[greenamp]

Anyone watching this? It's surprisingly good. I'm glad I didn't go with my first reactions about this show and gave it a chance. The current episode, "Queen's Gambit" was excellent.

Let's talk about it?

[BRussell]

I watched the season premiere free iTunes download. Not bad.

[Cipher13]

I've seen up to episode 4, and have been pleasantly surprised. I didn't expect it to be any good at all but it hasn't been bad so far... Summer Glau helps with that.

 

I do hate that they used the whole time travel thing, but I'm hoping it was a once-off to set the stage and move them into the present. Using time-travel is like a death sentence for any tv show/movie in my opinion.

[greenamp]

Originally Posted by BRussell 

I watched the season premiere free iTunes download. Not bad.

You can watch them all free on Fox.com. Quality is decent.

[Eug]

Summer Glau's acting sucks. That said, I still like Summer Glau in the show.

[Gankdawg]

Originally Posted by Cipher13 

I've seen up to episode 4, and have been pleasantly surprised. I didn't expect it to be any good at all but it hasn't been bad so far... Summer Glau helps with that.

It is what it is -- and that's not a summer blockbuster movie with a gazillion dollar budget. I, too, have been pleasantly suprised.

[RAILhead]

I like it. The fast forward didn't bother me much, and I thought it was good to make it more contemporary.

I got a kick out of the 888 jumping when the cell phone vibrated. Oh, and I loved the line "I call 9mm."

[Gankdawg]

Originally Posted by RAILhead 

Oh, and I loved the line "I call .22."

She called 9mm. Sarah called shotgun.

[RAILhead]

Dang, you beat me to my edit -- I knew that didn't look right when I typed it! I left the page and was like, why would she want a .22? Squirrels?

[Gankdawg]

Originally Posted by RAILhead 

Dang, you beat me to my edit -- I knew that didn't look right when I typed it! I left the page and was like, why would she want a .22? Squirrels?

lol

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by Gankdawg 

She called 9mm. Sarah called shotgun.

Um, John called shotgun?

[Gankdawg]

John was driving.

[greenamp]

I think Summer is doing a decent job in the role. My suspicions are that her quirky acting fits somehow into what type of Terminator robot she is, as in, not a reprogramed job but one built from scratch by future John, possibly modeled after a wife or lover. There seems to be subtle foreshadowing that she is differently self aware than the others.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by Gankdawg 

John was driving.

Not in the one I saw. Sarah picked them both up from school for a "field trip" to chase the armored car. Why would John be driving, he didn't even know where they were going?

[The Godfather]

I never miss it. I can't have enough robots on TV, and Cameron is easy on the eyes but more importantly I am a fan of the whole Terminator story.

[The Godfather]

Originally Posted by greenamp 

You can watch them all free on Fox.com. Quality is decent.

The resolution is 1130x640 to be more precise. It is a feat for a Flash video decoder.

[greenamp]

Originally Posted by The Godfather 

The resolution is 1130x640 to be more precise. It is a feat for a Flash video decoder.

And it seems to go lower or higher depending on the feed to keep the stream continuous.

[Cold Warrior]

I liked the pilot episode. I've somehow managed to miss the others, but I'll catch up.

[Oversoul]

The series has been surprisingly good so far!

Summer Glau has her share of eerie indifference and butt-kicking moments (a la River Tam) and quirky android-like misbehavior (a la Trek's Data) that's very fun to watch. Lena Headey is fine enough, a bit overly motherly, but definitely no Linda Hamilton. And the actor who plays John has upped his performance from the cheerleader's muggle sidekick in Heroes, but he's still too much of a whiny kid and I'm not seeing a future leader of humanity in him just yet (although this last week's episode made good progress in character development).

 

I also like the concept of future John having sent back resistance fighters throughout time to plant devices, offer help, and carry out missions. And conversely SkyNet doing the same. I can see it getting a bit contrived and offering up deus ex machina or terminator-of-the-week stories, but it could also lead to some grander plan/struggle for the show.

And how dense is the FBI agent? He has all these clues that don't add up unless he buys Sarah Connor's story about robots from the future, which he refuses to do! Ten years ago, he had a classroom full of eyewitnesses state that a man with an exposed robotic leg shot up the school. After this week, he has a terminator's robotic hand in his possession. When is he going to get it?

Next week -- a look at the future! And SkyNet gunships!

I love the genre, but Terminator is definitely fluff sci-fi that's fun but can't be taken too seriously. As with the rest of the Terminator series, the writers play very loose with temporal mechanics so don't go into the show trying figure out any linear continuity because the whole premise of the show is a paradox. The fast-forward is really the least of the show's problems.

