8PM Monday January 14th on Fox, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles begins. They have been showing clips from the series during the Giants Dolphins game in London. Lena Headey as Sarah looks like a great call. Unlike the deer in the headlights acting of Claire Danes, Headey also in 300seems to be a good leading actress. I’ll be back has never been more true, as I will be watching TTSCC on Monday night’s and also taping Chuck. It’s funny, I only watch The Unit, Chuck and soon TTSCC and both Chuck and Terminator will be on at the same time. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles really should be aired at 10pm.
The pilot was awful, and the one legitimately good scene (a Terminator attacking John at school) has been cut.
I can just imagine the pitch for this show:
Writer:
“Ok, get this: We’re going to take the Terminator franchise, and take everything that is good about it out. BAM! That’s The Sarah Conner Chronicles!!!”
TV Exec:
“SOLD! Welcome to Fox, where we don’t know the meaning of the word ‘quality’!!”
I actually liked the pilot quite a bit. It was well cast (finding someone who could step into Linda Hamilton’s shoes couldn’t have been easy), had good action scenes, and was surprisingly grim and violent for a network show. Pairing it with a hopefully revitalized 24 could make for a fun night.
They cut the Terminator attacking him at school? Sigh… We sure wouldn’t want anyone out there to watch that scene and be inspired to travel to the future, become a robot, come back to the present, implant a gun in your own leg, and use it to shoot up a classroom to prevent your future enemy from growing up. Good call, FOX.
This is why network TV will always be the fluffer to cable’s finishers.
Gonna be weird seeing a Sarah Conner who’s attractive.
Quote:
| Originally Posted by Farsight (finding someone who could step into Linda Hamilton’s shoes couldn’t have been easy) |
Why couldn’t it? She’s neither spectacularly beautiful nor a great actor. Replacing her would actually be the second easiest thing about this. The first would be replacing Ed Furlong, who is a terrible actor.
Let’s face it, nobody watched the Terminator movies for great acting.
The pilot certainly has to be better than Bionic Woman’s…right? If not, I won’t be watching more than one episode of this.
I have a few major issues with the pilot. One, as a Terminator fan, the continuity is a mess. It ignores Terminator 3, which I get, but it doesn’t match up with the timeline of T2 either. Two, the Arnold-wannabe cyborg was awful. And three, it never gives you any indication of what the show will be like on a week-to-week basis.
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There was a Terminator 3?
Linda Hamilton’s best acting work was when she played Sarah Connor. She was a solid performer, very over the top, and pretty without being beautiful. Lena Headey should be a good choice as Sarah Connor 2 though.
Quote:
| Originally Posted by Luca S. But how was River? |
Pretty good, actually – though the Firefly fan in me found it weird hearing her say, “Come with me if you want to live.”
Quote:
| Originally Posted by Chris Kent There was a Terminator 3? |
Yep, and it was good to boot.
That line was used in Terminatior 2. T-2 was released what, 14 years before FireFly? I am looking forward to this new Terminator series. I like the fact music from the films was playing during the clips. I think it will be a good show. It is always good to see more action shows as there are simply not enough of them on TV. Hopefully, the new Knight Rider pilot will be good and it will go to series as well.
Just to clarify.
The Pilot was out? I know there was a few Promo clips, but I assumed the series Premiere would only start in 2008. What happened?
I am a little hopeful for this one. Lena Headley seems great as Sara Connor. I am not too worried about continuity. T3 was a mess anyway.
Frankly, I didn’t think that Terminator 3 was any more of a mess from a continuity standpoint than Terminator 2. After the first one, none of it can possibly make the slightest bit of sense. You either enjoy the ride or you don’t. Personally, I’m not in love with T2 anyway.
Terminator 3 was tons-o-fun in my opinion. A lot of people complained it made Arnold too much of a comic relief character, but let’s not act as if the T-800 hadn’t already been thoroughly castrated in T2. Plus, that ending was bleak as hell.
There are really three main problems with claiming that there’s any kind of continuity in this series:
One: If multiple Terminators and resistance fighters had been sent back, we would have heard about it in the first story. You’d think Reese would want to mention that, in order to prepare Sarah for the future. The only reason not to bring it up would be to be a dick.
Two: If the machines sent multiple Terminators back in time, why in god’s name would they send them to different timelines? It would make much more sense to send them all back to the same point, before John Connor was born, and make absolutely sure that the job gets done right.
Three: Why would the Terminators sent back to successively later time periods be successively more advanced than the one before? They were all sent back at the same time. If the Kristanna Loken Hotbot is the most advanced model available, wouldn’t the machines just send three of those back instead of relying on the clunky old Arnold model?
So, to sum up, there is no real sensible continuity after the first film. Best to just let it go. This TV series isn’t going to muck anything up that wasn’t already supremely mucked up by Cameron himself.
Most of those issues are cleared up when you consider that T3’s future is in a different timeline than the one in the first two films. There, the resistance won. The idea is that John sent back Reese, knowing exactly what would happen, and then sent back the T-800. Why would the machines send two to different time periods? Yep, it’s a plot hole, but I can overlook it.
The T-X has nothing to do with any of it, because she’s from a future where Judgment Day happens later, the resistance hasn’t won, and John Connor is killed.
Please tell me it doesn’t jettison “Terminator 2: 3D - The Battle Across Time” from the series’ canon.
Terminator 3 is better than T2. Just accept it. Two reason it’s superior, no Hamilton, no Eddie Furlong.
I saw the pilot last summer and it was agreeable. Nothing groundbreaking, but fun and breezy and way better than Bionic Woman.