I’ve been a strident critic of Fox and their pull the plug mentality on anything SF-related. So in the interests of fairness, I have to give props to Fox for giving a full season commitment to “Terminator.” Let’s hope that those who are reluctant to tune in figuring they don’t want to get too attached to yet another doomed Fox SF show will take that as incentive to come aboard.
Granted, the show’s been uneven, but there’s so much good stuff there that I’m hoping it finds its footing, and it’s nice that Fox is giving it the opportunity to do so.
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This also gives me more hope for Joss Whedon’s new show, Dollhouse. He keeps saying we can trust FOX, different people are in charge now. Maybe he’s right.
FOX needs to try putting Terminator on a different night. Their time slot has some very tough competition.
It’s a different economy in television today then even a few years ago.
DVD series sets. iTunes. hulu ad revenue. A renewed interest in product placement.
The upcoming Terminator 4 movie and shared marketing opportunities likely helped grease the wheels.
Now if Fox moves it (or NBC moves Chuck) over to the wasteland that is Wednesday night, we’ll have a ballgame!
I’m glad to see the show being given a full season. Still, I have the same problem with this show that I had with the Highlander series. It’s based on a movie that didn’t need a sequel.
Not to say that the Highlander series(and the third movie, sorta) didn’t have some really good stories in them….
I’ve seen a big improvement in this season’s Sarah Connor Chronicles eps. Last season started out with a few dumb shoot ’em ups. This year they’ve done some really interesting stuff. I loved the ep with Cameron’s flashbacks.
Product placement- You just had to laugh at the ep with very prominent Dodge Ram placement- long shots of the truck, and the scenes showing off the truck’s cargo compartments were silly, but if it helps the bottom line and keeps Fox from pulling the plug in time to add a second night of Hole In The Wall, I can deal with that.
I’m also enjoying The Cleaner on A&E but they have some crazy product placement stuff there, too. The scene where William is telling his daughter all about the capabilities of her new Sprint phone’s GPS while standing underneath a Sprint banner is hysterical.
I wonder if online revenue affects their decision.
I’ve watched a few episodes of Terminator at Hulu.com this season. I’d rather not, but there were 4 shows I wanted to see at the same time slot and I can only record two at once. Hulu has ads, but not as much as regular TV. I’m guessing they don’t make as much money from that as from TV viewership, but they make some. Maybe it’s enough to make up for the low ratings a little.
I’ve watched the show but agree it has been uneven. It’s been over-dependent on time travel, and doesn’t seem to have a goal.
I’m glad they’ve kept it, but they need to get out of the rut.
Uneven in that sometimes it bores me and sometimes it doesn’t.
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I want to watch this show, but Fox insists on putting it on Monday, which seems to be one of the busiest night for genre shows this year.
We DVR all our TV, and last year we had a technical (meaning my wife, who sometimes doesn’t notice that I’m recording something, will change the cable box channel) issue with the pilot, but I do have most of the rest of the season. But Fox was nice enough to repeat the entire run…but neglected to tell TV Guide, so I missed my chance to get the episodes I’d missed.
Then, this season, they put SCC up against Chuck, which both my wife and I enjoy a ton. Not to mention MNF. It’s no wonder SCC’s ratings have taken such a dive.
Any opinions on Fringe?
“Uneven in that sometimes it bores me and sometimes it doesn’t.”
That sounds about right. For me, the boring episodes outweighed the exciting ones, and the balance was overwhelmingly tipped to the boring side by the end of last season, so I haven’t even been watching it this season.
I’m happy it’s gotten the full season. Summer (le sigh) is definitely my favorite part, though I’m really liking Uncle Reese as well.
The uneven aspect (to me, anyway) is that it seems like every episode has some “Wait, huh?” plot hole that glares at the viewer.
I also question Sarah’s personality a bit. In T2 she was borderline psychotic, and that was one of my favorite features of the film. They toned her down a bit for the series.
Sean: agreed. The first film was fine. OK, the second had great moments. But starting with the third you learn the problem with time travel: nothing matters because another time jaunt can then undo whatever just happened.
As for the series, I caught part of a later episode and Sarah was grabbing a handgun and I couldn’t help wonder *WHY?* Unless it was a disguised heavy blaster, what the heck good would it be against a terminator? Based on what I saw in the movies, you’d need at least a bazooka, or a heavy machine gun with armour-piercing rounds.
Rene: I have a sort of prejudice against TV shows that are based on popular movies. I always feel as if the TV show is just a lesser, more drawn-out version of the movie. Never watched Stargate either.
