Que? Sarah, Sarah: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

[wwolfe]

I've read and watched sci-fi books, short stories, movies, and TV shows since I was about eight. Four decades on, what stays with me are two frequent responses: excitement about an interesting premise, and disappointment at a dull execution. It's often puzzling how the same mind can dream up such an unusual, potent idea, but then fill in the

Comments

I've had a meh reaction, myself.

[ldfarris]

and I really can't put my finger on it.

I do know a couple things:

The substitute Terminator doesn't impress me. He looks like he should the villian in Stepfather 4, not a Terminator.

I am finding the fights dull for a few reasons. First off machines that can't be hurt, make it diffcult to feel any tension. Also one of the smart things the movies did was to not make the battles brute force vrs brute force. The first movie had a human who would have been pulverized. In the second Arnold couldn't just pound his opponent into submission. So the fact that they keep having Cameron and the other terminators just pound on each other is kind of dull.

I also must note that yes I get that Cameron is a machine, but watching her use herself as a battering ram doesn't work for me. Serenity had her use her natural dance skills to turn her into a fight machine. That worked.

Here they just have her smash things. And having a 100 poundish person reaptedly running into 250 pound person, doesn't work. I just expect her to bounce off. There are reasons there are weight classess in boxing.

At least it ain't Bionic Woman.

Re: I've had a meh reaction, myself.

[wwolfe]

I agree completely on the question of machines fighting, for exactly the reasons you give.

It also occurred to me that having a remorseless, expressionless machine as the baddie isn't all that interesting in a weekly TV show, as opposed to a movie. (The performance of the actor who played the Terminator the first two episodes made me realize just how crucial Arnold's work in the same role was in the movies. A belated kudo to Mr. S.)

The show's producers may have realized this, or at least sensed it, because I think the FBI guy is supposed to fill the same role. And, to the show's credit, the FBI guy has been conceived and played as a decent person with understandable motives. I hope they give this character a fair shake. If "Sarah Connor" is in some sense a re-telling of "The Fugitive," as others have noted, then the FBI guy makes a better Lt. Gerard than the Terminator does.

"At least it ain't Bionic Woman." Word.