Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - a First Look

With the premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the Machines are back. But will they (and their Fox television series) succeed?

Let me begin by explaining that I am a huge fan of Terminator and Terminator II, Rise of the Machines, that rare movie sequel that outdoes its predecessor. Terminator III was more of a disappointment, having just enough Terminator flavor to justify the expense of a movie ticket. The Sarah Connor Chronicles seem to take place between Terminator II and Terminator III, at least at first look.

With the introduction of the Sarah Connor Chronicles, we are introduced to John and Sarah Connor in 1999. John meets a strange girl, Cameron, at school who attempts to befriend him. Things rapidly get worse when their substitute teacher, a Terminator, slices his own leg open, removing a pistol, and attempts to murder Connor, who is rescued and taken away by the strange girl.

Meeting up with Sarah, they encounter the Terminator again at the Connor home before fleeing. The strange girl, herself a Terminator of an apparently different design, leads the Connors to a bank vault, where someone else, having been sent from the future human resistance, has apparently left behind weapon parts as well as a working time machine. The trio uses the time machine to travel to 2007, intending to try again to stop the rise of Skynet. This, at least, is where the premiere episode leaves us.

The Good: Lena Headey of 300 fame does a good job portraying Sarah Connor. Summer Glau is acceptable as a teenage-female Terminator model, although we will likely learn more about this as the series progresses. I was pleased to see that Fox had the courage to air the scene in which John is first attacked, with the Terminator posing as a substitute teacher and attempting to shoot John in his science classroom. I would have expected Fox to bow to those who would and will argue that this was inappropriate, given the series of school shootings in the United States, but it was a very Terminator-like thing to do, and I'm glad they used this scene.

Terminator fans will also appreciate the use of the Dyson family, who the Connors turn to for help. Myles Dyson was the scientist who helped create Skynet, as seen in Terminator II, and who died in that film trying to help Sarah change the future. This scene was intentionally reminiscent of Terminator II, right down to Dyson's son and his remote controlled car.

The Bad: So far, the only blood on screen has been that of Terminators, barring one wound suffered by Sarah Connor. Some policemen are shot, but this is during a dream sequence of Sarah's and not very clear. I understand that television is a very different medium than film, but it will be hard to retain Terminator fans and maintain believability if we never see the enemy Terminator casually and emotionlessly murdering to achieve its goals. I mean, it's called a Terminator for a reason.

A second, minor gripe is that we do not see either of the Terminator characters arrive from the future. All of the Terminator films dedicate elaborate scenes to the arrival of the Terminators, and how they obtain clothing; react to the first humans encountered, and how those humans react to them. In the Sarah Connor Chronicles, the Terminators are simply already there, as one says, for seventy-three days. I would have liked to have seen them arrive, and begin their searches for John. A slight nod to this is given when the characters arrive in 2007, and the Cameron terminator beats her way through a carful of rowdy teenagers in order to obtain their clothing for herself and the others.

Travelling through time was depicted as excruciatingly painful for Kyle Reese, the human protagonist of the first Terminator film, but here it is shown as much less complicated and apparently far easier. I also wonder why the show dedicated so much time to the assembly of a future weapon, the parts left in safe deposit boxes, when it is only fired once and promptly left behind when Sarah, John, and Cameron travel through time (as is explained again for the uninitiated, no objects or clothing can travel through time with you.)
All things considered, the Sarah Connor Chronicles seems worth watching, and I trust that much more will be revealed after the premiere episode. I hope the series will not rely on Terminator after newly destroyed Terminator, but stick to the spirit of Machines that are very, very hard to kill and the growth and development of John and Sarah. I expect that some sort of awkward relationship will appear between John and his teenage female Terminator guardian, but I hope the show will not take that predictable and slightly disturbing route. Time, it seems, will tell.