Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
 

I watched the first episode last night and actually enjoyed it. They made some parallels to T2, which I liked. I initially watched because Summer Glau was in it, and I was not disappointed.

I'm just worried that it'll become repetitive.

I have it taped but I heard it got poor reviews.

I don't really remember much of the terminator story line, but I watched last night as well (it was after the game and there really isn't alot of other new shows on right now).. I didn't mind it and will tune in again.

It seemed to reference stuff from previous movies too. I haven't read any reviews, but like I said, at least the first episode was good in my opinion. :)

I glanced at the reviews they had quoted over on Aint it Cool News. The reviews seemed pretty mixed, which isn't bad for this type of show.

I liked the first episode quite a bit. Decent action. Decent effects. As for the cast, I find Lena Headey delightful. She's easily the hottest actress ever to play a character named Gorgo. I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for anyone from "Firefly", so Sumemr Glau gets a free pass. Both were good. The kid from "Heroes" who plays John Connor was also solid.

I will definitely keep watching.

We're just ignoring that T3 happened in this show, right? I watched the pilot several months back on some viewing site(legit). The one chick was smoking hot, i thought the show was pretty solid, but continuity will bother me quickly. I'm sure.

The action is set right after T2, so yeah, before anything in T3.

We watched it too and I really liked it but as Mike said in the first post, I'm worried it might become repetitive.

FM

dola, and the wife and I both thought that the Heroes kid makes for a much brighter looking kid than the dude they picked for T3... :)

And that Summer young girl is delightful :)

FM

I thought it was pretty good. They should have showed T2 before it or something though, because both me and my wife were having problems remembering it. I need to go back and watch the movie tonight now, so the episode will come together for me more.

Judgement day was in 2004, according to T3. I just don't know how the hell they can leap to 2007 and maintain any continuity.

T2 was running all weekend on one of thos Encore free movie channels on cable. I watched various bits and pieces of it. It still holds up pretty well after 15+ years or so. In my mind, it was the best film in terms of action sequences and special effects until "The Matrix" came around de-throned it in 1999. I am still waiting for something to top "The Matrix."

I watched it for about 40 minutes before I got bored and turned it off. For some reason, I don't think that the action from two R rated movies is the same on regular TV. When the Terminator was shooting up the cops at the beginning of the show I thought it was too "sanitized".

Despite the fact that I liked "T3" more than most, I don't have a problem with them sort of ignoring it ever happened.

And, in any event, with all this time travelling ability going around, who knows? Maybe John Connor will go back in time at some point and everything will be set up for the T3 continuity thing...

i gotta find the first part of it online. my fuckheaded family booted me off the tv (long story short we only have 1 working right now) right at the beginning of it.

i enjoyed it as well. not sure how it will hold up over the long run, but i don't feel like i wasted my time.

As far as I can tell, this show pretends that T3 never happened. It picks up from T2, to the point of a visit to Dyson's family.

The continuity here puts Judgement Day in 2011. This time, the protector Terminator doesn't know who built Skynet.

I thought it was after the T2 movie. So they visited Dyson's family, destroyed all of the stuff, Dyson died, etc. And that's why Sarah is surprised that Skynet is still around?

I like to do the same thing.


As for watching T2, just wait a few hours and it will be on some channel. (I think Lifetime even shows it)

I actually watched the DVD of T2 right after the show. :D

I bought the "T2 extreme" DVD of the movie over the holiday break and we watched it over the weekend. I highly recommend that version of the movie. It's a sort of extended version with added scenes in there that mostly involve the liquid metal terminator more and some are pretty cool...

FM

Does it include that dream sequence with Reese?

I enjoyed it too. My main problem was that they directly lifted too many scenes from T2. I felt like they somewhat crossed the line between paying homage to one of my favorite movies and simple plagiarism. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it, and will definitely keep watching.

