Terminator films, The Sarah Connor Chronicles kicks in shortly after the end of Terminator 2 where the cyborgs have failed to kill Sarah and are now coming after John – the hero of the future resistance. John however has plans of his own, and sends a young, teenage looking female cyborg back in time to protect the teenage John Connor.
Enter Firefly ’s Summer Glau, as the ultimate assassin, soulless and devoid of emotion – not a huge stretch from Glau’s Firefly character River. But it’s a character that she embraces and makes her own, adding – dare I say it – a little sex appeal to the mostly male orientated brainless action flicks of the past.
Glau also adds something that Arnold just couldn’t muster up – a little light hearted humour that comes naturally to Summer as she plays a robot trying to learn what it is to be human, whilst constantly getting it wrong and ending up more and more confused by the illogical behaviour of humans. I’m sure there’s a huge chunk of social commentary wrapped up in there somewhere that I’m just not getting!
But on with the story, it seems like there is a whole team of skin covered endoskeletal cyborgs running around unnoticed, each with different missions to make sure that Skynet becomes a reality, whilst Sarah, John and their cyborg sidekick Cameron have their own mission to thwart the building of Skynet and change humanities course for the better.
For a TV programme Sarah Connor lays on selected use of special effects and manages to nail the balance between the visual wow factor, human drama and heart pounding excitement with just enough elements of conspiracy theory to keep even the most jaded TV viewer hooked through the all too short debut season.
Reviewed by: Jonathan Read.Rating: M – Contains Violence.Duration: 368 mins.Genre: Television, Television Action, Television Sci-fi.Actors: Lena Headey, Richard T. Jones, Thomas Dekker, Sonya Walger, Summer Glau, Dean Winters, Garret Dillahunt, Kristina Apgar, Luis Chavez.Distributor: Warners. Release Date: Available now.
I’ve watched the first 3 episodes and already found a nagging plot hole – like, why did Sarah have to masquerade as Cameron’s mum and why does Cameron act so robotlike when – the first time we meet her – she seems to have convinced the school administrators and John that she is a normal human high school student?