TDL’s Sports, Wrestling, & Otherwise

With the news of the end of the writer’s strike, I wanted to find out how Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has been doing in the ratings. While sure they’ll allow it to ride out this season, I wanted to know the chances of seeing it next year.

Unfortunately, Googling “terminator sarah connor chronicle ratings” led to reviews instead of ratings news. Most of them were luke-warmish… this show obviously isn’t being placed on critics’ “must watch” list any time soon… but then I read one that was so far into the realm of “doesn’t get it” that I thought it needed to be mentioned.

You’ll recognize the format… take it away Tim Goodman, sfgate.com.

An overly familiar franchise often has about as much chance of success as a pat “star vehicle.” You know, one of those shows built around someone famous in the hope that fame will bring in tons of viewers. But what usually happens is there’s no real story, no real heart, no real necessity for its creation and no emotional connection to the actual star.

I would have loved to see some examples of this. From what I can remember, there have been a lot of animated movies made into television series (Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Back to the Future, Teen Wolf, Ghostbusters) but I can’t remember a ton of live action movies being made into tv shows (other than the obvious successful ones, like MASH and Buffy). Google was a bit more helpful here; giving me a Wikipedia page. A good number of them that had any success have been in the Sci-Fi genre: War of the Worlds, Alien Nation, Highlander) while the failures are mostly unsurprising. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes didn’t do well as TV shows? Really?

I’d also point out… I don’t think this list has another entry for “billion dollar, uber-successful American movie franchise”… except Star Wars. So… seems like there’s been one previous attempt and it failed because George Lucas has made it his life’s mission to ruin Star Wars.

Fox, desperate for something it makes to take hold, decided to tap into the “Terminator” film franchise for its newest series, “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” which tells the story of one very determined mother whose son, John, will grow up to lead the resistance against the machines that have taken over the world. For more information on this, just ask your local DVD store clerk, who will no doubt roll his eyes and toss three decently entertaining movies onto the counter.

The conclusion I draw here is that the writer is assuming the target audience for this show are folks who have never heard of the Terminator franchise. I know that if I was pitching a Terminator television series, the first words out of my mouth would be: “I got this show who people who have never heard of Terminator are going to love.”

Fox is making a splash by premiering the series Sunday at 8 p.m. (with the post-NFL playoff crowd as the main attraction), then bringing it back at 9 Monday night. But honestly, you’ll see nothing exciting or compelling enough on Sunday (football excepted) to make you want to come back again the next night (although, in fairness, the second night is better).

The NFL Crowd? You mean… men. Like…. guys who would have liked the Terminator movies? But….. you just said….

“Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” assumes that most viewers will have a working knowledge of the film series but, just to be sure, opens the first night with a voice-over narration from Sarah (Lena Headey) about how difficult it is for a single mother to show tough love to her son.

You mean like….. the entire point of the second movie? I’m confused. Three paragraphs ago, we were talking about people who wouldn’t understand the movie. Now, we’re complaining because they take ten seconds to explain the ten second backstory of the entire Terminator series. “This kid’s going to lead a revolution against robots in the future. The robots are sending agents back to kill him.” Done.

Although she doesn’t get into it much, you can imagine her on the couch, having a chat with the petulant teen about his important role in the future: “Well, your dad was a time-traveling resistance fighter and there’s this ‘Judgment Day’ thing that’s a total downer and billions of people die and later, in the future, you’re sort of going to save what’s left of mankind. Now, about girls …”

It’s called “what went on for seven years on Buffy.” It’s also called “what’s been working for 7 years on Smallville“.

Headey is hit and miss. In the pilot, she’s mostly a miss (and she’s an enormous miss on the voice-overs). It doesn’t help her one bit that the first time we see her, she’s wearing what appears to be either a cheerleading costume or come-hither tennis outfit.

A truck-stop waitress’s uniform? Did a porn tape get mixed in with his pilot DVD?

You can also quibble that Headey seems too young to be the mother of a teenage boy - this trick is pulled off with some regularity on the CW, but not on Fox anymore - but no matter how hot mommy warrior may be, she’s got no business being in a cheerleading outfit that sits way above the middle of her thigh. That’s not a complaint, per se, but it’s hilariously inappropriate.

Lena Headey was born in 1973. By my math, that makes her 35. If she had a 15 year old son, that would make her the “impossible” age of 20 when she had a son. As I get older, I find myself falling into the “she’s too young to have an X year old son” trap… which makes this guy 78, minimum.

If your quibble was “Linda Hamilton was 28 in the movie” and “Lena Headey is 35 in the show” then I can almost give that to you, but Sarah Connor’s age is never explicitly mentioned.

The first hour is all action, no plot, no character development, no persons of interest anywhere.

