Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is a worthy addition to the classic movie franchise that not only fills in the gaps between the second and third films, but expands upon the mythology as well. High school student John Connor is destined to lead the resistance against a race of dominating machines in the not-so-distant future, and the machines have sent human-like cyborgs, i.e., “Terminators,” back through time to kill their would-be vanquisher before that destiny can be realized.
Future John Connor, meanwhile, has sent something of his own to the past in order to protect his younger self – a female cyborg with a secret mission to end the threat against mankind before it begins by stopping the technological firm that inadvertently creates the race of deadly machines.
In many ways, the series is an amalgamation of two previous FOX shows, The X-Files and the short-lived Firefly. Like Fox Mulder and his belief in aliens and conspiracies, Sarah Connor – John’s mother – has had difficulty convincing anyone of the impending doom as her apocalyptic warnings fall on deaf ears.
In the second Terminator film, she is initially confined to a mental hospital and later wanted for the murder of a Skynet technician who was destined to design the deadly devices. Chronicles thus portrays Sarah as a fugitive from the law, hunted by an FBI agent intent on bringing her to justice. Mulder was also treated as a fugitive in The X-Files’ final season, remaining in hiding until likewise being accused of murder.
Sarah Connor and Fox Mulder have other similarities, including being solitary warriors fighting superior forces intent on annihilation. As sole guardians of mankind’s future, they also realize the sacrifices that need made – namely the trappings of a normal life – and the weariness of carrying the weight of the world on one’s shoulders.
While Mulder had Dana Scully for support, Sarah has future cyborg Cameron, and just as Mulder was skeptical when first paired with Scully, Sarah Connor likewise has a cautionary trust in her counterpart.
In his USA Today review, Robert Bianco compared The Sarah Connor Chronicles to the “Buffy universe of Joss Whedon,” but it is another Whedon creation, Firefly, that the series most resembles. Much of this has to do with actress Summer Glau, who portrays Cameron with the same wide-eyed wonder and steely menace that she did with Firefly’s River Tam. In fact, when she recites lines like, “They would have found you anyway. They always do,” it sounds eerily similar to River.
Her performance likewise produces the necessary amount of comic relief. When tracking down a Terminator, for instance, Cameron is hit by an oncoming car – with her body splattered on the hood, face through the windshield, she looks at the passengers and says, “Please remain calm,” before getting up and resuming her mission.
When Sarah ventures into “gang territory” to acquire new identity paperwork, meanwhile, Cameron waits in a rigid, soldier-like stance. A neighborhood girl approaches, then leans against a car in a “casual-but-with-attitude” style, which Cameron studies before expertly mimicking.
There was more to Firefly than River, of course, as the younger Tam and brother Simon’s story blended with the saga of Captain Mal Reynolds’ struggle to eke out an existence beyond the reaches of a controlling Alliance government. The same is true with The Sarah Connor Chronicles, as young John Connor longs for a life far away from Terminators and the pressure of being a future savior.
Actor Thomas Dekker plays John with both a youthful innocence and rebellious teenage angst, combined with the longing for both a father and normal childhood. Despite knowing he will one day be a leader amongst men, he is still the kind of kid who gets nervous talking to a pretty girl, can’t find the turkey in the refrigerator without his mother’s help and records multiple takes of a cell phone message, trying to find that elusive “cool.”
When Charley Dixon, the man his mother is living with at the start of the pilot episode, proposes to Sarah, it is John who picks out the engagement ring. And when his mother believes it is no longer safe – marriage means ties, and someone on the run cannot afford such a luxury – it is obvious that John does not want to let go of Charley. In fact, he sneaks away to see him after being transported eight years into the future only to find Charley now married, and the hurt and disappointment are noticeable on John’s face.
In a later episode he rehearses his new identity – where he’s from, who is family is, etc. When Cameron states that his father, cited as a fictitious police officer killed in the line of duty, is a “hero,” John walks out of the room while saying, “My dad’s always a hero. And he’s always dead.”
It is such realistic portrayals of its characters as people that truly distinguishes The Sarah Connor Chronicles, from the longings for a family, to dealing with the threat of cancer, to the struggles of protecting a son. Sarah Connor’s reaction upon learning about 9/11 for the first time after time-traveling over it, coupled with her bleak knowledge of the future, is both poignant and revealing.
“I cannot imagine the apocalypse,” she says. “No matter what Kyle Reese told me, or others who have come back, I cannot imagine three billion dead. I can image planes hitting buildings, and I can imagine fire. If I would have witnessed it, if I would have been here, I’m sure I would have thought the end was near. I’m sure I would have thought, ‘We have failed.’”
Fortunately for television fans, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles does not fail to entertain.
Anthony Letizia