Why the World Needs Sarah Connor

SET-UP:

So by now, anyone who keeps even the most sporadic tabs on television ratings probably knows about the poor ratings this television season has brought — and they’ve probably heard even more about it in regards to FOX’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

And by now the ratings have leveled off to just about five and half million viewers a week.  I suppose that isn’t House, American Idol, or Dancing with the Stars numbers, but then again, what is?  And given that TSCC has been placed on a Monday time-slot up against Monday Night Football, quite frankly, five and half million isn’t that bad.  Especially given that the show that follows it, Prison Break, has had three solid seasons to build its fan-base (TSCC has barely had one) but is currently only doing slightly better than TSCC.  But I think the thing that really drives home how bad this season has been is that one of my other new favorite shows, Pushing Daisies, on its season premiere, was only able to garner six and half million viewers.  That hurts.  PD is a wonderful, beautiful, and just all-around fun show to watch and it was ONLY able to acquire THAT many viewers.  Like TSCC, it deserves better.

And yes, by now the speculation about TSCC in danger of FOX’s big axe (See: Firefly, Arrested Development) has been discussed to death.  Apparently everyone has a ’source’ that’s telling them that such a thing is inevitable…

Perhaps.  Perhaps not.

Truthfully, the ONLY thing anyone really knows is… nothing!  Yes, the numbers are down, but that really isn’t meaning a whole lot this season.  And if FOX or anyone else for that matter did a little more thorough research they’d know that on Amazon.com, TSCC is one of the most popular On Demand episode downloads, usually clocking in in the top ten (as of this posting, it’s at #8).  Now from what I hear, TSCC also does well on iTunes — I’m not an iTunes user, though, so I’ll allow those of you who are to figure that one out for me (if you’d be so kind).  But I will also say that TSCC does very well on sites such as Hulu and Fox.com, where its episodes are usually some of the most popular watched (though Fox.com is kind of a given, I suspect, but Hulu’s still pretty impressive).  So you tell me: how bad is this show really doing?  For a science fiction show that had it’s first season abruptly cut off, ending way back in March, and having waited six months to appear again in a time-slot that should only be reserved for syndicated comedy shows… are the ratings really telling the whole story?

Simply: no.

START:

But this post wasn’t made to be about all that.  It was simply to discuss how current network TV needs a show like TSCC.

Now, this may only be the humble opinion of yours truly, but TSCC is a thinking man’s show.  It’s very introverted… and very bleak!  While other action-oriented shows such as Chuck and Heroes can be watched without requiring much brain activity (and no that’s not an insult) TSCC prefers to focus itself on themes such as faith, hope, and humanity, and allows its action not to be what drives its characters forward, but to be a product of the characters themselves.  Like Battlestar Galactica, TSCC uses its sci-fi plot as a setting only, not a MacGuffin.  It places its characters in these out-of-this-world scenarios and asks them simply: What does it mean to be human?

In its first season, we see one of the show’s characters, John Connor, struggle to maintain a normal life.  He doesn’t see himself as being some future Messiah, he’s just a normal kid… with an ambitious mother.  But as the season progressed we watched as his ‘normal life’ was stripped from his grasp time and time again.  Because of this he becomes a bit whiny (as loads of IMDb posts pointed out again and again), and why shouldn’t he?  He doesn’t want a part of this world — after a lifetime of running around, he just wants to be left alone.  But, at the close of season one and the beginning of season two, one thing is clear: John’s finally letting go of that dream life he yearned for so badly… he’s growing up.  And it now seems that it’s Sarah Connor herself who’ll take the biggest hit because of this… her child is pulling away from her.

And then there’s Cameron… ah, Cameron.  First season she was this just this odd protector robot with a questionable past.  Now she’s still very odd, but as we’ve seen, also very deadly.  But what makes her such an interesting character is that it’s never quite clear whether or not she trusts herself now.  Due to her recent chip malfunction, Cam is still not acting 100% herself (if that’s possible).  In the most recent episode (”Allison from Palmdale”) we even catch her staring off into space and taking a bit longer to respond to her protectee(?).  What was she thinking about?  And more important, WHY was she thinking about it?  If Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-101 made us ask ourselves, could a machine “learn the value of human life?” It’s Summer Glau’s Cameron Phillips (or whatever her current last name is) that makes us ask: “Could we ever see a machine as an equal?”

And I believe that it was this last episode itself that really shows why this world needs a show like TSCC.  All who saw it more than likely noticed the episode’s lack of action.  Instead we were given some of Cameron’s origins and the sad, heartbreaking story of a young girl named Alison Young — all played beautifully by Summer Glau I may add (seriously, this girl has some talent… lots).  In a single episode we are flipped back and forth from the future to the present and are presented with the darkest and lightest sides of the cyborg named Cameron.  We watch her cry, and we watch her kill.  And in the end we’re not sure of her motives at all.  Rarely do we see an episode of any TV take so little story and push it so far and give so much.

And the best part?  This wasn’t just some fluke of an episode.  Series creator Josh Friedman himself stated that he finds the biggest joy in writing episodes when the network tells him to hold out on using too much money on some episodes and to write these ’simpler’ kinds of stories.  I believe I agree.  But as Friedman himself stated, the biggest demographic for the show isn’t people who want just the action or just the character drama: they want both.  And in a world where too many viewers are tuning into brain-dead reality shows WAY too often, it’s a show like TSCC that reminds us what true entertainment and creativity is all about.

Catch Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles tomorrow night (Monday, October 6) at 8pm EST.

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