Terminator fans can give out a little cheer as Syfy has picked up the rights to air all 31 episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Craig Engler, a senior executive at Syfy said on his twitter (@Syfy) that the network will begin airing the episodes on Thursday, April 7, 2011.
The Sarah Connor Chronicles starred Lena Heady (300, and the upcoming HBO fantasy Game of Thrones) as Sarah Connor; Thomas Dekker (Kaboom) as John Conner who continue the struggle against the relentless killing Terminator machines. A Terminator model T-888 AKA Cromartie/John Henry (Garrett Dillahunt, Raising Hope) is sent back to present time to continue where the T-1000 failed. Summer Glau (The Cape) was then hot off Serenity and The 4400 and was cast as Cameron a re-programmed Terminator sent from the future to help Sarah and John.
Brian Austin Green’s career was revived as Derek Reese, Kyle’s brother, and John’s right hand man in the Resistance who had also been sent from the future. One of the most creative castings was the acting debut of Shirley Manson, lead singer of Garbage who played Catherine Weaver, a liquid metal shape-shifting Terminator under the disguise of a high-tech CEO who funded artificial intelligence research and reverse-engineered Terminators to fight Skynet technology but did not reveal her allegiance to the Resistance or otherwise.
The beauty of this show was that it was the one true production that felt like a natural progression from Terminator and T:2 Judgement Day, you know the good ones. Showrunner Josh Friedman was loved by fans for his gritty take, who understood the need for a dark, morose tone, and nurtured the characters James Cameron created in brave and logical directions. Others were frustrated at the slow pace of the show and lack of action, but to those people, I simply say, “Were you happy with T3: Rise of the Machines and Terminator: Salvation?” I swear, there’s just no love for good, long form dramas with action tastefully worked in–at least on network television.
The ratings didn’t carry over from the first season into two, (Season 1 finale: 11.4 million viewers to Season 2 finale 5.37 million) and even though cable would have embraced those final numbers, they were too small for FOX. It’s too bad Friedman couldn’t find a way to time travel to 2008 and get TSCC to initially launch at Syfy, perhaps then we’d still be enjoying new episodes in the present day.
