Fox's 'Terminator' to be a killer of a thriller

January 1, 2008
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

If there were a pantheon of brutal, villainous skulls throughout history, the steely head and red eyes of the Terminator would rank right up there with Darth Vader and Dick Cheney. So can a TV show do justice to the classic action films?

My review will come later, before the Jan. 13 debut, but I will say that people watching Fox's "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" will have super duper fun times. For once, a network's hype of World Series ads and promotions underscores how good a show is.

It's in good hands. Lead director David Nutter's impressive resume includes "X-Files," "Nip/Tuck," "Band of Brothers" and "The Sopranos." Writer-producer Josh ("The Black Dahlia") Friedman is enough of a genre lover that he writes a blog called "I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing," named after the Darth Vader line.

He wanted to avoid turning a successful movie franchise into a crap show. In fact, "Sarah Connor" is deep enough to give some gravity to the action.

"A lot of the show is, how do you prosecute a war against a force [of evolved machines] that doesn't value you at all, or value themselves at all?" Friedman said.

"I take it very seriously. How does Sarah raise a son to be the leader of the free world? You can't do it by just teaching him to shoot guns. You have to teach him how to be a man, and how to lead from a moral place."

You hear well-placed moments of literary pop psychology at times. The second episode starts with Sarah (Lena Headey from "300") realizing she and her savior boy John (Thomas Dekker) become harder with each alias, on the run from machines.

"If you spend your life hiding who you are, you might finally end up fooling yourself," she thinks in voiceover narration.

Little moments of levity sprinkle about, just like in the films. One character holds an isotope gun. Another character asks anxiously if it's a nuclear weapon. "Not really," the first character says dryly.

But of course, what sells "Sarah Connor" is action. It's wham-bang stuff. Instead of just having people dodge bullets and punches (which is nicely choreographed), someone unexpectedly throws a sleeping character out of a window.

Instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger as the good Terminator, that role is commanded by sci-fi star Summer Glau. She played the weird, ass-kicking psychic-prodigy River in "Firefly" on TV and then the spinoff movie "Serenity."

Friedman says "Sarah Connor" isn't merely playing into the trend of "Heroes"- and "Lost"-led sci-fi. Rather, the ability to do big special effects on budget makes this a swell time for "Terminator" to go all high-def on you at home.

"As special effects get more affordable, that's one of the reasons that these shows work," he said.

Plus, the genre has been buoyed by "a very rabid fan base on the Internet."

Some of those fans will want to pick apart what at first appears to be a loophole in the "Terminator" timeline. But they should just chill out, check in and enjoy the ride. Trust me.

delfman@suntimes.com