Recap: Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles
by Derek Gayle ‘11
Staff Writer··································
In 1984, Arnold Schwarzenegger made himself an icon when he personified the role of a time travelling cyborg assassin in the film The Terminator. In 2008, the franchise that made him a star was reborn, albeit in a very different form: a television series.
It’s not at all unheard of to have a television series based on a popular movie and movie franchise. In this case, however, the producers were not simply riding the crest of a recent blockbuster. While the most recent installment of the franchise, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, was in 2003, the series instead picks up after 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, ignoring the events of the third film (which, conveniently, garnered less than positive reception from Terminator fans to begin with).
A quick refresher for anyone unaware of the Terminator franchise: to put it simple, it revolves around a computer program that becomes self aware and, at some point in the future, takes over the world and nearly eliminates humanity. Throughout the course of the original films, cyborgs—cybernetic organisms, living tissue over a robotic endoskeleton—are sent back in time from this dystopian future to present day, with one mission: eliminate the leader of a future human rebellion, John Connor, before he can come to power. Luckily, through the help of some humans from the future who also get their hands on time traversing technology, soldiers and reprogrammed cyborgs aid John and his mother, Sarah, making them aware of the dangers the future holds.
With all the fighting robots and treks across time, it’s easy to see why any sci-fi geek would fall in love with this franchise. But with all the complicated time paradoxes of the original films, would it translate well into a television saga?
After its season finale last week, it’s safe to say that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles definitely delivers. While many television series based on films merely use a concept as the basis and build a separate story, Sarah Connor actually further builds upon the characters and mythology grounded in the original films, not just complimenting them.
Due to the writer’s strike, the season was shortened to only nine episodes, but those few were still packed with enough action, characterization and insane robot fights that it fulfilled any Terminator fan’s desires.
The MacGuffin of the series is SkyNet, the soon-to-be created program that is responsible for the impending apocalypse. The core of the series, however, is a dramatic character story; as Sarah and teenage John, portrayed by 300’s Lena Headey and Heroes’ Thomas Dekker, respectively, struggle to keep their lives together whilst preventing SkyNet’s existence, they reveal major aspects of their characters that were not able to be explored in the original films. These characters have the weight of the world on their shoulders, so it’s obvious that this amount of pressure would reveal many of their flaws.
Accompanying them on their mission is a reprogrammed female Terminator portrayed by Firefly and The 4400 alum Summer Glau, whose allegiance comes into question from time-to-time, a continuing thread in the series. On their trail is FBI agent James Ellison (Richard T. Jones), who has been pursuing Sarah Connor after her numerous attempts at destroying anything that could become SkyNet.
Other characters familiar to the film franchise have also appeared in various forms (portrayed by new actors), as well as new characters with connections to the earlier films. For example, Derek Reese (90210’s Brian Austin Green) arrives halfway through the season, and is revealed to be none other than the brother of Kyle Reese—a major and popular character from the original 1984 Terminator film who did not live to see the sequel. Much like his brother, he was sent back from the future to stop SkyNet’s creation and assist the Connors.
As the season ended, the Connors were continuing their mission to prevent SkyNet’s birth, but were continually thwarted by other Terminators and greedy humans unaware of the future alike, while Agent Ellison had a deadly encounter with another Terminator, and likely became aware of the truth behind the future.
Being only nine episodes into the series, there is still a great deal more to be explored. Hopefully it will be renewed for a full season of episodes in the fall, and if it is, any science fiction fan is recommended to catch it—it’s worth the watch.
Back to Main