Sarah Connor Chronicles: Pilot

i am beyond hesitant when it comes to becoming attached to new tv shows broadcast by the fox network. i have been burned many times in the recent years by becoming attached to shows that fox cancelled without much notice or without giving the shows much time. examples; drive, fastlane, true calling, dark angel, reunion, vanished, standoff, justice  and the inside. however i continue to give the the benefit of the doubt because this is the station that brought me 24 and prison break. besides its a strike year so there is really no reason not to give a new show a fair shake especially on the side of the networks because its not like there are new episodes of anything else to put on the air.

the sarah connor chronicles (scc) is a terminator spinoff that takes place in years following T2. Most people prefer to forget that T3 was ever made although i thought the movie was pretty entertaining it gave me my fist look at  kristanna loken even though i think the story was below the acting ability of claire danes but i digress. in scc john connor (thomas "i dont want to be gay on heroes" dekker) the eventual hero of mankind is in high school, and on his first day at the new school he is attacked by a terminator who of course is sent back from the future to kill him connor ends up being protected by another terminator named cameron portrayed by summer glau of firefly and serenity fame. the connors john and sarah played by lena headey (300) end up finding out that despite their efforts skynet was still deployed and mankind is still in danger. in the end the connors and cameron go forward to 2007 to stop skynet in the future still trying to save the world.

when this show was announced i wondered why the show was going to focus on sarah as opposed to john. one of the things that the show portrays much better than the movie is that john is scared of his destiny. in the movies we never get a sense that john has fully  grasped or accepted his role in the future revolution, in the tv show he both knows and has accepted his role in the future but doesn't believe that he can accomplish this. there is a point in the episode where he asks his mother to stop skynet to do it herself because he can't he is just a kid and cant do it himself. his mother then realizes that the only way she can protect her son is to do what he cant do himself. 

the show looks good even if just judging by the pilot i think its going to be interesting and i hope fox leaves it on long enough to give it a fair chance.

-tw