Forgetting T3 is not a bad idea at all. If I could eternal sunshine erase T3 and the Star Wars prequels, that would be fantastic. Oh, and Caddyshack 2 as well.

i watched with my friends. when they were in the vault and John asks "how are we gonna get out of here?" and the female Terminator shows him this machine looking thing, i shouted out "i will never watch this show again if that thing turns out to be a time machine....in a bank". sure enough, 5 seconds later she says its a time machine and that was the end of my minimal interest in this bad show. the only that made it even worse is when they sho up naked in the future and i said "if this was HBO or Showtime we'd be seeing those two chicks naked right now, but no, it's on FOX 5".

horrible show. they got the female Terminator character all wrong. too much emotion for a robot, especially when she first appears in the show. but she's a terrible actress. if they wanted a terrible actress but someone who was hot they could've went with so many other girls, maybe even Mischa Barton. that girl isn't that pretty to make up for her bad acting.

I'd vote Hot for Sarah Connor and the girl terminator.

Highlander 2 is the ultimate Eternal Sunshine needed wipe movie for me.


The only way Terminators should be hot is if their skin is burned off by an exploding fuel truck. You just know they are going to turn this into some type of love story.

Isn't there a T4 coming out in the near future (2009/2010), beginning some time after T3, starring Christian Bale as John Conner?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0438488/

I believe that is correct.

Yes. It's taking place post-apocalypse and will deal with the human vs. Skynet struggle. I am sure whether T3 "happened" or not wont be an issue.

I don't remember T1 much, and haven't seen T3. But I don't think they've ever explored the robots falling in love or anything like that right? The closest thing would be in T2 when they switch Arnold to have both read/write capabilities, and he kind of ends up caring for John.

In the episode, John said something like "you're different, what kind of model are you?" And all she says is "yes, I'm different."

Maybe she was a specially-made model by future John to go back in time and have a baby with John eventually. haha. I also wonder if the 2007 version Sarah and John exist at the same time as these 1999 versions.

Funny thing is that T2 is pretty much directly lifted scene-for-scene from Terminator. The parallels between those movies are impressive, right down to the final showdown inside a factory.


Defintiely the Star Wars prequels and I agree with Mustang on Highlander 2. That still stands as the "worst movie I have ever seen in a theater." God it was awful.

That was my take on that line as well. She's been programed to be a little more "human" than the previous models. Old John Connor probably knew young John Connor could use the confidence boost.

Hell, if I had to send a robot back in time to protect me I'd certainly take the Summer Glau model over the Arnold models. Easier on the eyes and all...

In T2, Judgement Day was going to be in 1997. Sarah, John, T-Ahnold, and Dyson destroyed Cyberdyne, the artifacts from 1984, and the terminators from T2.

In addition to Judgement Day itself, T-Ahnold had related the history up to then, which involved Cyberdyne producing AI and the AI being put in charge of the U.S. armed forces.

For the series, it starts several years later in 1997, and Sarah would presumably already know that none of the "checkpoints" have happened (in fact, the date of Judgement Day might have passed), so I imagine she thought that Judgement Day had been prevented altogether. Hence her surprise at finding out that Skynet still arose, and her query as to where it came from.

I thought the continuity from T2 seems pretty solid aside from some iffy-ness regarding ages... I'm not sure if John is old enough and I don't think Dyson's kids are old enough.

I'm with ya man. I don't know why SkyNet sent an older Terminator model to attack John Connor when they just sent the liquid one. Also, if you can send an unlimited number of Terminators back to the past, why are you going to send one at a time?

If they could travel back in time, why not just go back to the factory in the original terminator and grab the crushed T1 that eventually is used by Miles Dyson to reverse engineer and eventually develop Skynet?

Why not just send one back when Sarah Conner is born and kill her then? I thought Skynet was smart, why is it waiting so long in either of the Connors' lives to kill them?

Yeah, this whole time travel thing should be left to the experts, like Dr. Brown.

Dola, the only thing I was looking forward to was Jesus Christ...I mean John Connor meeting Reese in school and having him say "Your mom is fucking hot!"

This show would be watchable is they found even on good actor. Everyone is fucking brutal and I don't think I can stand it, as much as I like the Terminator series.

I really enjoyed both episodes and am definately going to continue watching.

-Cork

Agreed.