[SirCastor]

I've been watching the series. I still really don't know how I feel about it. I'm not hooked (like I was for instance with BattleStar Galactica), but I've shelled out $6 so far (and $2 more today for the next ep.) so I'm not giving up on it quite yet.

 

I loved the Time travel concept to bring them into present day.

Glau's terminator is... interesting. I think first episode showed that she very much can act, but it seems like it's been dialed down a bit since then.

[kelso]

I love the series. I was quite surprised. It helps that the girl terminator is hot.

[starman]

It's a stupid premise. We know what happens in it. I watched the first 15 minutes of the pilot and rolled my eyes and didn't keep up with it.

Seriously, how many times do they have to keep sending Terminators back? These things can kill millions of people but they can't kill Sarah or John Connor?

Why not go back in time earlier? I mean, they know how to find her. Leave a message for the future on where she lives, kill her when she's like 5 years old.

So dumb. Time travel premises have way too many holes for their own good.

EDIT: Also, in the original T2 story (which was storyboarded, but not filmed), they send back the good Arnie and then destroy the time machine. So again, the premise is dumb. The whole point about T2 is that it was THE END.

And no, I never saw T3.

[Oversoul]

Well, when you put it that way, they really should have stopped at the original Terminator movie. It would have made for a nice closed temporal causality loop and every sequel just further confuses the timeline beyond reason. Same with this show. I hate bad time travel stories, but like I said, it's fluff -- don't think too seriously about it.

[Eug]

I thought T3 was pretty much on par with T2 overall.

T2 always felt to me to really be about the new fangled liquid special effect primarily.

Yeah, the first one was the definitive one, and the best.

[ort888]

The original is the best. A classic. The second movie was a fun, mindless action movie that crapped on everything they did in the first movie.

The third was terrible and the two episodes of the TV show I saw were a step below that.

[Cipher13]

Originally Posted by starman 

It's a stupid premise. We know what happens in it. I watched the first 15 minutes of the pilot and rolled my eyes and didn't keep up with it.

Seriously, how many times do they have to keep sending Terminators back? These things can kill millions of people but they can't kill Sarah or John Connor?

Why not go back in time earlier? I mean, they know how to find her. Leave a message for the future on where she lives, kill her when she's like 5 years old.

So dumb. Time travel premises have way too many holes for their own good.

EDIT: Also, in the original T2 story (which was storyboarded, but not filmed), they send back the good Arnie and then destroy the time machine. So again, the premise is dumb. The whole point about T2 is that it was THE END.

And no, I never saw T3.

Yes, the premise is dumb, and the entire point of T3, as terrible as it was, was to illustrate that nothing they did could avert the disaster.

The fact of the matter, though, is that this TV show is supposed to be entertaining - and it is.

Stop taking it so seriously.

Oh, and IMO, T2 > T1.

[andi*pandi]

I'm giving it a chance.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by starman 

Seriously, how many times do they have to keep sending Terminators back? These things can kill millions of people but they can't kill Sarah or John Connor?

You mean an army of them with air (and presumably space) superiority and heavy artillery and who don't have to "fit in" can kill millions of people... Remember SkyNet doesn't have to fight the human military, SkyNet is the human military. If the terminators sent back are conspicuous enough to arouse the military before it changes sides, it would be a totally different game than what happened on Judgement Day.

Why not go back in time earlier? I mean, they know how to find her. Leave a message for the future on where she lives, kill her when she's like 5 years old.

The ability to initiate a time travel from the future battlefield environment is a convenient and plausible black box. In the first movie they made out like they were lucky enough just to get one sent back. So they can't necessarily coordinate dual missions, even if they do manage to send another one later due to changing conditions. They can't plan in advance.

So dumb. Time travel premises have way too many holes for their own good.

EDIT: Also, in the original T2 story (which was storyboarded, but not filmed), they send back the good Arnie and then destroy the time machine. So again, the premise is dumb. The whole point about T2 is that it was THE END.

You can't complain about dumb premises without addressing about the whole "it has to be wrapped in living tissue" prank. As with all SciFi, you have to accept the initial premise and not be so uptight.

[Gankdawg]

Originally Posted by Cipher13 

Oh, and IMO, T2 > T1.

QFT. Also, IMO, Edward Furlong did a horrible acting job.

[greenamp]

There have been some inconsistencies with what some consider cannon but I've never taken the Terminator story seriously enough to really be bothered by it. The fact is the movie story was written as an action sci-fi and doesn't have a huge premise set in stone anyway.

