'Chronicles' Goes for Survival

By LillyKat
PTR Senior Staff Writer

The fight to save the world resumed in a new time slot this past Friday evening.

Make that Friday the 13th.

When Jason Voorhees returned once again to the big screen to torture Crystal Lake campers, and Summer Glau was forced to do her best hostess impression (alongside Dollhouse's Eliza Dushku) in between Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles commercials to convince us why we should continue to watch the show.

Bad omen?

Hmmmmm.

Let it be said yours truly doesn't need any convincing. Neither do the rest of us who have truly enjoyed T:SCC since its inception (even with Season 2 being a little ... different). And FOX knew exactly what they were doing when they picked The Summer and The Dushku to do the promo-convincing schtick.

That said, the tactic comes off a little desperate. As such, I'm not feeling all that secure that the show will make it to a third season no matter how many people at FOX are yapping it up and trying to convince us that Friday is the new night to stay home and watch the tube.

(Right ... sure ... just like when CBS told us Touched By An Angel would survive being moved to Saturday at 8 p.m. - which is, possibly, the only other WORSE time slot on the television landscape).

In any event, let me go on the record right now to say that if our beloved T:SCC does NOT make it, I hope this back nine slate of episodes will give us something to think about.

And some closure.

So what happened Friday?

Anyone watching Grey's Anatomy (is anyone?) will not appreciate the dead lover hallucination thing that consumed most of our ep, with Sarah being guided-helped-reassured-whatever by the ghost of none other than Kyle Reese (you know, John's dad - who was played so brilliantly back in the first film by the awesome Michael Biehn).

Problem is, something about THIS version of Kyle Reese played a little flat and boring. I was hardly convinced that Sarah loved this guy more than life itself, and as such, found there was zero-zilch-nada chemistry between either character or actor.

Now, I will say I appreciated how Kyle kept telling Sarah to lighten up and let the doc (can we keep her?) actually help get the bullet out of her leg (which has been there since December, when we recall Sarah was left for dead after getting ambushed investigating yet another secret shack of Skynet out in the middle of the desert). Aside from that, the storyline didn't do much for me.

Something else that didn't do much for me is the fact that Reilly IS going to live after her attempted suicide. Blech. She and Jessie just need to head back to the future and leave us the heck alone.

John is still moping around doing nothing.

And Cam is just babysitting John. Seriously, she did NOTHING in this ep. Whenever that happens, it's not a good thing.

Best part of the ep?

Garret Dillahunt as John Henry, playing with the robot toys like a sci-fi nerd geek child.

Awww.

We love Garret. We have already confessed this. And when he gets up to demonstrate why the ball and socket joints on a plastic toy are more efficient that that which makes up our human bodies ... too.darn.cute.

Much like Jennifer Carpenter saved the third season of Dexter for me, Garret's John Henry is almost saving THIS show for me. The tit-for-tat between he, Agent Ellison and the Shirley-meister is curious and intriguing. It's like a time bomb waiting to go off - especially this week, when he does a little TOO much research on the internet to reveal one of Skynet's secret ... how should we say ... "locations."

Even better part of the ep?

The Shirley-meister doing her best Robert Patrick/T-1000 impression to annihilate the remains of the Skynet shack in the desert.

The fight to save the world (and arguably the show) continues.

New episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles air Fridays at 8 p.m. on FOX. You can also watch full episodes online. Visit the Official Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Web site to catch up (or re-watch!)