Today I found myself with a Saturday and totally nothing to do. For the last couple of
weekends I’ve been re-watching my favorite DVDs because the upconverter on my HD-DVD player is so friggin awesome - much better than the ones on standard DVD players. So I sat down, got some snacks, and played my entire "Terminator" collection: the 3 movies plus the 5 episodes of the new TV series "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" which was already on my DVR and in HD.
I laughed at everyones hairdo while watching the first movie made in 1984 - did people really have hair that big back then? The 1991 sequel was a masterpiece, practically the perfect movie in terms of storyboarding, pacing, and script. The third movie made in 2003 (has it really been that long already?) was hated by the fans and is now relegated to "alternate timeline" status (i.e. it never really happened) but had the indie-movie feel what with Nick Stahl and Claire Danes in the lead roles. Lots more introspection. But then introspection was not really what you expected in a story with killer robots from the future.
It was already 5pm when I started "The Sarah Connor Chronicles". I could remember my trepidation while I was waiting for the first episode to premiere of Fox. "How could you make a Terminator show every week" I kept asking myself. Well, it turns out that you do it by focusing on the psychological aspect of the series, with splashes of very good action once every few episodes to keep things authentic.
The TV show is actually quite true to the series, with lots of easter eggs thrown in for the fans. The dynamic between main characters is faithfully maintained. I am a little ambivalent with the Cameron character played by Summer Glau though. I like the fact that she’s playing off the awkwardly learning Terminator in the 2nd movie played by the Governator, but sometimes it is too close to her awkwardly learning human character in the canned TV series "Firefly". Sometimes she is more nutjob character than a character supposedly made of nuts and bolts. But I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt, as no one knows exactly what type of machine her character is so anything is possible. I also like the pseudo-erotic tension between her robot character and the John Connor character played by Thomas Dekker. If you watch the show, you’ll know what I mean.
Because of the writer’s strike, there are only 3 episodes left before the season ends, so I’m already itching for the next season. But so far, it was 10 hours of Saturday well spent.