I like how the series is taking the approach of establishing detailed story lines within the context of the more general lines that have been laid out by the movies. There is a lot there to be expounded on, and they seem to be spending a good deal of attention on establishing concrete plot lines right now.

My only gripe at first was that Sarah Conner seemed far too motherly and not tough enough. But the last episode solved that some. And they are building John in to the role of humanity's leader. Right now he very much seems like a 15yo.

Concerning Summer's acting I think the fact that some are getting a bad impression of it in her role as a Terminator is proof that she is doing a great job with it. It (her) should seem almost quirky and false at times because it is a robot attempting to act more human like old Data in trek. But Data was more of an illusion IMO b/c Spiner had the marionette puppet thing going with him. An AI robot doesn't have to act like that and can be fluid.

If Fox doesn't screw it up this will be a great series.

[Dakar the Fourth]

I haven't watched the show, but are they featuring Terminator robots every episode?

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Dakar the Fourth 

I haven't watched the show, but are they featuring Terminator robots every episode?

Yes.

[Dakar the Fourth]

Alright, I gather from your post that one of the main characters is a robot?

Let me rephrase: Are they featuring the skeletal Terminator robots every episode?

[Cold Warrior]

Originally Posted by Dakar the Fourth 

I haven't watched the show, but are they featuring Terminator robots every episode?

Originally Posted by Eug 

Yes.

Early on I'd read they wanted to avoid Terminator-of-the-Week. Hopefully they'll get around to it. It's probably an ok theme for the first half or 2/3 of a season, but it'll get old.

[Oversoul]

The terminators are flesh, although there are flashes of the endo-skeletal terminators here and there. The series has been pretty good about laying the technical backstory for how terminators are eventually built, with subplots involving their AI (the Turk), endo-skeletal material (coltan), and flesh (whatever that goop was).

[Eug]

This series comes across as somewhat low budget. I expect them to avoid the full-on skeleterminators as much as possible.

Lots of human-actors-with-a-bit-of-fake-metallic-parts-showing-after-an-accident though.

[Dakar the Fourth]

Originally Posted by Eug 

This series comes across as somewhat low budget. I expect them to avoid the full-on skeleterminators as much as possible.

That's probably for the best.

My main objection (aside from beating the terminators to the ground as a plot device much like star trek did with the borg) is the general feeling that events in T and to a lesser degree, T2 came off as isolated events, where as a show dealing with Terminators on a weekly basis will probably have loads of evidence/witnesses piling up.

Yeah, I realize I might be being a little to critical here. Everything was ok before T3, though.

[Oversoul]

This show completely ignores T3. Probably for the best.

[RAILhead]

Originally Posted by Dakar the Fourth 

a show dealing with Terminators on a weekly basis will probably have loads of evidence/witnesses piling up.

I think this is why they're working on characters like Cromartie.

[greenamp]

Originally Posted by RAILhead 

I think this is why they're working on characters like Cromartie.

Yeah I think they gave him a name b/c he will be a more permanent fixture.

[Uncle Skeleton]

To make it clear, they are not facing a new terminator every week that gets killed at the end of the show. So far they've met 2, one of which didn't even recognize them because his mission was something different. They're doing lots of good storytelling other than robot-run-and-hide, such as trying to find the people who later invent terminator-related technologies, and following the somewhat Mulder-like FBI agent who's trying to interpret those very evidences/witnesses that are piling up. I think it's being very well done.

[Dakar the Fourth]

Ok. Thanks guys. Sounds like they're avoiding the more obvious mistakes.

[Shaddim]

Actually, they've met 3.

 

The T-888 that was shutdown last night, the one that was hoarding coltan (Carter), and Cromartie/Ellison.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Oh yeah, thanks

[olePigeon]

I give it 1 season before FOX cancels it and fills the spot with a reality TV show.

[Shaddim]

I'm just wondering when John is going to decide to give Cameron a "tune-up".

[imitchellg5]

I actually love this TV series, and that's coming from someone who rarely gets engaged in TV shows. I really enjoy it.

[SirCastor]

I just watched Queen's Gambit this afternoon. I'm in for the series.

[Oversoul]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

I give it 1 season before FOX cancels it and fills the spot with a reality TV show.

Quite possibly. Scifi doesn't have a good record on Fox: Alien Nation, Space: Above and Beyond, Dark Angel, Firefly, et al.

On the other hand, Judgment Day has been reset to 2011. They're in 2007 now. Are they hoping to set up a 4-5 season series?

[greenamp]

Good ep.

 

In the flash forward (future scenes), how did Derrick Reese know immediately that the Cameron Terminator was a machine upon seeing her?