I like the fact that they are tying in things from the first two movies so well, like Enrique and such.

Show's got promise. Though John Connor sneaking into that guy's house was bordering on Kim Bauer levels of stupidity.

Yeah same, it's still got my attention. I like tying into movie stuff as well. John Connor better not continue to be such an idiot. Although in T2, he did "stupid" things to save his mom. Maybe they're trying to play into that.

It seems like the black FBI guy will be on their asses all season.

I don't understand? I think the female terminator is doing well as a robot with some human aspects, and none of the other actors/actresses stick out as being bad to me.

I agree. I thought the acting was fine. Perhaps Lena Headey isn't a good actress, but I can't tell as I am constantly distracted by her hotness.

What is the it about Lena that evryone thinks she is so hot? I am not seeing. Is it a middle aged guy thing or something?

Uh... I don't know. What makes a girl hot? Great body, attractive face, nice, delicate bone structure, great eyes, full lips, wonderful hair, great screen presence... Take your pick. She's hot.

I'm 39 and frankly, unimpressed.

Summer's whole personality and quirks of emotion for a macihne make sense when you tihnk about one line from the first episode:

She gets asked how long/when she got there and says "1963"

She's had time to aquire knowledge of how a female should act and react in public.

yeah its a stretch but I'm buying it for now.

Was NOT a fan of the time machine either, but the first episode is really just a setup for the whole show and they gotta get them into the plotline somehow.

I need to get a DVR, hopefully my idiot brother in law will get his free cable set up soon so I can get the DVR he has upstairs down in my livingroom.

Long story, and I am NOT going to tell it.

I don't think Cameron said that she had been there since 1963, only that the material in the safe deposit boxes had been there since 1963. So far, it's been clearly established that there's a large shadow war going on in the "present day", and she has substantial knowledge of the resources available to the "resistance" side of that shadow war.

That was my understanding as well.

See, despite what RendeR says, he too was so smitten with Lena Headey that he couldn't pay proper attention to details. And he didn't even know it... :)

So apparently they have sent back more people, to do what? If they aren't protecting John, why send back resistance fighters to fight something that hasn't even started? I could see if their mission was to destroy Skynet, but then why wouldn't the Female terminator tell them "Don't worry about Skynet now, John has sent back some resistance fighters to uncover and destroy it already."

And if they can send back all of these people, why the hell not send back a ton of terminators to protect John instead of just one? I guess the more terminators sent back into the past, it creates a better chance of a piece of them being left behind and someone using it to develop Skynet, like a never ending circle or paradox.

A shadow war? :rolleyes:

The original had the nice plotline of a defense computer gone mad. Perfect. Wrecking a perfectly good story with a background shadow war and a resistance and junk is just as egregious as making a sequel (of any type or quality) to Highlander...

Have you watched? There's still all the computers thinking for themselves stuff in it. It's just that both sides in the future are sending back resources to help give advantages to the future... at least that's how I see it.

Protect John and destroy Skynet.


See above.


Because Sarah Connor is the best fighter John has ever known. If someone can take down Skynet, it'll be her (and her hottness ;) ).


Yes. And Terminators are expensive! Sure, Skynet can keep pumping them out, but maybe it's hard to capture one in good enough shape for re-programing and maybe the re-programing is incredibly difficult.


Any show that involves time travel is going to suffer from a lot of "If they can do X, why don't they just do Y?" A lot of things just wont make sense. At some point you have to make your mind and say "Well, yeah, a lot of this doesn't make sense, but it's a TV show, and for the sake of making things interesting something may seem a bit odd. I'll just sit back and enjoy it."

It's sort of like the whole thing with the eagles in LOTR. If Gandalf could summon the eagles whenever he was in a bit of a jam, why not just bring them in early, throw the Fellowship on a few of their backs, fly 'em to Mount Doom, toss the ring in, and be done with it. Probably make for a better plan, but a lot less interesting of a story.

Uh, no.

The plotline of "a defense computer gone mad" is still firmly entrenched.

It's not like changing immortals to aliens from the planet Zeist or something like that....