In a show based on Terminator? Stop it. You mean to tell me to pitch a Terminator show they made the pilot all action and little character development? I am stunned. These people should be fired for misunderstanding the point of the Terminator series.

Sarah’s son, John (Thomas Dekker), seems as if he’s supposed to be on some moody CW drama about alienated teens. Here, as the future savior of pretty much everyone, he seems too mopey and lost (and that doesn’t improve in the second hour).

No argument here.

Worse, perhaps, is Cameron Phillips (Summer Glau), a reprogrammed Terminator of indeterminate origin who has been sent back in time by Future John to protect Pouty CW John. Fox is touting her as some kind of killing machine, but she looks like a teenage Ally McBeal, which is about as far from kick-ass, frightening, machine killer as you can get. She’s supposed to act like a machine, which Glau does all too convincingly.

He’s criticizing the actress for robotic acting when she’s supposed to be…………. a robot?

So, to recap, you’ve got Headey being hit and miss as Sarah (there are scenes where she seems convincingly tough and determined, but mostly she seems like an actress trying to be tough); Dekker putting the anti in hero; and Glau looking like someone who might get her teeth punched in by wispy Willow from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Isn’t this the same kind of casting problem that doomed NBC’s “Bionic Woman”?

As opposed to Sarah Michelle Gellar… who was completely convincing as a 5′2″ ass-kicking machine? Or Kristanna Loken… or Eliza Dushku… or Jennifer Garner… or that chick from La Femme Nikita… or all 5′4″ of Sylvester Stallone for that matter? Or Robert Patrick?

Then there’s the writing, which never misses a swipe at a cliche (particularly in the voice-overs) and fails to build much of a pulse despite millions spent on blowing things up. The first hour, in fact, wastes each opportunity to get to know who these people really are. It’s all run, run, run - the machines are coming! Stop pouting, John! Run!

In a Terminator show? Really? I’ve never seen the point of an episode of television fly further over someone head than this one did. The fact they are running from the machines IS the character development. Or maybe they should stand up to the indestructible robots and discuss why they are trying to kill John.

They spent the first episode establishing this bad guy: “That terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.” What is the most effective way to establish that character? Running the frick away from it.

And really, in 2008, does that herky-jerky “Terminator” walk seem stupid-goofy or what? Yeah, they’re machines, they walk funny. Got it.

He’s arguing that the terminators are acting too much like terminators.

Only in the second episode is there any real attempt at a believable backstory (which will be too late for savvy viewers). Deep into the second episode is also the first time the writers try to inject any kind of humor (and fail). “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” could have been a lot more enjoyable and pop-culture cool if it loosened up the writing (and improved it tenfold).

A believable backstory? In a show about evil killer robots from the future and a human savior who sent his own father back in time so he could be conceived?

And how do you “loosen up the writing” and “improve” it at the same time. Isn’t “tightening” what you’re supposed to do to bad writing? Have I lost my hip lingo card?

Truly ambitious series, like “Lost,” at least put some thought into their mythology. “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” relies on the movie franchise as its backbone, revealing a kind of laziness that immediately hurts this spin-off. By the time the second hour comes on Monday and tries to give these characters some dimension, you already know that the talent on both sides of the camera simply isn’t there to make this a worthwhile trip.

The depths of stupid in this paragraph is stunning. This guy is what’s wrong with Hollywood. It’s jack-offs like this who read The Dark Is Rising and decide it’s a great book. In fact, it will make a great movie, too. If only we change the setting from Europe to the US, change the main character from 8 to 15, change the story entirely so it will look like a video game and a kid collecting power ups, and give it a more marketable name like SEEKER~!.

There is an established mythology for the Terminator universe. In this guy’s world, apparently, to make a successful TV show is to just trash the established mythology and start over. Anything else is “lazy”. In Tim Goodman’s world, the terminators should not be robotic (even though they’ve all been programmed by robots, who wouldn’t have the ability to program the proper nuances of acting human), they should slow down and discuss why they’re doing what they’re doing, and we should be able to kill them by drawing on the power of the Mysterious Golden Scepter Of Robot Bane.

In fact, the primary plot objective of “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” is to run, run, run. Sarah and John and cyborg Cameron are in constant flight but forget to tell us along the way why we should care whether they get caught or killed. After the first two episodes, running away doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

As opposed to standing and fighting the terminators. Because, if anything, we should not establish a sense of danger in keeping Connor alive. It’s much more satisfying to have a Die Hard style hero who can run through a room in a hail of machine gun bullets and come out the other side unhurt. But I forgot, we’re rewriting the universe where the robots don’t have targeting systems… and aren’t really robots… so I guess they miss a lot.

I understand not liking a show. I really do. All I ask is that a writer understand what he’s criticizing. Goodman understands Terminator like I understand the NBA’s EFF rating… I know it’s there, I know what it measures, but I couldn’t tell you whether or not it means anything.