Television Review - Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Review

FOX, Mondays 8 PM EST Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

In 1984, Director James Cameron (Aliens, Titanic) gave us a vision of the end of the world in which a computer program created to protect a nation achieved consciousness and sought the extermination of all men. The vast majority of our species were wiped out in one strike, with small pockets surviving and eventually fighting back against the computer overlord, Skynet, under the leadership of John Connor. On the verge of the human victory, it was found that Skynet had sent a cyborg, called a “Terminator”, back through time to kill Connor’s mother, Sarah, before John’s birth, ostensibly wiping out its nemesis before he ever existed. Thus began the saga of The Terminator, which has lasted through nearly two-and-a-half decades, with three films and another on the way. And a teleseries now in its second season.

The first season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles picked up after T2, the first sequel film, showing us John (played by Thomas Dekker) as a teen on the run with his mother Sarah (Lena Headey) as Skynet—which should have been destroyed after the events of T2—sends yet another Terminator (Garrett Dillahunt), who takes the form of an actor named Cromarty, to ensure its victory. Besides the new cyborg enemy, the pair are also being pursued by FBI Agent James Ellison (Richard T. Jones) for crimes they committed while trying to save humanity from itself. We are also introduced to Cameron (Summer Glau), the beautiful “Teen Terminator”, reprogrammed by John in the future to help him and his mother in the past—that’s what she says anyway—and Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green), a soldier from the future sent back on a tangent mission who is rescued from jail by Sarah and John, and who turns out to be John’s uncle—which is absolutely as lame as it sounds although the character gives both us and young John a better view of the human side of what they’re fighting for. There’s also Charley Dixon (Dean Winters), a lover Sarah leaves at the beginning of the pilot after she becomes aware the Skynet is still lurking. During the pilot, Sarah, John and Cameron are slung ten years into the future and the rest of the season is basically consumed with their hunt for a computer chess playing program called The Turk, which they think is the precursor to Skynet. In the last scene of the first season, Cameron is in a car that explodes outside the house our fugitives are staying in…

After last season’s “cliffhanger”—c’mon now, did anyone watching really think Cameron would be destroyed by a car bomb?—the story, called "Samson and Delilah", picks up with the quick dispatch of last season’s Big Bad and the revelation that Cameron was damaged in the explosion. Her original programming has reasserted itself and the rest of the episode’s main story has her stalking John, which is actually much better than it sounds. Finally, of course, Cameron is trapped and reprogrammed, with John’s loyalty to what he considers a friend shown to be a dangerous trait. Also, we meet our new recurring villainess, Catherine Weaver (Shirley Manson), CEO of Zeira Corp, and, as we find out by the end of the episode, a minion of Skynet. Meanwhile, Charley—who we found out last season is now married and an EMH—and Ellison deal with the aftermath of a failed FBI attempt to take down Cromarty. All in all, a solid way to start the new season.

The second episode, "Automatic for the People", finds John sent to school by his mother in a futile attempt to give him a slice of normalcy, while Sarah, Cameron and Derek find a new place for them all to live. They rent a house from Kacy Corbin (Busy Phillips), a very pregnant young lady whom John steal’s cable for later—but don’t tell anyone—and settle down for a little normalcy of their own. Before the soldier from the future bursts in and tells them they have to stop someone from doing something at a nuclear power plant. This was simply not a very good episode, dumb in all the wrong places, it’s only redeeming quality the introduction of Riley (Leven Rambin), a girl John meets at school and falls into instant like with, and Kacy. The mystery of Catherine Weaver spreads out a little but doesn’t really deepen. Also, Agent Ellison and Charley explain matters to Charley’s wife, Michelle (Sonya Walger), and the couple decides to leave, as Cromarty has been to their home before looking for leads to Sarah.

Next up, we have "The Mousetrap", an interesting episode in which Cromarty decides to take a more direct approach. He kidnaps Michelle and takes her to a shack in the desert, carefully leaving her just enough leeway to signal Charley, who has already called Sarah and Derek. Sarah sends John and Cameron off on an errand to get them out of the way. I don’t want to say a lot about this episode. You can see it on-line at Fox.com. I admit I wasn’t thrilled with the ending but otherwise a very good episode which got us back on track after "Automatic".

And now we reach the crowning glory of the season thus far. "Allison from Palmdale" shows Cameron separated from John when a memory glitch causes her to begin remembering another time, another life. She forgets who she is and remembers who she thinks she was, the girl she was modeled after. She also leaves us all with the thought that Skynet isn’t the only enemy John has. The side story with Sarah taking Kacy to the hospital was well-done, and the Ellison-Weaver storyline shows promise for the future. Again, I hate saying too much because the story was so good and leads to so much they could do later.

Now, if you don’t want to see any spoilers at all, stop reading after this sentence: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is a watered down version of the first two films which has made its own niche in the mythology through (mostly) intense, tight stories centering on the innate humanity of all its characters, even Cameron; I enjoy it and hope others will as well.

Spoilers/speculation: "Allison in Palmdale" opened up whole new vistas in The Terminator storyline. It appears there’s another faction in the computer ranks, a faction which seems to want an end to the hostilities between man and machine. They seem to want to allow humans to survive; perhaps they see that as moral in some way, since we created them in the first place, or maybe they simply fear the tyranny of Skynet more than us and see peace as their best option. As for Catherine Weaver, the one thing I would like to see here is an embodiment of Skynet itself as the villain. This was what I hoped for when she was introed and AiP has only ramped up that hope. I know it could be argued that all the Terminators have been Skynet since they’re all programmed by it but Weaver seems different somehow, not like she’s faking emotion so much as experiencing it. Perhaps she is here searching not for John but Cameron. I could write for days on this. Can’t wait for the next one.

-Sam Christopher

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