronicles it works a little better. The present is kind of eh in that being a high school kid is worthless plot-wise, but when they do the time-loop cyclical action thing, interesting things happen.

Great episode! We're finally seeing the various threads come together with Ellison, Weaver and the Connors. I really like how that ridiculous subplot a little while back with John Henry playing hide and seek and Savannah foreshadowed the intro of this. John picking up the girl, cut to title sequence was great. I wonder if we'll get a real answer to what the counter-Skynet, John Henry's brother, is. Also crazy how we haven't seen any Terminator vs. Connors action since last year, and now it feels like a whole army of combined T-888s and compromised humans (to mirror their team) is after them.

Pretty shocking how they just dropped Derek like that, but the show's probably almost over anyway. I think next week is the season (series) finale. No lie, I'm gonna miss this show.

Yeah, couldn't believe how genuinely good it was, I'm no longer ashamed to say I like this show. Some really great lines, too, loved Savannah telling Shirley Manson she couldn't sing.

Show's biggest weakness, though, remains its characters -- the way they did Derek was definitely shocking in its abruptness, over which I couldn't muster much sadness, because he and just about everyone on the show is kind of disposable.

I wonder if we'll get a real answer to what the counter-Skynet, John Henry's brother, is.

I had a thought about Shirleybot when she was talking about how Savannah's life depended on JH's, and specifically about that liquid Terminator on Jesse's sub -- they're probably not the same (in my mind), but for a moment I got reprogrammed Terminator from Weaver, like JC somehow got another shapeshifter, rehabbed it and sent it back in time to become Weaver.

Also can't believe I didn't twig to the John/John dichotomy till this episode.

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/17-04/ff_terminator_friedman

My theory is that both liquid Terminator from the 2-parter and Mansonbot are both on the same side as the original infiltrating Glaubot - a break-off faction of Skynet that wants to end the war. Glaubot was sent in (after being reprogrammed by said faction) not to kill John Connor, but to foster a co-existing peace between the sides, while Mansonbot is doing the same by creating Skynet with a different set of ethics and beliefs than the original.

Still, it will totally blow my mind if you're right and it turns out Weaver has been working for JC all along.

It does look like Weaver thinks she's on our side, but the fact that she doesn't mind shedding a few hundred gallons of blood in the process suggests she doesn't exactly share our sense of ethics.

Main problem with this show is it's gone on too long with too many subplots, most of which have just been dead ends. John and Sarah seeing the shrink was good, until they offed the shrink. And what was that three dots bullshit about?

Oh yeah, that does kind of punch a hole in the 'working for Connor' theory. Still, Mansonbot is a lot more concerned about actually understanding humanity (vs. just mimicry) than other machines have been.

I actually liked the whole Sarah arc in the middle of the season. They could've managed it a little better, but the general idea that her and John are seriously messed up mentally from all the running they've been doing for years (and well, absolutely certain knowledge of the future apocalypse) would mess them up psychologically, and they'd stop trusting their own sanity is a great concept. They definitely shouldn't have offed the shrink so suddenly, and there were too many dead ends.

Was the reveal that Andy Goode was Derek's best friend in the future given earlier than a couple of episodes ago? That was kind of a surprise to me, but maybe I missed it last season. It's actually a really good idea, much like that one with Toby from The West Wing meeting his younger self.

The three dots thing ties into the faith-based obsession with fate and predetermination in the show - it makes sense on the level of having religious themes to tie Sarah to Ellison. She's always been the Virgin Mary to JC's JC, etc.

I don't think that Shirleybot's willingness to impale necessarily rules out some alliance with JC; Glaubot and Arnold in T2 had to be told not to kill if they could help it, and perhaps future JC forgot to mention it to Shirley. Not that I believe she's actually on the same side, that's sort of my wishful thinking.

Also Ellison is a douche and his whole schtick with John Henry is an object lesson in why the divine command theory of ethics is egregious bullshit imho.

I'm starting to think that just because Ellison missed out on being a father, got obsessed with the Connor case, and then found religion is reversing itself on the current situation -- he's now discovered the truth with the Connor case, is applying his religious/moral view to that and being a father figure to John Henry.

