Two years have passed since the destruction of Cyberdyne Systems headquarters and the apparent halting of the nuclear holocaust known as Judgment Day, and Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) and her fifteen-year-old son John (Thomas Dekker) are still on the run. Sarah’s paranoia has yet to abate, and rightly so, as an FBI agent named James Ellison (Richard T. Jones) is pursuing her for her role in the destruction of Cyberdyne and death of Miles Dyson.

Shortly after he and his mother have settled down in a new town, John meets a fellow high school student named Cameron (Summer Glau), and is pleasantly surprised when she takes an interest in him. Shortly thereafter a model T-888 Terminator dubbed Cromartie (Owain Yeoman) tries to assassinate John, but Cameron, who is also a Terminator, saves him. In an attempt to give them a fighting chance, Cameron, who says that the destruction of Cyberdyne merely delayed the rise of the machines by eleven years, jumps John and Sarah forward in time to 2007.

As John, Sarah, and Cameron hunt for the men who have created the computer program that will eventually evolve into Skynet, a reconstituted Cromartie (now played by Garret Dillahunt), who is now posing as an FBI agent, attempts to complete his mission.

CRITIQUE

I watched the first episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles when it originally aired and came away with a take-it-or-leave-it feeling. The pilot had an equal measure of points high and low, and while I ultimately decided to give the series at least one more chance to win me over, circumstances prevented me from watching the second episode. I decided after that not to even bother trying to keep up with the show, correctly assuming it would eventually hit DVD.

In the meantime friends of mine who were keeping up with it assured me that it indeed did get better as it went along, really hitting its stride somewhere around the halfway point of the season (which, thanks to the Writers’ Guild strike, only lasted nine episodes). They were right. The first episode is lumpy, the next two are largely worthless, but minor improvements appear shortly thereafter, and then the show really begins to find its focus and purpose, with the final three episodes building to a fantastic climax. (The finale’s use of Johnny Cash’s apocalyptic “The Man Comes Around” as musical accompaniment to a botched FBI raid is genius, as is the way the raid is shot to accommodate the constraints of a television budget.)

In addition to the writing and structure problems in the earlier episodes, one big hurdle the show faces is getting us to accept a new actor in the role of Sarah Connor. After what she pulled off in T2, it’s nearly impossible to think of anyone other than Linda Hamilton playing Sarah. Heady is very good (and sports a totally credible accent), but it nonetheless takes a few episodes to warm up to her, just as it takes some time to accept the show’s take on Sarah.

This Sarah is noticeably softer than the Sarah of T2, but once I realized that having her son back would naturally have rubbed some of the edge off her, it seemed a natural evolution of the character. I found it easier to accept Dekker as John, primarily because I’d rather see anyone but Edward Furlong (who at last report was still trying to coax liberated lobsters to walk a thousand miles back to their natural habitat) play the character, but also because he makes a good fit for the still evolving John.

The cast members serving as new additions to the story also acquit themselves nicely. The standoffish quality Glau possesses suits Cameron (get it?) quite well. Jones is very good as Ellison (get it?), and the arc his character begins to take here, if brought to fruition, could serve as one of the series’ highlights. And while it’s strange to see Dillahunt outside of a western, it’s still always good to see Dillahunt, who deftly nails the casually violent side of Cromartie. (In addition to the namedrops given the man who brought the Terminator to life and the man who sued because he rightly believed someone had borrowed some of his ideas, there’s also a minor character named Billy Wisher.)       

I never expected to find myself writing these words, but the upswing in the quality of the show coincides with the addition of Brian Austin Green to the cast. My apologies to all of you David Silver fans out there, but I used to squirm my way through an episode of 90210 back whenever someone who will remain nameless used to force me to watch an episode back when it first premiered. I actually had no idea he was part of the show until I saw his name in the credits, for which I’m thankful, as I’m afraid knowing ahead of time that he would be popping up would likely have negatively colored my expectations.

But damn if Green--playing Derek Reese, the older brother of Kyle--doesn’t put in some pretty good work. I also think his character is one of the show’s strongest assets, expanding the already established world of the franchise in a smart way. (I almost used the phrase “deepening the mythos” in that last sentence, but I realized I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror if I had.) Not only does the character--who has also been sent back in time by an older John Connor--provide opportunities for glimpses at the future war (I can never get enough of that), his methods in attempting to prevent the creation of Skynet provide a nice contrast to those of Sarah.

