Watching The CW

Just finished watching the two-hour season finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It was very nearly like torture. I tried, but I haven’t liked this show since the very beginning.

It’s crazy, too, cause I just can’t seem to really pay attention to it. Last night, while it aired, I kept getting interrupted, by phone calls and other interrupty things. I had DVRd it and I knew I could watch it later, so it didn’t seem like a big deal. But its just par for the course of what has happened every time it’s been on. In any case, today, I sat and tried to watch it all the way through, uninterrupted. And I realized something. It wasn’t that I kept getting interrupted, it was just that the show doesn’t hold my interest enough for me to ignore the interruptions and keep on watching. It also honestly felt like no matter how hard I tried to keep track of what was happening, they still managed to lose me. Like, I couldn’t figure out why they were doing whatever it was they were doing, or why they were going where ever they went.

Probably the most interesting part, that got my attention, was when Derek (Brian Austin Green) faked out the guy who had the Turk (I’m sure he has a name, but I don’t care enough to go find out) and who was blackmailing them. The guy was holding a gun to John (Thomas Dekker) and Sarah (Lena Heady) had a gun on him, but couldn’t shoot for fear of hitting John or that the guy would kill John first. Derek comes out the door with his gun to the head of a little girl (played, adorably, by Bailee Madison, who I did care enough about to look up) and the guy disclaims that she’s his, Derek says she’s not his either, and then in one swift move, he covers the little girls eyes and shoots the guy in the head. It was great. It reminded me of Firefly, when Mal (Nathan Fillion) shot that government agent who had a gun to River’s (Summer Glau) head. The scene is similar, but it accompanies a much better episode of TV.

So, finally, the time has come. The time when I only have to sit through two more hours of Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles. This Monday, March 3, marks the two-hour season finale on Fox at 8 pm ET. I haven’t seen anything that says that the show is absolutely coming back in the Fall, but if it does, I probably won’t be watching. I committed myself to watch this season, and I’ve watched each and every episode. I feel like I’ve seen enough and I’m pretty sure that I can’t take any more.

I was so excited for this show, not only because I love the Terminator movies, but also because I’m a fan of Summer Glau. Unfortunately, at least in my opinion, the show has never lived up to what I had hoped for it. I’ve tried to like it. Really, really I have. But somehow the eps always seem to move too slowly or be full of lots of running around and getting nowhere. I’m not a huge Brian Austin Green fan either, or maybe his addition to the cast, as John’s uncle, would make me care more. Actually, the most interesting cast member to me is Dean Winters, cause he’s such a doll.

Who knows, things can change. Maybe when and if the show comes back in the Fall for a second season, I’ll give in and watch it again. I’m gullible and I love to live in hope. So I might give it another chance. But probably not.

I’m just not liking Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles yet. I should have liked last week’s ep. It had both Andy Umberger and Brian Bloom in it and I like both of them. I wanted to be happy with it, I wanted it to be amazing. I want to like this show, but it’s not happening. I’m not exactly sure why, but for some reason, I never can seem to actually follow the show each week. It seems pretty scattered and plotless to me. Like the basic point of the entire series is to just keep running around.

It makes me wonder why they wouldn’t have based the show on events that happened after Terminator 3, the Adventures of John Connor, or something. It just seems like you’re wide open to do whatever you want if you start there, instead of having to deal with stuff that already happened and trying to make your story fit.

Or maybe, if they were stuck on having Sarah, they could have shown her between the first Terminator movie and Terminator 2. Of course, you can’t have a woman be pregnant forever so you’d eventually have to have a baby, and I guess a baby boy isn’t nearly as big of a ratings draw as a cute teenage boy, so maybe that would be a problem.

It looks like there are five more episodes in the works right now and just maybe they will be better. I think another thing that just makes me mad is that Fox kills off so many good shows, and then keeps shows that kinda aren’t so good. As for instance, Drive, which was really interesting and fun was killed off after only like two episodes, and so far this show, which is no where near as good, has lasted for four. I guess we’ll see.

