Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles; A Review
Last night Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles had its long-awaited debut, and I must say, as a fan of the first two Terminator movies I have mixed feeling about this first episode. I tend to feel that the first two movies are canon and anything beyond them is an irrelevant exploitation of a creative sci-fi concept. I realize for many they are nothing more than flashy action movies, but I feel that they dig rather deeply into the philosophical question, “How do the things we do today affect the reality of tomorrow”. I love the idea of time as a fluid dimension where reality is always changing and there are many different planes of existence. Because the first two movies thoroughly addressed this question and seemed to resolve it nicely, anything beyond is an attempt to capitalize on an already popular idea.
Knowing where I come from on this; on to the show. It was painful to watch the entire first 45 minutes of the show because it was all taken directly out of the movies just under a different set of circumstance. The opening sequence with Sarah dreaming about a Terminator attack and the world being destroyed by a nuclear bomb really established that this was not going to be any different than any other Terminator production. For those of you who have never seen the movies this could be a plus. You will know most of what happened in the first two movies without having to watch them. I feel that is a good thing for the survival of the show, but I think there could have been better ways to achieve that without boring or disappointing the core fan base. Even the delivery of the terminator line “Come with me if you want to live” was forced and truthfully, overused. If it isn’t Arnold saying it, that cheesy line just doesn’t work. And how many more times can we watch a Terminator chase a car, or have its skin ripped off (which magically healed on the protector Terminator)? Never mind that there are far more advanced Terminators out there, why are we back to the metal under skin jobs?
The one thing I was hoping would save the first half of this episode was the inevitable fight sequence between the enemy Terminator and the protector Terminator, Cameron (wink, wink to James Cameron, director of the first 2 movies and writer for all three), but sadly even this failed to deliver. The fight sequence could have been lifted right out of the movies, down to the arms crossed over the chest throw, only instead of hulking Arnold it was a tiny girl performing this action, which didn’t give it anything new. If anything it looked fake. This was especially disappointing because Summer Glau has quite a physical range, and I was waiting for the power she generated in Universal’s “Serenity”. That would have been a perfect way to establish her as a “new” kind of Terminator. I was looking forward to seeing her kick some metal butt. What I got instead was the same old throwing-each-other-through-walls sequence I’ve seen a hundred times before.
I did like the introduction of new characters. A new police officer to chase them (done before, but maybe we will get to know him over the course of the show) and the slighted fiancé could give the story a little more depth. It just seems that they tried so hard to establish this as a continuation of the movies but either adhered too strongly to the original characterizations or abandoned them completely.
Sarah Connor in the movies is a pitiable character, but not because she is weak and emotional, but rather because she has become strong to the point of insanity. She went from a beautiful normal woman in the first movie to a hard and creepy defender of her son in the second. This show has presented Sarah as beautiful and soft without any of her dangerous edge. I don’t believe she would let her guard down that much even if she believed they had changed the future. I don’t believe her as a fighter in this series. I don’t believe her as a former mental patient with nerves of steel. And I don’t like that they died her hair a horrible color brown, which could have been a defense tactic, but then they showed her picture in the asylum with brown hair. Maybe it’s just me, but that was annoying. There was no attempt to connect her to the original Sarah, but all the other aspects of the show are directly out of the movies.
And I don’t believe the Terminators. The show promises to explain the new emotional behavior of the Terminators (I suppose to make them fit in even better with humans) but they are not explaining why a Terminator would hold a gun on their target for any period of time, as if reveling in the experience. Any time wasted is time to lose your target. The dramatic effect is getting in the way of the story. And John is still the whiney little boy (who doesn’t look like a little boy at all) who doesn’t want to be responsible for the future of the entire human race asking mommy to protect and save him. This suggests that in two years John hasn’t grown at all and that will get old really quickly. It certainly did in the second movie, although you manage to forgive him by the end of the movie because he was after all just a kid. We will need to see some major growth from his character throughout the course of this show for the story to be worth watching.
I will say that I did enjoy the last 15 minutes of the show, and if that is any indication of things to come this show may be able to pull itself up and maintain my interest. I thought it was cool that the Terminator protector had been to the bank in 1964 when it was built and had stored things there. I liked the idea of taking Sarah and John into the future to stop SkyNet at its inception. The possibilities for the show are endless when traveling through time. But I’m not sure that won’t get boring after a while too. Shows like LOST and HEROES eventually lose their appeal because they offer too many questions and answers are few, and I think this show has the potential to fall into that trap. It won’t run on nostalgia for very long. There has to be clear movement and character development if this show hopes to last longer than one season. I will certainly give it a valiant effort. I hope it manages to rise above my low expectations.
Comments
I just saw a promo on FOX43 touting "Sarah Connor Chronicles" as the biggest new hit show of 2008.
I'd call it the luckiest show ever. I'm pretty sure it's capitalizing on Heroes not running new episodes right now.
Posted by: The Tony | January 16, 2008 9:02 PM