If you’re wondering how the events of the show tie in with the plot of Terminator 3, here’s the short answer: they don’t. The events of that movie (a movie I happen to enjoy a lot more than most people; I think it’s a damned fine action flick and I also like the way it gleefully thumbs its nose and people who treat T2 as some sort of religion) are ignored here, with the producers treating it as a sort of alternate timeline take on things. The Cameron flicks are the only canon here. (There’s an event mentioned in Rise of the Machines that is bypassed by the time jump here, and this may actually serve to create a fork in the timeline, which should appease the more obstinate of the continuity-obsessed fanboys.)

THE VIDEO

The 1.78:1/1080p transfers included here easily trump the standard-def Fox broadcasts (I sampled a few of the recent repeats for the sake of comparison and found them to be unnecessarily bright), although I can’t comment on how they compare to the high-def airings. Taking into account that this is television and not cinema we’re talking about, the image looks very good.

Colors (which look just a bit cooked on occasion) hold up quite well, and the level of detail in close-ups is generally impressive. Blacks aren’t quite as strong as they should be, and darker scenes often suffer from a slight lack depth and detail. Grain morphs into noise in a handful of shots, and one scene in the pilot episode literally crawls with noise.

THE AUDIO

Audio is only available in the form of English Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks. Much like the video, the audio is good for what it is, but you certainly won’t mistake it for a cinematic blockbuster mix. The sound design is largely front-heavy, with the rears only occasionally utilized to reinforce the action (there are a couple of good Hunter-Killer flybys during the future sequences).

Dialogue, which remains firmly anchored to the screen, sounds good throughout. My only real beef with the mix is the low end, which is annoyingly, wildly inconsistent. Gunshots and explosions don’t have any real heft, but bass in the music (which nicely approximates Brad Fiedel’s classic scores for the first two movies) can really boom at times. English, French, and Spanish subtitles are included.

THE EXTRAS

Three commentary tracks are included. The pilot episode features commentary from Summer Glau, executive producer/writer Josh Friedman, executive producer James Middleton, and director David Nutter. Episode three, “The Turk,” features commentary from Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker, Friedman, and executive producer/writer John Wirth. “What He Beheld,” the season finale, features commentary from Glau, Brian Austin Green, Friedman, and writer Ian Goldberg.

Despite the large number of participants for each, and despite the fact the participants were all in the room together, there’s not much to these commentaries. There’s a lot of dead air, and anyone who does actually speak fumbles for something to say. Could be they’re all neophytes to the commentary business, so maybe the tracks on future releases will offer an improvement.

(Quick aside: You may recognize Friedman’s name from his screenwriting work on Spielberg’s version of War of the Worlds and Brian De Palma’s adaptation of The Black Dahlia. Don’t hold the final results of those two movies against him.)

Creating the Chronicles (40 minutes total) is a three-part look at the show’s origins and production. Re-boot covers the translation of the story to the small screen. Future War takes a look at the Derek Reese-centric episode. The Demon Hand looks at the numerous ways Friedman and his team build upon and pay homage to the first two movies in the franchise. Interviews with most of the primary cast and crew are included. (Hearing Headey speak with her native accent takes some getting used to, and Dekker’s appearance makes me wonder if he’s trying out for the lead in a Billy Corgan biopic.)

There’s also an Extended Producer’s Cut of “The Demon Hand,” the seventh episode. Running eight minutes longer than the broadcast version (which would have made it too long for the show’s hour-long format), this cut features some good flashback footage of Sarah’s time at Pescadero Hospital, including a wonderful moment where she discusses her childhood. The reintegrated footage was cut early in post-production, and is presented here in unfinished form and with audio taken directly from what was recorded on the set.    

Cast Audition Tapes (11 minutes total) offer a look at Headey, Dekker, and Jones’s auditions.

Nine terminated scenes (20 minutes total), six from the pilot alone, don’t add much to the proceedings as a whole, but a few of them are nice moments in and of themselves. All were cut in order to accommodate the show’s hour-long timeslot.

A storyboard animatic (3 minutes) for the scene in which Cromartie attacks John at his high school is also included.

The Summer Glau dance rehearsal (2 minutes) is footage of the actress practicing for a sequence from “The Demon Hand.”

Closing out the extras is a gag reel (3 minutes), which is nothing more than clips of the cast screwing up their lines. (I was hoping to see an endoskeleton fall over and crush a grip, but no luck.)

FINAL THOUGHTS

This first season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles marks a good, but not great, start to the series. But if the creators can continue to build on the promise shown in the last few episodes, this could prove to be a very worthy, worthwhile addition to the franchise.