Like many beloved film franchises, theTerminatorseries produced a couple of genre-defining classics before settling into a decades-long regime of ill-advised follow-ups. Every entry has its defenders, but there hasn’t been a universally belovedTerminatorfilm in over 30 years. However,Terminatorhas made some strides in other mediums.The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the first and onlyTerminatorTV series, delivered what fans love about the first two films.
TV was in a verydifferent place in 2008. Options were more limited, but shows were often just as short-lived. 2008 held the end of the last Writers Guild of America strike, which permanently changed the direction of network television. Perhaps more than any other era, it was easy for a network to kill a show.
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What isThe Sarah Connor ChroniclesAbout?
As fans remember, at the end ofT2, Sarah Connor and her son John destroy the T-1000 with the help of a reprogrammed T-800. Both machines are melted down, along with the leftover parts from the 1984 attack, theoretically preventingthe invention of Skynet. Against all odds, a new Terminator appears from the future to kill Sarah and John. Sure enough, the resistance fighters of the future have sent back a new reprogrammed Terminator to save them. Cameron, the latest T-900 model, brings Sarah and John into the year 2007 to avoid the threat of other Terminators. Life on the run has always been difficult, but the new era wreaks havoc on John and Sarah’s fragile life.
What MadeThe Sarah Connor ChroniclesSo Good?
Much of the magic ofThe Sarah Connor Chroniclesis teased by the name. It’s a deeper exploration of the life of Sarah Connor, the woman who would birth the savior of humanity. The original pitchbehindTerminatorimagined theterror of a machine violently hunting a person for something they haven’t done yet, a wildly dangerous monster seeking vengeance for something as capricious as fate.The Sarah Connor Chroniclescontinues that concept by following Sarah and John as they struggle with the idea of destiny. They’re very well-realized characters, perhaps more than in the original films, but certainly more than they were in any subsequent outing.
A lot of the success comes from the excellent cast.Game of Thronesstar Lena Headeytakes on the role of Sarah Connor with incredible skill. Thomas Dekker steps into John Connor’s shoes, attempting to deliver a grown-up iteration of Edward Furlong’s memorable performance. It’s a challenging task, but Dekker outperforms Nick Stahl’s similar attempt fromTerminator 3. Where the Connor clan goes, a friendly Terminator must follow. This show’s reprogrammed killing machine is Cameron, portrayed byFireflyandArrowstar Summer Glau. Cameron is a more complex character than a lot of the other Terminators in the franchise. Fans who loved watching the T-800 learn to understand loss will enjoy Glau’s carefully balanced performance, especially when the show introduces the human who inspired the machine. The cast carries much of the weight of the show. Their textured and sincere performances lift thedecent sci-fi action seriesinto a realm of real human drama.
Why WasThe Sarah Connor ChroniclesCanceled?
The short answer is that it was a show on the Fox network.Before Netflix got a nasty reputationfor cutting every original series it could get its hands on, Fox earned the same critique. There are long-windedFamily Guybits listing the countless programs Fox laid to rest. Some deserved the axe, while others were killed long before their time.The Sarah Connor Chronicleslasted two seasons, only 31 episodes in total. The first season enjoyed an average of nearly 11 million viewers per episode. The second season suffered a significant decline, only averaging 5.37 million. The network president announced its cancelation less than a month after the second season finale.
There have been several campaigns to bring backThe Sarah Connor Chronicles. Fans have gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures for various petitions to create a third season. The series creator Josh Friedman has weighed in on the sparse chances of its return. Most notably, he mentioned the impossibility of crowdfunding a third season due to rights ownership. There have been rumors of pitches at the studio. They briefly considered a film to finish the show’s story, but it never came to be.Terminator Salvationcame outshortly afterThe Sarah Connor Chronicleswas canceled, bringing that chapter of the franchise to a close.
The Sarah Connor Chronicleswas an excellent continuationof theTerminatorfranchiseafter the first two films. It’s the most obvious choice for the third-bestTerminatorproject. While there are good parts of the most recent film, its insistence on relying on old material has trapped it in a vicious cycle.The Sarah Connor Chroniclespresents a path forward that could have saved this beloved sci-fi concept. It’s a shame that fans can’t go back in time and save it.
