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2007-2008 Season Post-Mortem Part 9: "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" |
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Friday, 06 June 2008 |
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By John Keegan
Visit Critical Myth for an archive of John's TV Review archives, with more than 1100 entries.
| This season, I’ll be summing up this unusual 2007-2008 season with a post-mortem on the majority of the shows I’ve reviewed during the year, ranking from the very worst to the very best. In some cases, the term “post-mortem” is all too applicable. This is Part 9 of this 11-step journey, focusing on the first season of “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”.
A number of new genre shows struggled out of the gate and eventually paid the price with cancellation. The writers’ strike only seemed to exacerbate the effects of an initial critical blow: “Bionic Woman”, “Moonlight”, and “Journeyman” were all immediately fighting a negative impression and subsequent internal challenges to fix them. Two other new shows (“Pushing Daisies” and “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”) began with highly praised pilots and managed to maintain a similar level of excellence, letting the promise of the strong start to gloss over first season jitters.
Developing a series based on the “Terminator” franchise, particularly one that ignores one film almost completely, was a calculated gamble. Replacing Linda Hamilton was going to be unpopular, pulling off the technical whiz-bang on a television budget was going to be impractical, and satisfying franchise fans bitter after “Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines” was going to be nearly impossible.
So, of course, they managed to pull it off anyway.
Setting the series in an alternate version of the “Terminator” mythology was an immediate step in the right direction. This left the first two films as canonical background, but opened the door for certain storytelling restrictions to change. History was once again mutable, and apparent contradictions could be dismissed as the “new timeline” was explored. It was the kind of situation that seems obvious in retrospect, but is quite clever.
Lena Headey does not play the Sarah Connor that we all remember from the films; this is a slightly softer version, more vulnerable but equally paranoid. That adjustment is one learning curve that eventually disappears as Headey gradually makes the role her own. And this is hardly surprising; even in the short first season, we’ve now seen more of Headey as Sarah Connor than we saw of Hamilton.
Even so, with that challenge covered, others emerged. The pilot introduced John Connor as a bit of a reckless rebel, consistently in need of guidance and a healthy dose of common sense. John is about as far from the heroic leader of legend as a person could be, and that was often hard to reconcile. Knowing that it was a logical continuation from “Terminator 2” and that it was therefore reflective of the beginning of a long process did not necessarily reduce the annoyance.
In terms of casting, Summer Glau is brilliant as Cameron, the hot young female terminator with an apparent mission to protect John Connor. She manages to switch between well-simulated humanity and robotic chill without missing a beat. Glau is a huge draw for the young male segment of the audience, which mitigates the fact that the character has been inconsistently written, especially in the beginning. In some cases, the writers could add more subtlety to her cover personality.
Had this trio been the sole focus, the show would likely have struggled creatively. The writers, however, had a master plan that included the introduction of Derek Reese. Played with a surprisingly deft touch by Brian Austin Greene, Derek is the brother of Kyle Reese, John’s father from the future. More than that, he knows Cameron (or at least her model) and the two of them have a strong combative chemistry. The addition of Derek to the cast was a masterstroke.
Also noteworthy is the character of Agent Ellison, a federal agent on a quest to uncover the truth about Sarah Connor and the threat she has been fighting. Ellison has an arc of his own in the first season, and it works as an important counterpoint to the Connors and their exploits. The first season finale seemed to indicate that the future has plans for Ellison, so it should be fun watching his character continue to grow.
Perhaps thanks to the writers’ strike, which allowed “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” to hit the small screen with little or no competition, the ratings were more than enough to garner a second season. With a Critical Myth average rating of 7.8, it certainly earned that reward. The challenge will be holding its own against stronger competition in the fall and living up to the high standards already set. |