Correct.

Gotcha, but I still gotta raise the questions just because as I am watching the show, I can't help but think exactly the way you state above: "If they can do X, why don't they just do Y?" I'll have to make a mental note to ease up on the logic when watching a time travel show.

About LOTR, didn't Sauron have dragons? They would've dispatched of the Eagles, wouldn't they? Maybe you are referring to the Philadelphia Eagles? :D
Anyways, now I am going way off topic....

One last question, why is the best fighter tagged with bringing down skynet? Its not even a fully operational (aka death star) yet. It would take a meddling 5 year old to destroy it, not the best fighter. Man, for the leader of man kind in the future, he sure as hell needs a lesson in using his resources more efficiently.

Anyone else find it ironic in these Man vs. Machine movies in the future where we are at war with some sort of AI (Matrix, Terminator, etc), humans are still seen and shown as being heavily reliant on computers, even though that is essentially who they are fighting?

I guess we still need them even though we are waging war against them.

Yeah, but same can be said for machines in Matrix at least. They need us as batteries, but are fighting a war against us.

Not good, without football as a lead in it dropped to a 4.2 rating. I'd be really nervous if the ratings dropped any further (if there was any other shows to take their place)

I agree. I much prefer shows, especially sci-fi and fantasy ones, that remain internally. Once the "rules" of the world are set, I think everything should be within those rules. I try to give creators/writers the benefit of the doubt, but it doesn't always work.

For Time Travel stuff I think it's insanely hard. Just too many loopholes.


Sauron didn't get dragons until after the whole Rivendell thing. Besides, the eagles completely pwned those dragons when they fought. It wasn't even close.

That said, the Philadelphia Eagles might have been a huge asset, especially if we're talking the Reggie White, Randal Cunningham, Buddy Ryan Eagles.


You saw how hard it was to take out that "not even fully operational" Death Star! (It's a trap!!!) Clearly, John learned from Admiral Akbar's mistake and decided to take no chances with his assault on the "not even fully operational skynet."

Yes, but wasn't the point to have one of the hobbits on their back as they flew. I'm sure the dragon could've knocked them off the Eagles back pretty easily.

Maybe since John is in the future, at that point he knows the power of the darkside and thus is planning around it. Maybe its Johns apprentice making all of the decisions?

Speaking of Admiral Akbar, I was a bit disappointed they didn't decide to spawn off a sitcom featuring the Family Akbar.

That's why you have an advance group of eagles fly in first to take care of the dragons, while your passenger eagles slip by and land safely and soundly on Mount Doom.


:eek:


That would have been sweet. At one point in every episode someone in the family would yell "It's a trap!" It'd be as classic as Arnold Drummond's "Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?"

Disappointing, but not at all surprising.

And thats why you anticipate that move and send in the first wave to handle the decoy wave. Then when they think all is clear and they send in the Hobbit riding Eagles (not led by Randal Cunningham), you send in the second wave of dragons.

The dude only had nine dragons... Everyone knows that.

Decoys.....like catapult a bunch of Dragons built out of clay into the sky.

"Good Lord, our intelligence officers were completely wrong, they don't have 9 Dragons, they have 900 of them!!!!"

Clearly, you are not taking this discussion seriously.

I say good day to you, sir.

:D

Surely you can't be serious?

Was it the comment about the Clay? I'll edit it to be Paper mache.

Summer Glau is extremely attractive. That is all.

Frodo, "Run away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Uh... I really hope people were joking about the LotR and the dragons. Don't make me whip out my LotR hat of Geekiness +3 and quote from the good book!

The Heisenberg reference as a member of the Manhattan Project was a pretty big screw-up.

I like where the show is going so far. At least we know what the next few weeks will be doing...

I liked the episode well enough. I think the dialogue is pretty snappy actually. I liked the Sarah-Andy exchanges as well as the FBI guy/Cop girl exchanges. Pretty good stuff.

I am not thrilled with the whole skin regeneration thing, but, oh well...

