FOX's Sarah Connor Chronicles May Be Back!

Image from source, Nightly.net

I keep finding these tantalizing tidbits that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles will be back for a second season, but nothing--sadly--definitive. I hate to be beholden to Rupert Murdoch, but please, oh great evil one, bring this show back!

[Excerpt]

‘Sarah Connor Chronicles’ May Not Yet Be Terminated

Possibly spilling the beans early to Hollywood Reporter, Fox Entertainment President Keven Reilly admits that the Arnold vehicle actually not featuring Arnold in any way may be headed back to network TV this Fall. Reilly states that it was Fox’s strongest new drama of the season and stands the best chance of returning next year. He even goes as far as to say that the show has already begun on staffing for the upcoming season.

Read more at: Nightly.net

Previously:

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles to Return?
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Hulu
Terminator TV Series Might Be Back!
Terminator 4 is Now Official
Random Thoughts of a Cranky Head Cold Sufferer
Terminator Timeline: My Attempt to Sort it Out
TV Review: Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Fall TV: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles to Return?

Photo from source, TV By the Numbers

As a pop-culture nut, there is usually at least one TV show per season that I fall in love with that ends up "on the bubble." There is always a maddening wait between the final episode, and when word comes down from the networks, with a pick-up or a cancellation.

This year, for me, it was FOX-TV's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I've written about it quite a lot, and even posted a link to a petition to save the show (and here it is again).

While there is still nothing definitive from FOX, the following excerpt indicates that the chances for the show's renewal are very good indeed. But remember, the future is not set. . .there's no fate but what we make! Sign the petition!

[Excerpt]

Fox “On The Bubble”: Terminator:SCC, Many Others

Guaranteed Return

Moment of Truth has been Fox’s bona fide hit this season. Lots more lie detector tests are on the way.

Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles wasn’t a home run, but it was a solid double as Fox’s 6th best show for 18-49s. . .

Read more at: TV By the Numbers

Previously:

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Hulu

Terminator TV Series Might Be Back!

Terminator 4 is Now Official

Random Thoughts of a Cranky Head Cold Sufferer

Terminator Timeline: My Attempt to Sort it Out

TV Review: Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Fall TV: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Hulu

OK, I know I said I was going, but I just had to try this. Several times, I've posted about FOX's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, as it turned out to be "must see TV" for me. They only made 9 episodes for their first season, due to the writers' strike. As of yet, there is no word on a second season. Go here to add your name to a petition for FOX to renew the show.

Anyway, in my last post, I put up a Simpsons clip from the new video service, Hulu. While there, I noticed they had T:TSCC clips and entire videos available there. And. They. Are. Embeddable! If this works, one of the last two episodes of the series will be posted below in its entirety. If you haven't watched the show before, see what you're missing! While this says "Part 1," it is only because FOX aired the last two episodes back to back. This should be an entire episode.

There is an especially creepy scene when John is working at his computer with a Terminator's CPU. Omigod this is so cool. OK, enough geeking out. Enjoy.

Terminator TV Series Might Be Back!

Photo from source, E! Online

Several times I've been burned by the TV networks, most often by FOX for prematurely cancelling a show that I was into. Off the top of my head, VR-5, John Doe, Strange Luck, Firefly, Something is Out There, Twin Peaks, V. . . Yes, some of those shows are moldy-oldies, but they all have a common theme: they are science-fiction and/or off-beat. So unless the show has something that really draws me in (Lost, Enterprise) I ignore the show until I see if it's going to last.

Well, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is one of those shows I simply had to watch. I've already commented on the program a few times (here, here, here and here), but all along my biggest concern was that the show would be cancelled. Especially now that the season has wrapped up, and I'm totally in love with it. The following excerpt is from an article that lifted my spirits a little bit. It's not definitive, but it's good news. Remember, the future is not set! There's no fate but what we make!

Sign a petition to renew the show here: Renew FOX's "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"

[Excerpt]

Terminator: Barring Any Vats of Liquid Metal...It'll Be Bahk

Many of you have been asking about the fate of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, so I'm happy to report that barring any apocalyptic shifts at the Fox network, Terminator is very likely to return in the fall.

