On the other hand, the Terminator stories are about time travel. And that, as readers here know, is a pretty big hand, for me. And I heard some good things about The Chronicles...
So I saw the first two episodes on Fox's On Demand online website last night.
And I thought they were excellent. The pilot, in fact, is one of the best hours of television I've seen in the past few months - meaning, it's right up there with the best of Journeyman and The Wire. And the second episode was powerful and appealing, too.
The story in The Chronicles starts after T2. Sarah, played by Lena Headey (of 300 fame), is living quietly with her fiancé and son John in the midwest. One of the problems with any remake is new acting talent playing a character whose face and mannerisms belong to another. It's still hard to imagine anyone other than Linda Hamilton as Sarah, but Lena Headey's performance is strong and convincing.
The Sarah Connor Chronicles also has lots of nice attention to detail. Sarah's fiancé - Charley Dixon - is played by Dean Winters, who looks a lot like Kyle Reese/Michael Biehn. Makes sense that Sarah would be attracted to the same kind of man.
There are some fine jolts in the plot, which I won't give away in this review, except to say think more Terminator models and, of course, time travel - but done with surprise and panache.
And Lost fans - Penny (Sonya Walger) has a continuing role in the Chronicles! I hope she hasn't given up searching for Desmond, but she's certainly better off without that cold fish she was married to in Tell Me You Love Me.
I'll be watching The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Fox, reviewing them right here on Infinite Regress, and after giving you a chance to see the first two episodes (which play nicely on Fox's web site), I'll start discussing significant plot elements with spoilers in the reviews - that will be later tonight, after I see Episode 3 at 9pm.
It's good to have The Terminator story back on the screen. It always had a unique blend of mostly breathtaking action and a sprinkle of winning humor. The Chronicles has that, too.
In one telling scene, a bad Terminator is about to smash into a bank. He notices lots of police, bristling with weapons, out front. His screen quickly sizes them up, and we see a brief advisory - "no threat".
The police are no threat - that's the kind of thing I like to see in a story...
See also The Sarah Connor Chronicles 3 ... 4: A Robot Primer ... 5 ... 6 ... 7 ... 8-9: Terminate with Puzzles, Surprises, and Soul
The Plot to Save Socrates
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more about The Plot to Save Socrates...
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7 comments:
One interesting update: the Summer Glau Terminator sounds more mechanical than any other to date.
I think the actress is deliberately speaking with the inflection of "Microsoft Mary," or your average high-end speech synthesizer.
She mimics technology that didn't exist for the T1 and T2 movies. Not only that, but we as an audience are newly conditioned to recognize her inflections as artificial.
(found your blog from Twitter)
Good points, Derek.
Glad you found InfiniteRegress.tv on Twitter, and I hope you make this a frequent port of call.
Found your post via Facebook. I agree with your earlier posts that we're in a golden age of television, but I'm not sure the new Terminator series is anything more than a bronze.
The pacing of the second show was very slow. The story inches forward as we spend far too much time with the Latino gangsters and not enough with the odd, but amusing, adolescent pairing with the robot girl and the teenage John Connor.
The re-introduction of the ditched fiancee also seems less than relevant. Shows like Lost and Heroes have dramatically raised the bar on complex, multi-threaded story telling. So far Chronicles is a bit slow, with cyborgs appearing out of nowhere... we'll see if the show can pick up the pace.
Z
Welcome to Infinite Regress, Zachary!
I heard your reading went very well yesterday - congratulations!
I've yet to see the 3rd episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles - I'll do that as soon as I put up a post about the just concluded Democratic debate in South Carolina (which was excellent). But, so far, I'd say that pilot episode of this new series makes it a very promising candidate for the new Golden Age of Television.
I agree that the second episode wasn't outstanding like the pilot. We'll just just have to see how it goes...
PS - I also think the fiancé , especially given his resemblance to Kyle Reese, may have deeper significance...
Hi, Paul!
I agree that the series is worth watching. It has a lot to live up to, what with the outstanding quality of Summer Glau's last series, Firefly. Not to mention Josh Weinstein's blog...
Good point, Josh- great to see you on Infinite Regress!
Take care of that elbow!
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