The Bocker.com

If you’re an avid TV watcher such as myself then you’re aware of a certain new series on the Fox Network. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - which I will be referring to as The Chronicles - began this past Sunday and Terminator fans everywhere immediately tried to decide whether this new series was worthy of being held in the same stature as the first two movies. Fans were split on the watchability of the show. Most naysayers will tell you that the timeline is all out of wack, which could be a problem considering the show references the earlier movies but ignores Terminator 3 all together.

Many will compare The Chronicles’ lead Lena Headley against movie franchise wonder woman Linda Hamilton. Honestly, I doubt any actress could really live up to the framework that Linda Hamilton laid out in the first two movies. Not only did she portray Sarah Connor as someone with heart and brains but she was, for lack of a better word, extremely badass. Sarah Connor is someone you wouldn’t mind going to battle with. Lena Headley isn’t necessarily a terrible Sarah Connor but she does seem a bit frail in my opinion. As for timeline and Terminator history, I was never one to dwell on that sort of thing. The Chronicles is a seperate enterprise for all intents and purposes and, while they borrow a bit from previous movies, they also are creating a completely new story line. So I decided to look at it just from an entertainment standpoint. Is this series worth an hour a week?

First a problem that comes to mind. I realize that terminators are machines and therefore are all basically the same, but in The Chronicles the Terminator in charge of saving the life of John Connor is a female played by actress Summer Glau. She just seems small in my opinion because Summer Glau is a very skinny actress. So does it make sense that when one of the bigger, male terminators comes a calling Cameron (the female terminator’s name) is able to go toe to toe with the bigger machine. In Terminator 3 a woman was the bad guy and she was also smaller than the Arnold character but she still had some muscle on her and she looked like she could handle herself. Cameron looks like a waif out of some teen drama and I find it hard to believe she could really take on a bigger model terminator. Couldn’t a bigger machine defeat a smaller one?

The first two episodes of the show set it up as a chase show. Meaning that the main characters are always on the run from the law and from the bad guys, all the while trying to save the earth and their reputation. Kind of like The Fugitive. The problem with a show like this is that unless the writers have a story arc or ending in mind, this show can get out of hand pretty quickly. Episodes can begin to feel disjointed and a show can lose steam pretty fast.

I feel the need to get on my stump here and get off topic for just a minute. Recently a lot of shows have come out (Life, Journeyman, Lost, Heroes) where there is a definate goal that the main character is trying to achieve and the story has a defined path. Whether or not the writers know this path is another question. I am here to argue that with shows like these it is best to have a set amount of episodes or seasons in which to tell that story. A show can’t be swayed by networks who smell a hit and try to stretch it for as long as possible. The dramas that come out today need to have a defined storyline.

Stretching a show can work for sitcoms that have episodes separate from one another and need only a premise for a new episode to be written. But in the case of dramas like Journeyman or Heroes that have a specific premise, they need a storyline so that there are no wasted episodes and a show doesn’t sag, like the first half of Season 3 in Lost and the first half of Season 2 in Heroes. These shows should be written like serials or novels, where the ending is known and the writers have a vision on how to get there. Lost recently decided to put a cap on their seasons and I believe this will help it in the long run continue to put out quality entertainment and keep the suspense building until the end. It may be a thought of as strange to keep a show to a set number of seasons, especially when success can carry a show forever, but like I said, certain shows benefit by having this cap. The British version of The Office and Extras were two season shows that reached critical acclaim. They told a story and they got out and they are both the better for it.

Ok, back to the topic at hand. Are The Chronicles worth watching? Well, the action is as good as network TV can supply. Though the terminator battles are pretty pointless considering this is a TV show and Cameron (a main character prominently displayed in ads) is clearly a star of the show. So when she fights other terminators you pretty much know she’s going to win every time. (This is a problem with TV compared to movies. Since the show must continue you know main characters aren’t going to die. It takes the suspense from any fight.) So in the end you’re left with two machines throwing each other into walls or off of buildings and then getting up and walking away. Like I said, pointless. The Chronicles has plenty of explosions and cool special effects to bolster the story telling.

Like I said the plot is simple, save the world and run from trouble, but it could be fun to see how they get there. A few mysteries abound, like “How did Cyberdine begin if the original creator was killed in the second movie?” and “How does the resistance in the future know enough to send people to 2007 to stop Cyberdine but they didn’t know enough to tell Sarah Connor in 1994 that killing the creator wouldn’t stop the machines from rising up in the first place?” There are also some problems with certain characters knowing the future but not everything about the future and the always confusing laws of time travel. If you dwell on these things you won’t enjoy the show at all.

Can I also say that I hope they never have John Connor and Cameron fall in love. In the first two episodes they suggest this may be happen and a human loving a machine just doesn’t make any sense. They do it in Battlestar Galactica but the Cylons are a bit more advanced then a machine wrapped in human skin. I just think it would be a stupid story line. That’s all.

In the end it’s just a fun hour of TV on Monday nights. If the writers can follow my advice and not try and stretch the show out for too long then I think they have something very much worth watching. If they don’t believe me they can look over at the other Fox Network show Prison Break. I believe they are in their fourth or fifth season and the main characters have now broken out of prison three times. I mean how many more prisons are there to break out of? Also, if you know they are going to get out of prison, what’s the point of watching? If The Chronicles can infuse their episodes with some of the humor of the movies then I’m behind them fully. For now, if you’re like me and you have an hour to waste on Monday nights, you could be doing worse things with your time.