OK, so I watched the third ep of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Fox Monday. I’m still not impressed. I want to like it, I really do, but honestly, no matter how well I try to pay attention, I can’t seem to follow what’s happening. Even my husband, who was watching with me, got up and walked away when there was only about 10 minutes left and said, this is moving too slowly and its confusing. I felt exactly the same way. There was no wall smashing this week, so at least it had that going for it, but without all that, it was very slow and kinda dull.

I wish it was better. I want it to be better. From what I read elsewhere, people seem to like it, so maybe it’s me. But honestly, what about that episode was interesting or exciting, or even mildly entertaining? What would make anyone want to watch the show again?

I think one thing that bothers me is that Summer Glau’s character, Cameron, is very similar in affect to her character of River Tam on Firefly and Serenity. Very smart and not emotionally connected. And a good fighter. This can’t be good for her as an actress. I’ve seen her in other roles and she can act, but playing two characters cast in the same basic mold has got to start her on the slippery slope to being type-cast. Maybe I’m just letting that bother me too much so it takes away my enjoyment in the show.

I’m gonna keep watching, but I just hope I see something worth watching soon.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Summer Glau, Firefly, Serenity

I wasn’t as impressed with the second ep of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I checked the reviewer at EW.com again, though, and she seems to have liked it even more than the first ep. Maybe I was distracted or something, because mostly what I saw was lots of people running around, lots of people (or cyborgs) being slammed into walls, random gunfire and dead bodies. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against those things, it’s just that it was kinda lame. Or lame-ish . . . I just felt like there was no point other than the running and the slamming, which really isn’t (or shouldn’t be) a point in itself.

It felt a little disjointed to me as well, as though there wasn’t an actual storyline, but just a director off screen shouting stuff like “OK, now slam Summer into that wall” or “Linda, you run the truck into that person.” Like they just reacted to directions without actually following a script. Maybe I’m being too hard on them. Maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention. I’m gonna give them a few more weeks and then we’ll see. Judging by the number of times I’ve seen the commercial for the show since Monday, Fox is planning on keeping it around for a while. Which is good, cause that was another one of my worries. That Fox would terminate the Terminator before things got going.

One other issue? I feel weird undertones of robot sex and I just don’t think I’m ready for any of that. Unless it involves Spike.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Spike, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fox

The Sarah Connor Chronicles started last night. Yay for Terminator! I’m a big fan of the movies. (Well, the first two, anyway. I didn’t care for the third one that much.) In any case, I was looking forward this this show for a couple of reasons. Not just the fact that it was Terminator, but also because it stars Summer Glau, from Firefly and Serenity. And if anyone cares, she was also in one ep of Angel. I actually thought she was gonna be Sarah Connor, and I was a little disappointed when I found out she wasn’t, but turns out, she’s the Terminator. And that’s even more fun.

I wasn’t home last night, so I DVRed (is it just me, or does is bother anyone else, just a little, the way we all just take nouns and turn them into verbs these days?) the first installment of the two-part premiere. The second half is on tonight at 9 pm on Fox. I watched part of it last night and the rest this morning and it was good. I did have a little issue, though. There was some sports thingy (maybe a football game) on earlier that must have run over, cause it messed up my DVR. Well, I think that was it, cause it taped like 2 minutes, then stopped, then 2 minutes, then stopped, then 2 minutes, then stopped. So there were like all these pieces of show. It did, however, have three big pieces amongst the rubble of small ones, and I was able to see the entire show. It just took a little effort.

I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of it tonight (hopefully, in one big piece) and in seeing where it goes from here. There were a couple of things I’m not sure I’m buying, but we’ll see. I’ve learned from dealing with Joss, that you should keep quiet when things don’t make sense immediately, cause it might all get cleared up in time.

Here’s a really great recap from EW.com that says lots of the stuff I would have said if I had thought of it first.

Terminator, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Summer Glau, Joss Whedon, Firefly, Serenity, Angel