Now, how great of a father figure, I'm not sure. And then you have the fact that he's basically coaching JH in being a father to the kid.

^otm about Ellison. Jones' performance takes it further than it should be.

Good finale tonight - show ended strong. Glad that they had the balls to actually give it a real series ending. Loved that bizarrely sexual scene with John digging into Cameron's body, the show's always been fun with those. You could tell they blew the remainder of their budget to make the last 20 minutes of this filled with action and effects with the T1 homage, and the future coda was shocking and great - loved (human or infiltrator?) Cameron with the dog. Who knows what future that was?

They left some possible red herrings or leads for a third season, if a miraculous renewal comes, mainly in that Miles Dyson's son went ahead and created Skynet in place of his father, I guess this is what Sarah would be doing while John's off in the future trying to find John Henry.

Wow, I think it was way more than simply good! Everything you mentioned -- this show gets great when it indulges its robosexual tendencies -- plus the dialogue really snapped. I also have to say that, while I've always loved Shirley Manson, I know totally dig on her acting on this series, certainly after this episode.

I might have to watch the scene again, but didn't Mansonbot have a little metal tendril rejoin her from the aerial terminator that crashed into the building? It looked like she staged the whole thing to make herself look like the good guy. The Connors still didn't know her company was connected to the factory, so it seemed like a complete setup.

Sending John forward in time would do what, exactly? Create a timeline where there was still a John Connor, but a younger, undertrained one, maybe.

Nevermind, I rewatched and it was her pet eel from the aquarium.

Sending John forward in time would do what, exactly? Create a timeline where there was still a John Connor, but a younger, undertrained one, maybe.

I interpreted the ending as Young John actually being the Future Leader John Connor.

Tremendous conclusion to the show. I'd be happy with things ending here with no third season.

What the anticlimactic shit

Was this not just an exercise in "oh shit too many loose ends, let's distract people with an out of the blue wtf switcheroo xtreem"?

I interpreted the ending as Young John actually being the Future Leader John Connor.

i do like this idea though.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=20811

Brian Austin Green gives a pretty clear explanation of what went down in the finale. I still think the episode works as a series finale, as I assumed John would be stuck in the new future sans John Connor where the resistance still exists without him, but his role or destiny would actually be his choice this time.

Great series closer, but should have been titled "I Attack The Umber Hulk."

Got an email at work about a new project called, I kid you not, Sky Net. It's already proceeding to Phase II.

So I blew most of a week catching up on this via Hulu. Leee kind of sums it up:

This show is the only one on my plate that I consider a guilty pleasure, it's so mediocre but I can't stop watching.

Like, I definitely continued to be entertained and kept coming back, but god there was a lot of annoying crap in this season - three dots, the nth and nth+1 return of Charlie, the baffling dream sequence episode, Shirley Manson's kid, Shirley Manson herself (for the first half or so - I actually warmed up to her gradually), and Jesse, christ, Jesse, what a horrible character. Nails on a chalkboard in all scenes.

I was really fed up with Ellison, though - he was the highlight of the first season but he became really cryptic this time around. He seems to change his priorities from episode to episode without really getting to explain why; once his character moved from "the FBI guy piecing things together" to a guy who now knows stuff and makes decisions, he needed a confidante or something so we could follow what was going on in his head. Especially when he gets all peevish with John Henry but can't be bothered to really impart a lesson, just ordering him around - like that's going to help!

Cromartie/John Henry is an absolute highlight though. I hated how long that plot was kept treading water, but I never didn't enjoy those scenes.

The finale was good but suffered from having to sustain an "everything happens really fast now" pace - wouldn't have minded some opportunity for John to explain WHY he is going to jump into a time portal to god knows when with this T-1000 he just met. Half this show is arguing over completely obvious shit and when you finally hit a really interesting choice, it's all wrapped up.

Hah, I stand by my initial characterization but by the time I saw the finale, it wasn't so guilty anymore, and now, well, it isn't anything anymore.

