So with Terminator being the franchise
of the moment once again with the release of ‘Terminator: Genisys’,
I decided to go back and visit a part of the lore I had yet to
experience. ‘Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ came to the
screen in 2008 and tells the story of the titular Sarah and her
ongoing attempts to protect her son John, the future saviour of the
human race, from the Terminators sent back to destroy him.
I’m aware that the show had received
mixed feedback and had been cancelled during its second season. I am
also aware that despite being cancelled it had a loyal fan base who
were desperate for it to return to TV. Now the real question is, does
it deserve that loyalty or is it yet another show that survived
purely on the goodwill of a loyal franchise fandom? We shall see!
Pilot
So this pilot has a lot of ground to
cover in establishing things. In less than an hour we have to be
introduced to the main characters and the time travelling, cyborg
battling universe they inhabit.
From the opening shot we begin this
daunting task of expositing the universe to the viewer. Within the
first 5 minutes we are introduced to Sarah, John, the concept of the
Terminators and why they want to kill John. These sequences are
surprisingly well handled but suffer from an issue that plagues the
episode and I suspect the series as a whole, why are things so
different?
Obviously from a TV audience point of
view we understand that a weekly series will not be able to keep up
in terms of budget with its movie counterparts, but this is meant to
be a continuation of those films, so any changes for budget create
issues. Within that opening scene Sarah dreams that a Terminator is
attacking her but the Terminator just looks like a random cheap actor
with sunglasses. Why does she not dream of liquid metal? Why not of
Arnie attacking her? Why have Sarah’s dreams got so cheap from the
big budget affairs they were in ‘Terminator 2: Judgement Day’. It
makes sense from a technical point of view but not a creative one, if
you can’t afford to do something well, think of something else.
The dream spooks Sarah so she decides
that it’s time for her and John to move on once again, leaving her
new fiancé behind to figure out what is happening. He goes to the
police and discovers Sarah Reese is not who he thought she was from
an FBI officer, James Ellison, who is hunting her down for her
involvement with the attack on Cyberdyne. The fiancé is not built up
much in this episode, although he is hinted at appearing later in the
series. James however is established quite well as the dogged FBI man
who is hunting Sarah but also curious about her case. Pilots have the
issue that characters have to be established in broad strokes and
Ellison suffers from this quite badly however. He is the thorough FBI
guy, that is his entire character. Hopefully he will be fleshed out more in future episodes.
The more central characters of John,
Sarah and Cameron (Summer Glau’s nice Terminator) fair better but
still suffer from the desperate need to cram in a lot of story. John
is the moody teenager, Sarah the over protective mum and Cameron the
good terminator, that’s about it. A pilot episode for a TV show
based on the Terminator universe was always going to have issues. I
think that a slower paced double length opening episode would have
given the show and characters some breathing room however. The speed
of the storytelling forces the characters into explaining emotions
and narrating thoughts, these kind of issues are common for many
types of Pilot however and I am aware that they are nearly always
ironed out for the main run of the show.
Despite the script having some issues
the cast do their best with the material. Lena Headey has the
hardest time of it, with the show resting primarily on her shoulders
and with her filling the shoes of a much loved character. She does a
good job but seems unsure at times, unsure in ways that Sarah Connor
should not be.
Thomas Dekker does his best with John
but the script doesn’t give him a lot of wiggle room. John Connor
is not yet the saviour of the human race so he has to be a useless
teenager. He is also undermined in any future cool behaviour by the
fact that he is being guarded by his mom and a tiny teenage girl
robot. In one scene he even begs his mum to save him and the world so
that he doesn’t have to bother. I appreciate that you have to start
John on the ground floor, to allow his character to grow but this
John seems less capable then he was nn 'T2'. The future general who
will save humanity is a step up for anyone, it seems odd to start his
character so far in the minus points for this future role, it’s not
needed.
Glau does a pretty good job as the
protective Terminator but her small stature does raise questions as
to her usefulness. She seems to be a regular, non liquid, Terminator
so her small size would seem to put her at a disadvantage when facing
full size Terminators in combat. I assume that future episodes
may explain her physical appearance in full but for the time being
she seems like the runt of the good Terminator litter.
In terms of the evil Terminators the
episode focusses on Cromartie, who is relentless in his pursuit of
John. Owain Yeoman does a good job of making the Terminator a
credible villain but he is unable to fill the shoes left by the
previous big budget movie assassins. An issue with the Terminators in
this pilot, both good and bad is how emotional they are. At one point
Cromartie pauses his pursuit of John in a school to say “Class
dismissed” to the terrified students. The vision of a unstoppable
killing machine is a bit ruined when he stops to make jokes. Glau is
also written to make strange, almost human remarks but she is hinted
at being more that meets the eye…
Aside from some pacing issues the
opening episode is pretty strong script wise. The scenes with Sarah,
John and Cameron are nicely scripted and we are treated to several
really cool set pieces. The previously mentioned school sequence is
cool and the bank vault sequence at the end of the episode works
really well to re-establish the frantic action tone of the films.
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| "Shame!" |
As the pilot ends
we transfer the characters through time from 1999 to the far off
futuristic land of 2007, where they vow to defeat Skynet once and for
all. Overall this is a pretty strong opening episode but not
necessarily very representative of the final series. The rest of the
show has been set up during this pilot episode so the pacing should
have the opportunity to calm down somewhat. In addition, several
characters, such as the FBI officer and the Fiancé were established
but not fleshed out. This episode did enough to keep my attention and
I intend to keep watching, that being said I am not entirely sure
what it is that I shall be watching. Only one thing is for certain,
it’s hard to predict the future for ‘Terminator: The Sarah Connor
Chronicles’.
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