Smallscreen Reviews
Review: Does ‘Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ have a future?
By Daniel Nasserian
Jan 15, 2008, 0:26 GMT

Last night Fox premiered the much anticipated ‘Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles’.  As a huge Sci-Fi fan, who couldn’t get enough of the original ‘Terminator’ movies, and a huge television fan, whose Tivo hasn’t recorded anything since the writer’s strike; I was exceedingly excited about this show.

The pilot episode devoted itself to laying out the brickwork for the rest of the series and to refresh memories of what happened in the full-length films. We follow Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) as she protects her son, John Connor (Thomas Dekker), from a robotic assassin that has come from the future to ‘terminate’ him. This show is very easy to get involved with assuming you are familiar with the prior movies (mainly the first and second).

From the very first minute, the show starts off with some tense action scenes that will most likely hook you in and keep you at the edge of your seat. However, after a while the excitement fades away and the constant cat and mouse game that the show has become gets a tad on the redundant side.

One of the problems I had was that it was difficult to find myself attracted to the dramatic aspects of the show because the characters just didn’t draw me in. Don’t get me wrong, I would take Lena Heady over Linda Hamilton any day, but the lackluster performances of the actors didn’t fit the mood that the story was trying to create. This is especially true of the actor who portrayed the Terminator. He didn’t have the same cold and robotic feel that Arnold Schwarzenegger brought to the table in the original movies, which was a definite buzzkill for fans that wanted some nostalgic ‘Terminator’.

Overall, the program was not up to my expectations but I can’t say I didn’t like it either. In a time where newly written shows are limited, it might be just the thing we need for some action entertainment. For those who plan on watching the series, I highly recommend watching at least the first two ‘Terminator’ films, as there is a lot of back-story that is only alluded to and critical characters that are referenced that really can change the dynamic of the show. I look forward to catching the next couple of episodes to see where the story will go and then I think it will be safe to decided whether this series has a future or not. No pun intended. 

You can catch all new episodes Monday nights at 9:00pm on Fox.