Now, the official word from the network is, "No word yet regarding season two. Fox usually announces returning shows in May around upfronts." However, in addition to some scuttlebutt that came our way yesterday saying production is set to resume in mid to late June, star Thomas Dekker told me at last night's American Idol party he was feeling pretty good and is "pretty sure" the new season will happen. . .

Read more at: E! Online

Terminator 4 is Now Official

Photo from source, The Celebrity Truth

I've already expressed my love for the Terminator series, and particularly the new Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles TV show. And while the show hasn't got a green light yet for season 2 (crossing fingers here), the fourth movie in the franchise, Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins is now officially a go. Yay!

Discussion of the continuity of the series has been white hot lately, with the show throwing in many new wrinkles (especially since it ignores Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines). I personally think I've solved that riddle (read my whole theory here). In a nutshell, since time travel has been so prominent, anything can happen, and any inconsistency can be solved. We've seen three movies (soon to be 4, 5 and maybe 6) plus the TV show. But we have no idea how many other "time jumps" have happened that we didn't get to see. That's good enough for me!

[Excerpt]

Date Finally Set For Terminator 4

The release date of the new instalment in the ‘Terminator’ series of movies has been revealed, with the film set to hit cinema’s on May 22, 2009, starring ‘Batman’ lead Christian Bale as John Conner. . .

Read more at: The Celebrity Truth

Random Thoughts of a Cranky Head Cold Sufferer

Coming up with story ideas on weekends takes a bit more work than it does during the week, when news seems to be more plentiful. So on the weekends, I really have to ponder what to write about. Here are a few of the things that have been ping-ponging around in my head, but don't individually have enough "meat" to warrant a full post.

#1 - Overused phrases - I don't want to hear the phrases "on crack" or "on steroids" ever again! Listen to the radio, or cable news, and they will inevitably say at some point, something like "It's not just a storm, it's a storm on steroids!" It's almost as irritating as the much overused "at the end of the day."

#2 - Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles - The season finale (already) is here, on Monday, March 3. I believe it's actually two separate episodes aired together, but I'm jazzed for it. I'm glad they have an ending point for the show, given the writers' strike. But I am nervous, since they've announced a cliffhanger--FOX has a habit of cancelling sci-fi shows before they ever get off the ground. I'm just too invested in this story to have the rug pulled out from under me.


#3 - Sunday Morning Talk Shows - Gaah. I watched Meet the Press and FOX "News" Sunday, and just a smidge of Face the Nation, and I just couldn't put my whole brain into it. MTP had the same lineup of bad Muppets, blathering meaningless predictions, and F"N"S had Karl Rove, who Jim Henson couldn't have made less human. At a time when these shows should be "can't miss," they are growing tedious.

#4 - Signs of the Apocolypse - Yes folks, it may be coming. George W. Bush warned us but we didn't take him seriously (I mean, how could we?). How do I know the end is near? Well, in addition to the above mentioned Karl Rove being a regular contributor on an alleged NEWS channel, ABC's According to Jim has been renewed for an eighth, that's right eighth season!

Terminator Timeline: My Attempt to Sort it Out

Or, "Come With Me if You Want to Live"

I've written before about getting lost in "Wiki holes," where you just lose yourself in Wikipedia (and related links) for hours, reading about the history of things. Over the last few days, I've taken up an interest in The Terminator franchise, particularly because of the current Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles series on FOX.

Many fans of the series take exception with each new episode (and the movies themselves) for inconsistent chronology. Thus is born the "fanwank," which is an effort to make sloppy writing (or unrevealed plot points) "fit" into a consistent timeline. The same thing happens in any series that has been written/produced by many different people. One commonly held belief is that such series should hire a fan to keep track of continuity!

