Sex With A Robot – Summer Glau As Terminator

I wouldn’t call myself a total fan of the televised series Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles, but I have faithfully watched most of the episodes spanning its last two seasons.

The problem with the show is that its producers were forced to switch from the cliff-hanger saga format of the first season, to a more standalone or episodic format for the second. I found much of latter season’s content boring and non-crucial to the main story arc, which greatly dampened my initial excitement for the show.

Does anyone remember the pilot episode? The terminator school teacher digging thru the flesh of his leg to get access to his handgun? That kind of badass TV show is what we lost here.

Concerning season two’s finale, one point of interest that the show finally gets around to is the obvious sexual tension between teenage John Connor and his smokin’ fembot bodyguard. Although often referred to as siblings in the storyline (to disguise their identities from outsiders), many implicit hints are dropped that either or both characters have feelings for each other.

This moment is captured in a preposterous scene where the android asks John to climb on top of her — while she’s half-naked in bed — to inspect some of her hardware. Uh-huh. The scene ends with John failing to get his floppy disc into her disc slot. Or something like that.

Filling the cast’s roster with Lena Headey, Shirley Manson, Stephanie Jacobsen and other sexy actresses, reveals the producers’ ostensible approach to attract a larger audience – sex appeal. In fact, I bet many followers of the show simply tune in just to catch another glimpse of Summer Glau in her underwear. And hey, I’m all for seeing Summer Glau in her panties, but it’s a shame that they’re now ignoring the story’s original draw: violence and sci-fi.

And where did the comedy go? Does anyone remember Cameron being called a bitch-whore in the girl’s washroom in high school? These hilarious terminator moments have seemingly disappeared from the show. Perhaps they lost some of their better writers mid-way thru.

So back to season two’s finale…

Without giving away any spoilers, I’ll just say that it ends with a sudden shift of events, no doubt fueling anticipation for a third season. But I won’t empathize if the show eventually gets shit-canned. (update: it has) In my opinion, they simply lost what good they had in the series, with the exception of maintaining a sexy cast. But even then, these one-dimensional characters do little more than just read out their simple lines, teasing us with sex, presumably because the show’s guns, ammo and CGI budget got slashed with the rest of economy.

Get full seasons of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon.