"
5 Reasons Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Was Awesome
Here's why TSCC is the best Terminator story since T2
1 Jul 2015 By Matt Fowler
With Terminator: Genisys in theaters and an all new set of actors stepping into the iconic roles of Sarah Connor, John Connor, and Kyle Reese, we thought we'd take a quick look back at the truly excellent (though short-lived) FOX series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Josh Friedman's sci-fi series may have only lasted two seasons - 31 episodes - but it holds the distinction of being the absolute best entry into the Terminator saga following the first two movies. With Game of Thrones' Lena Headey as Sarah Connor (yes, now only the first GoT actress to step into Sarah's sizable boots), the show gave us an alternate route for John Connor's story following T2, as our perpetually on-the-run heroes -- thanks to Summer Glau's Terminator, Cameron -- time travel forward from 1999 to 2007, essentially skipping over the events that would have happened in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, including Sarah's death from leukemia.
From there, the trio try to take the fight directly to Skynet, which they know will still cause Judgment Day (it's been bumped up to 2011) but is now hiding in the shadows with origins so clouded that not even Cameron knows how the system came online. And the rest is glorious, engrossing sic-fi history. Yeah, the show got cancelled on a cliffhanger (dammit!) and there were a lot of loose threads that never got the chance to get snipped, but what is there, within the two seasons, is freakin' great. Here are five reasons why Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles still holds up and is way more awesome than the last three movies.
The Connors
Lena Headey was fantastic as Sarah. Filling Linda Hamilton's shoes after T2 seemed near impossible, but Headey gave us a complex, battle-worn Sarah who, like Nolan's Bruce Wayne, was protective while also looking for a successor. On borrowed time, Sarah knew John would eventually need more than her and the tough love the exuded to survive and so when a new "good" Terminator comes along, she's swarmed with mixed feelings of mistrust, resentment, relief, and hope. All perfectly displayed by Headey's more sorrowful take on a badass resistance solider fighting a losing war that, basically, is still years away.
Likewise, Thomas Dekker's John really helped ground and humanize a teenage boy who'd lived his life like precious cargo, with everyone around him risking their lives to protect him. Specifically, John Connor in Season 2 is the more fully realized version. In Season 1, John got some flak for his "emo" hair and his penchant for complaining, as teenage characters on TV continue to be one of the hardest things to pull off. But by Season 2, the show had John figured out and provided us with a much more proactive future leader.
Crossed Wires
"What model are you? Are you new? You seem...different."
No longer was John being protected by a massive, muscular Austrian man. His new cybernetic shield came in the form of a petite butt-kicking Terminator played by Summer Glau - a cyborg whose model remained unknown, and who actually came with her own deep backstory (future-story?) before eventually being re-deployed by John in 2027 and sent back through time to protect him
And so imagine you're a 15-year-old John and your new Terminator is not only a hot female, but one who secretly introduced herself into your life by pretending to be a high school classmate who was interested in you. There's going to be some complicated feelings going on. Not only for John, but Sarah a well, as the protective mother. Cameron may be a robot, but she's able to show glimpses of humor, pride, resentment, and even love. Which was fascinating taboo-ish territory that the show just seemed to be getting into before it got axed. Including a cool, demented take on John's "first time."
A.I.A.I.O
Actor Garret Dillahunt got to play two different prominent roles on Sarah Connor Chronicles (and actually, a couple more than that if you delve into his characters' history). First, he was the near-unstoppable death-bot Cromartie. He then later returned, using Cromartie's form, embodying the burgeoning A.I. "John Henry."
For a franchise all about software becoming self-aware and wiping out most of humanity, very little attention was ever paid to the artificial intelligence side of the equation. The birth of a sentient super-computer. A learning entity confronted with complex ideas about morality and ethics. This may not have been Skynet's exact origins, but the instruction of, and care for, the child-like John Henry as a rival/opponent for Skynet (yes, a war between robot factions was also going on) was one of the most fascinating parts of the series.
Garbage Person
Helping Sarah Connor Chronicles stand out even more was the Season 2 addition of Shirley Manson - yes, the singer from Garbage - as Catherine Weaver, the head of the mysterious Zeira Corporation (and spearhead of the even more mysterious Babylon project). Weaver's story, and own robot holocaust origins, represented Season 2's intriguing B-plot. Everything had just started falling into place right as the show permanently went off the air, leaving us with more questions than we would have liked, but Manson's striking presence was a great element on the series.
Unclepocalypse
Now comes the biggest pleasant surprise of the show (yes, even more than the singer from Garbage turning in a great, creepy performance). Brian Austin Green, known best for his work on Beverly Hills 90210, came aboard the series in the second episode as gritty, no-holds-barred resistance fighter from the future, Derek Reese (brother of Kyle). Overcoming initial cynicism regarding the actor's previous FOX series, Green notably made the show better. Not that Derek was ever the father-type anyone would want, but his stern male presence, as John's uncle, helped provide John an authoritative male figure in his life. Something other than the original T-800. And Green was really good as Derek, a super soldier sent back to 2007 not to protect John, but to eliminate Skynet.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/07/02/5-reasons-terminator-the-sarah-connor-chronicles-was-awesome
"
I'm still mad that FOX cancelled The Sarah Conner Chronicles
I could see some liking this one even though I thought it sucked, but T3. 