The Terminator franchise throws in a HUGE monkey wrench because of the use of time travel. This causes as many divergent opinions, because different people have different ideas on how potential time travel should operate. Some think time can't be changed, so everything must fit in a consistent, linear fashion. Others think time can be changed, and the future is not set (an actual quote from the series, by the way). Still others think that every time someone moves in time, a new reality is created.

The problem with the "time can't be changed" theory is that it creates paradoxes: Kyle Reese can't be John Connor's father, because if he were, how could Connor send him back in the past to be his father if John Connor wouldn't exist without him? The only solution here is that time is a closed loop, and that Connor always sent him back from the future. Which blows my mind a little.

The third theory, that separate timelines are created, won't fit in my head. Each new time traveler creates his own universe, and the original still exists? Where did the matter come from to create a whole new reality? Dozens, hundreds, millions of "separate realities" are all existing at the same time in different dimensions? How? What exactly created them?

I prefer the "no fate but what we make" method of thought. But with a few tweaks. In order for it to work, the time traveller himself has to be unaffected by any action he takes in the past. Sure, he might wipe out his own existence in the future, but he himself--his current time traveller self--does not wink out of existence. The future--the only future--changes with every action taken by the time traveller. People he interacts with, mates with, kills--everything--would change the future he knows. But he himself does not change, and he still remembers the future he is from. With that in mind (if it makes any sense), here is my Terminator timeline.

The Terminator - Kyle Reese is sent back from his future by John Connor, the leader of the resistance against the machines. He is sent back to protect Sarah Connor, so that she can give birth to John. The machines send back a Terminator to kill her. It kills Kyle instead, but not before Kyle gets Sarah preggers. Sarah destroys the Terminator. But parts are left behind.

CONTINUED (Click Link Below)

Terminator 2: Judgement Day - In a now altered future, a John Connor who has Kyle Reese as a father sends back a reprogrammed Terminator to protect his 10-year-old self (and sends Kyle Reese too? Ah geez, another wrinkle). The machines send back a liquid-metal Terminator (possibly one that never existed in the T1 future) to kill John. The parts from the original T1 Terminator are used by Cyberdyne to propel Skynet's creation faster than would have ordinarily happened. Sarah and the good Terminator destroy the liquid Terminator, all the parts of the T1 Terminator, and the good Terminator himself. No evidence is left, except possibly off-site software backups from Cyberdyne.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines - I hated this movie, from a timeline perspective. We can assume that something survived from Cyberdyne's records, and that Skynet still came into being, but later. We now have (at least) a third future where Terminators are sent back, but it doesn't really matter, because. . .

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - From another version of the future, a reprogrammed female Terminator is sent back to protect John Connor in 1999. A bad Terminator is sent back to kill him. The good Terminator locates a time portal, built over the years by an unknown group of people sent back to 1963. The female Terminator launches Sarah and John into 2007, unwittingly taking part of the bad Terminator with them. In 2007, a group of resistance fighters has also been sent back, along with assorted other bad Terminators with various missions.

Now, in the first two movies, most events in the timeline worked, and don't need to be "fanwanked." In the third movie, continuity was thrown out the window, but it doesn't matter, because it has been retconned out of existence, effectively. Unknown events before T:TSCC caused that future to not take place. Or, unknown events from the series cause T3:ROTM to happen. Either way, I'm ignoring it.

Several events in T:TSCC have differed from what we "know" from T1 and T2. From my perspective, these events do not need to be fanwanked away. This is the current timeline, up to this point. Who knows how many versions of the timeline have happened by now? Just because there were three movies and a series doesn't mean that we, the viewer, are privvy to everything that has happened. After T2:JD, there could have been two, three, a dozen different adventures that altered the timeline to how it appears now. The producers of the show are free do do pretty much whatever they want. And the movie makers can then retcon the series. Time travel is very freeing that way!

Unfortunately, my brain won't let that work, not entirely. After all, any person's conception is determined by which sperm hits the egg. Alter the conception by a day, a minute, a second. . .and you are a different person. So global, or even local events that are changed would fundamentally change the people involved in these adventures. With all the changes made, the John Connor of 2029 would be a vastly different person, or at least have different memories and compatriots each time. So I'll have to find a fanwank for that one. Not to mention that if different future John Connors have sent back different Kyle Reeses, Sarah Connor had a very busy dance card.

