Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Tue 19 February 2008
Jacqueline Smith, Journalism
With the official 40 week television ratings period beginning in February, Australian audiences have myriad viewing choices, with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles as one of the new series from the US.
As a Terminator fan I was delighted with the first episode of the television series. I heard rumours about this series back in 2004, so with some trepidation I sat down on Tuesday night to watch this long awaited sci-fi event. Would it live up to the films? Would it live up to my expectations? Happily for this Terminator fan it did. And while Arnold Schwarzenegger was an integral part of the Terminator film franchise the television series doesn’t seem to suffer because of his absence.
The series is rated M with a strong violence warning, so this is no show for children. However adults should not be put off by the rating as the series, while violent, is not overly gory.
The show fast paced, intense, dark and exciting with excellent special effects. It is well cast with a couple of faces Australian audiences may recognise such as Summer Glau (Serenity, Firefly) who plays the “good terminator” and Richard T Jones (Judging Amy) as the FBI agent. Sarah Connor is played by Lena Headey and John Connor is played by Thomas Dekker.
The opening sequence is a powerful and apocalyptic vision of Sarah Connor’s worst nightmare. The dream sequence begins with Sarah desperately trying to save her son John from being arrested by the police, when they are hunted down by a “bad terminator” intent on killing John. To Sarah’s horror she watches as the terminator shoots John then destroys the world in the blinding flash of a nuclear explosion.
The use of similar motifs and imagery in the television series will draw fans in while adding to the layers of story for the non-fan. The show, like Terminator 2 and Terminator 3, begins and ends with a voice-over. The voice-over at the beginning of the first episode sets up the series effectively. Terminator fans will also recognise a well used line from the first two films - ‘Come with me if you want to live’.
Some of the themes and plotlines are similar in both the film franchise and the television series which some viewers may find repetitive. However the inclusion of an enigmatic “good terminator” that can eat and appears to have an agenda beyond that of saving John, the future leader of the resistance, is a fresh idea that will hopefully be explored in future television episodes.
The first episode of the television series is set in 1999 but ends with Sarah, John and Cameron, a “good terminator”, time-travelling to the year 2007 and arriving naked in the middle of a motorway.
In relation to the films, the television series takes up the story where Terminator 2 leaves off. John is in high school and Sarah is working hard to keep them invisible from the police, the FBI and the terminators. They have been in the same place for two years and Sarah feels it is time for them to move on. But when John and Sarah are confronted by two terminators the wild ride begins.
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