Yeah, I definitely didn't feel guilty about it by about halfway through the second season. Ah well, to be fair to the network execs, they technically did give it a second chance and the ratings just kept getting worse and worse. For what it's worth I don't feel like I wasted my time like with most shows that get cut down so quickly (under 18 months for this one), but with this and BSG gone how am I going to get my fill of apocalyptically bleak TV now?

I really think it got weighed down by bad scripting/acting and the writers having no idea whether they were writing with Sarah Connor or John in the lead. That episode where Sarah is abducted by the guy she had apparently killed (I might need to rewatch something here) while not really at a dream clinic is still confusing to me, since the whole thing was poorly executed.

Yeah, I get the idea of faking out the audience and so on, but it would work better if the guy in question hadn't been, um, shot dead the week before. He could at least be wheezing and bandaged up or something. Plus the sleep clinic was just a more interesting plot, as opposed to torture porn in a van.

I spent the entire episode thinking about how the guy was most certainly dead so that was the hallucination, and then the ending did very little to convince me otherwise other than just saying "oh yeah, that was real!"

Yeah, exactly.

OTOH, I basically dug the episode where she's got a bullet stuck in her leg, both as a nice followup to her getting shot in the leg, but also more generally building on the idea that this fucked-up life of violence and shooting people all the time is going to have consequences.

The first season was generally better about that, at least in my memory - there was a realer sense of them trying to keep their cover, the cops being one step behind them, etc. Here they're blowing people away every five minutes and apparently once Ellison was off the case nobody cared until the second-to-last episode. There were a few sops to this theme, like the paranoia about Riley, but it disappeared when they show up to kill the guys at the bowling alley, or beat the shit out of that guy with the computer programmer kid.

Purely from a greedy money perspective, why are they canceling this show now right when the movie gives them millions of dollars of free cross-promotional publicity? I find it hard to believe there would be no ratings bump from new episodes airing immediately prior to the movie coming out.

It was doing terribly, still. Sadly it was still getting owned by Ghost Whisperer, Wife Swap and Howie Do It, for god sakes... (For that matter it's amazing that freakin' Flashpoint did over double the numbers of Dollhouse in that slot).

I'm pretty sure renaming the show American Idol: Terminator Edition would have put it over the top.

The movie might give it a bump, but the show might detract from the movie-related flow of merchandise in that it's not the same timeline or story. Movie viewers go to the theater, then come home to watch a show only to find out it's completely unrelated, other than a base set of characters and decide to ditch Terminator interest. Meanwhile, video games and related merchandise that tie directly into the movie are flying off the shelves.

Yeah, I dunno...what's the history of stuff like that? My imagination is it gets like a season's pass riding the wave of the bigger phenomenon, but never really contributing to said wave - so once the last waves of Last Crusade interest die out, so does Young Indy Chronicles.

Seems like the most logical place for this:

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/comment/7/2010/10/b31653cba4b4561046c2af4a541317cc/original.gif

Hahaha

awesome

It's the tattoo shirt that did it.

^_^

Just started watching this series to prep for the new movie coming out.The Sarah Connor Chronicles are so...feely. I usually don't mind feelings in my TV dramas, but when it's based off an action movie series it is a bit weird to say the least. Hesitant Sarah Connor afraid to knock on her son's door, asking him if he's ok at least once an episode, completely relying on him and the terminator for all things tech, she serves no purpose in the show at all to me. Anyone else find that weird?

I, for one, would be up for a Showtime run of "Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Return"

This is way better than I thought it would ever be. Manages to explore parts of the continuity I had always hoped to see but didn't really fit a "movie".

Since I'm very late to the game, LOLing at some of the people who are in this who were big deals once.

Lol at Brian Austin Green as Derek Reese but he's good!

Wtf I watched this once? Maybe just the pilot
---------
So, this wasn't great, but it also wasn't horrible.

altho I thought the robot was too human, but I think they're going to explain that soon.

― Bo Jackson Overdrive, Monday, January 14, 2008 7:24 PM bookmarkflaglink

this is the perfect length show to binge when I'm helping madre recover. only 30 something ish eps

BAG was already on the downslope of his career when he was on this, right?

Oh totally!