The Sarah Connor Chronicles

So the new Terminator TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles did a funny thing with it’s season finale. It forgot that it wasn’t supposed to be a very good show and turned in an amazing and rather poignant season finale.

See, my running joke since the first episode has been “I’m telling myself I like this show because nothing else is on.” Which is a fairly good description of the show. It’s definitely watchable, especially for a huge Terminator fan like myself, but it’s not great in the way TV can be great, and it misses the mark often. But always comes through enough to keep me watching.

Which is why I was surprised to see them go all artistic on me in the climactic scene of the season. Get this: there was rumble between an FBI SWAT team and a terminator set to a Johnny Cash song. And yes it was as wickedly awesome as that sounds. I love, love, love conflicting musical choices and no one ever has the guts to do it, especially on TV.

They also did a time travel thing that I’ve never seen any time-travel show/movie do before which was much more emotional and eerie than I ever would have imagined.

By the final scenes I realized I actually had grown fond of these characters, played by what I had once deemed “television actors.” By the last episode they had finally found their voice, finally found their rhythm and— that’s it. Now the strike-shortened season is over, cliffhanger ending and all, with no word of renewal.

I’m sure season 4 of Battlestar Galactica will be make me forget all about John and Sarah Connor and the cutest killing robot in the history of cute killing robots, but I really do hope it gets picked up. I think they have a good second season in them.