Ah, but Stargate: SG-1 was an exception to the rule. It was a significant improvement on the movie. I liked the movie well enough when it came out, but after watching the series I tried to watch the movie again and quit after a half hour. The show fixed so many of the problems with the movie that all the plot holes really stood out.
Jason, I’ve heard only good things of Stargate, but like I’ve said, it’s a prejudice I have. I still wasn’t able to get past it and watch the show.
I have a lot of stuff in my to-watch list, anyway.
Jason – I avoid Hulu because of the restrictions they keep putting on their streams. As for REGENESIS, I caught the first episode and half of the second, if I recall correctly, and then the lead’s bratty daughter just got more annoying than I could stand.
For those who missed any of the first season of SCC, it is out on DVD.
Jason,
I’m an SG-1 fan myself, as well as being happily surprised to enjoy Sarah Connor Chronicals, and also not disliking Highlander: The Series. Or we can go real old school and I’ll say I enjoy a bit of the ol’ Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea now and then. But if you don’t like ’em, then, ah well. To each his or her own, and such.
But I just have to ask… M*A*S*H? Don’t get me wrong, I like the film. But while the first season or so does sometimes play out like the movie watered down, over time it blows the movie away!
Rene – I felt the same way about STARGATE as you did. I don’t know about down there (n the US?), but in Canada there were so many repeats, pre-emptions, episodes apparently shown out of sequence(?) that I gave up early on. It wasn’t until a few years later when a friend twisted my arm into buying the first season set that I was able to see them as they were meant to be seen and it made all the difference. I now have all ten seasons (plus the movies) and it’s become one of my favourites.
Yotsuya, I’m not sure what you’re saying. I didn’t say that I dislike those shows.
I’m amazed at how good the hair is on the actress playing Sarah Connor is at critical moments.
If a mechanical unstoppable killing machine were after me, I’d be too unstable to contact a hair dresser during explosions. 🙂
Jason, I think he was refering to me. I was the one that said I had a prejudice against movie-based TV shows.
StarWolf, I have a friend that has the Stargate DVD sets, so maybe I’ll borrow them someday. Sometimes I’m very late in starting watching shows that are required of every geek. I just started watching Buffy, for instance.
Jerry – Saw the first few minutes of LIFE ON MARS (US) and I couldn’t watch more. Police detectives are supposed to be reasonably intelligent, yet this guy is so dim that, when he sees the World Trade Center towers in the last stages of construction, he still acts as though he’s on a movie set and everyone are extras on that set. You’d think going to the nearest hospital and having himself checked out for a possible concussion (or other cerebral damage) would be at the top of his to-do list, especially what with waking up face down in the middle of the road and all, but no, let’s try to report in to work as though nothing had happened. Idiot.
Just need something on ABC to fail so we can get the final season ( 🙁 ) of Scrubs going…
Rene,
Make sure your viewing includes Firefly and BSG
Also: the retcons that Stargate SG-1 were quite welcome when put upon the original Stargate movie.
Stargate SG-1 is awesome and I’m sad that its spin-offs are no longer aired locally for me.
Terminator 2 is credibly convincing that is set in the same canon as the first movie. The third movie, even with the notion of altering time and alternate timelines and splits of stuff, does not quite convince me that it is set in the same continuity or canon as the first two movies. Although I do enjoy some of the plot/conflict, including the notion that the next Evil Terminator is a robot built for a firefight.
As for the Terminator TV series, it clearly takes places in a separate continuity to start with, and it does make cute references to the third movie. (I hate calling it the Sarah Connor Chronicles because I never get the sense that there is any literal chronicle here in this series, nor do I get the sense that the show is really Sarah-centric, so it seems to me that the name of the series is a misnomer, unless Sarah’s voiceovers start to resemble a “chronicle” more strongly… or the episodes feature John and Cameron and Reese even less… I’ll just call it “Terminator TV” and leave it at that).
Highlander: the Series, to me, works as an acceptable retcon to the end of the first movie.
I never saw the original Buffy and I only saw the TV series after I saw the last season of Angel, which was my first season of the Buffyverse in general. I loved the idea of a buddy cop vampire show, with Spike and Angel hating one another and still fighting evil magic stuff because it’s the right thing to do according to their consciences. Then the show was canceled. I believe that Joss Whedon didn’t see “vampire buddy cop” the same way I did. If anyone wants to use the idea, it’s not mine. No one can claim ownership to any idea that involves vampire as cop, or any crimefighter buddy duo thing… frankly I wish Star Wars Episode II was what the first thirty minutes of Star Wars Episode III resembled… “Jedi Buddy Cop”.
That could lead me to rip on the latest Clone Wars theatrical… the only rip I’ll use is if my student gave me a cute nickname on the very first day I’d fire him or her.