It's also a bit inconsistent that Cameron all of a sudden has no idea how to "act" as a teenager, where she previously was apparently "undercover" as a teenager for some period of time waiting for John. She seemed very "normal" when she first met John in highschool, nothing like she's acting now. Maybe it was just part of a program or something. It's not horrible, just inconsistent.

I picked up on that as well while watching last nights episode. It's like she has regressed and doesn't know how to act very human.

-Cork

orrrr, she's simply not a good actress

Irrelevant.

But she's hot so all is forgiven :)

[ ] Exciting action
[ ] Great writing
[ ] Awesome special effects
[X] Hot chick
[X] Will watch regularly

Sums up my feelings.

She looked nice in her quick bra-and-panties shot, and wearing that outfit to school.

Of course, the episode I miss:mad:

The robot girl is reminding me of....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukSvjqwJixw

OH NO.

I have no idea how you would come to that conclusion when it's clearly the writing that is the problem with this specific issue. The character (not the actress) is expressing fundamentally less understanding about how to fit in at high school than she did in an episode just 1 week prior.

Summer Glau was good enough througout all of Firefly and is asked to do basically the same thing in this series.. if there is a weak link in this show, it's not going to be her acting.

When they screwed up the T2 to Sarah Conner Chronicles timeline within 10 minutes of the first episode, writing red flags were already up. To me this show is just looking completely unsustainable. I want to like it, I thought Terminator 3 was surprisingly entertaining, but more likely I see myself hitting the eject button on this one any week now.

I just don't see it. Great body Tall and lanky but ok. To me she looks like she is in her 40s.

I think the reason she's supposed to have trouble fitting in is because she's learned how to act in a rural HS, not an urban setting.

What did they screw up? I haven't noticed anything, and I watched T2 around the first episode.

the episodes are online. foxnetworks.com

Is some of the talk about Glau's character changing from week to week related to the first episode vs the 2nd? If that's the case, it's merely the difference between a Pilot and a regular episode. The pilot was good enough to pick up, but they probably broke it down with some of the execs and they decided that she needed to be a little bit more out there. Pilots and regular episodes may be shot months apart. And I think that the pilot was originally 2 hours, but they may have broke it up for showing?


And I really really enjoy this show, despite it's flaws. Which, of course, means that it has no chance to see season two. I think it'll be too expensive for a cable network to pick up as well.

I'd buy that. Show's often take a season to really find their groove and hone the characters. A little discrepancy between the pilot and regular episodes - which are typically shot much later and after some feedback from various sources - isn't much to fret over.

I continue to enjoy the show as well.

I have no idea how it's doing, but I agree a second season is seeming unlikely, which is a shame.

Maybe someone answered this already but in the orginal Terminator movies, why did the machines only send back one machine to get the leader of the resistance? Wouldn't they send like 10 of them to make sure it goes right?

There are multiple machines at the moment. I assume that sending things back in time is difficult to do and there are other limits. Or maybe they do send 10 machines back, but only one makes it and the rest are lost in time and space forever...

Oh, and, what this handsome fella said:

I rally love how they tie it all in with the first two movies! That was the first "oh man!!" moment on TV for me in awhile (revealing who Brian Austin Green is).

Brian Austin Green is in it?

Must watch TV!

Huh, I'd no idea this guy was in so much before. I just kept thinking of him as "that Sean Avery looking guy."

I thought he was running from the scene of a gunshot murder because it reminded him of Scotts death.

Please let him rap.

Obviously you didn't watch next weeks episode previews, he raps, kills a terminator that looks like Nat from the peach pit, and goes to Johns high school and starts protesting that Donna Martin graduates.

maybe if they sent like 10 machiens back in time they'd run the risk of drastically altering the future. perhaps 1 machine - 1 virtually indestrucable machine - was best in order to complete the mission and leave with the future intact. maybe 10 machines would complete the mission, but by some other action then accidentally trigger a different timeline.

if you want to kill an ant, a magnifying glass will do. no need for a grenade. using a grenade will definitely kill the ant, but it might also have other unintended repurcussions.

Well how'd that work out for the machines?

You'd think that say their 2nd attempt would feature more than one machine.