No Fate But What We Make

Image from source, BBC America

Having just watched the latest episode of Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles (a terrific show, by the way), this little news item is a little unsettling. And since the Terminator timeline has gotten moved forward with the new series, the years are actually pretty close. How unrealistic is it to think that if machines eventually match human intellect, they just might want the world to themselves? Creepy.

[Excerpt]

Machines 'to match man by 2029'

Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor has predicted.

Humanity is on the brink of advances that will see tiny robots implanted in people's brains to make them more intelligent, said Ray Kurzweil. . .

Read more at: BBC America

TV Review: Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Image from FOX.com

Last night, I missed the first episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (putting Terminator in the title was a good idea, by the way). I found out at work from a co-worker that it had been on. Sure, I'd seen all of the ads of the girl Terminator's torso suspended from cables (direct steal from Star Trek: First Contact). But I'd seen it so often, I didn't pay attention I guess.

Now, far be it for me to be impressed by Rupert Murdoch, but the video-on-demand at FOX.com was outstanding. Very good quality, and no commercials--sweet. Right after watching the online version, I was just in time to catch episode two in hi def on TV. So, on to the review.

Wow. I am impressed. This was everything Terminator 3 should have been but wasn't. And the producers of the show have wisely made the show pick up after T2, and seem to be largely ignoring the third film. In fact, if all three movies and this show are considered cannon, T:TSCC effectively erases part three from the continuity anyway, since they've changed the timeline in the story.

The elements of the first two films are all there (except for Arnold, and you won't miss him), especially the whole vibe of part 2. So far we don't have any shape-shifting Terminators, but that was sort of a 90s CG "ain't it cool" thing anyway. Lena Headey plays Sarah Connor with the same intensity as Linda Hamilton, and you believe her as the character right away. The other actors acquit themselves nicely too. I really have no complaints.

I thought the show was going to be a The Fugitive or The Incredible Hulk style drama, with our heroes on the run from town to town every week. But episode two seems to be setting them up in at least a semi-permanent location. I don't know if they can keep the quality and energy level up from week to week, but if they do, I have another "must see" show to add to the schedule--at least until the writers' strike catches up to them.

I'm sure many Terminator fans (of the nitpicker variety) will find countless things to pick at, from the temporal to merely continuity problems, but I loved it. It was everything I'd hoped the new Bionic Woman would be, but wasn't. BW leaves me mildly entertained, but not eagerly anticipating the next episode. T:TSCC leaves me excited, and counting the days.

Fall TV: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

It has to be nerve-wracking to be a TV executive, responsible for programming decisions that make or break your company. Think of this fall show, The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Pros: A built-in audience, fans of The Terminator, and its sequels; and Internet buzz, building anticipation. Cons: It's probably expensive, The Terminator's glory days are long past; there is no involvement from original stars (no Arnold); it's a serialized drama, which takes audience commitment.

One of the biggest cons from this fan's point of view, is that it further tangles The Terminator continuity. The first film created a paradox, where John Conner sent his own future/past father back in time to protect his mother who would have died otherwise, thus preventing his birth. This headache-inducing time loop is par for the course in time travel stories, and goes with the territory.

Then the second movie (one of my favorite movies ever) played out a story that for the most part stuck to the previous continuity, and pretty much wrapped it up at the end. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines never felt like a good fit to me. It screws with the neat story line wrap-up of the previous film, without really explaining how or why the previous resolution didn't fix things.

It will be interesting to see if they use the standard movie-to-TV adaptation rule: loose continuity. Most of these sorts of series use the "vague history" method of alluding to the original material. It worked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Will it work here?

Despite the cons outweighing the pros, I'll be watching. I think I'll just expect it to be short-lived, sort of a multi-part Terminator 4, so that when it is inevitably cancelled early, I won't be disappointed!