Sarah Connor Chronicles - January 13, 2008 - Pilot

I was really looking forward to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I'm actually finding this post difficult to write, since I didn't love the episode, but I didn't hate it either. I guess you can say I'm ambivalent about it.

I guess I'll post a SPOILER warning here.

The episode had a tough job to do. It had to set up the series, naturally, and bring folks who don't know what happened in Terminator 2 up to speed. (Thankfully Terminator 3 never has to be mentioned again!) And I thought the set-up went well. But besides the last few minutes, it felt like one long prequel instead of an hour long episodic show.

There were a lot of homages to Terminator 2. The voice over while Sarah was driving and the yellow lines in the road at night. Busting through the walls in the fight. "Come with me if you want to live." Nightmare with the nuclear explosion. The warehouse where Cameron (a nod to James Cameron perhaps?) tended to Sarah. (I do love the T2 line "Hey watch it, lugnuts!" Although it wouldn't have been fitting here.) And Sarah used the alias "Reese" which was John's father's name. (And it was extremely stupid of her to keep using it. Something tells me she's not firing on all thrusters.)

Since the show is called "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" the focus isn't on the Future Leader of Mankind, but his mom. I can't imagine living with all those nightmares. I think it would definitely screw with me, and I'm sure it will with Sarah. Hopefully that will be developed.

And Sarah was worried that John would run away, with all the pressure he's under. But I doubt that. John is all Sarah has in the world, and Sarah is all John has. He can't run away. In T2 when TerminAhnold was going to take John and leave town, John made him go get Sarah out of the mental hospital. "Fuck you. She's a priority to me!" That hasn't changed.

The last few minutes of the show we had the time shift, from 1999 to 2007. This, of course, brings up a lot of time-travel questions. John is now 8 years younger. Does that mess up the War time-line? By being in the future, will he be able to meet his father? Have they made things worse in the future by doing this time-jump?

I'll reserve judgment (pun intended) on this series for a while.