Terminator: TSCC Ratings Pick Up, As Does The Plot

So I’ve done several posts regarding Fox’sTerminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles this past year and this one may or may not be my final piece on it (we’ll see when the finale comes).  The big question, though, has still yet to be answered conclusively: Will it be a Season Finale or a Series Finale?  Tvbythenumbers.com have already stated their own beliefs of the show’s fate.  I won’t deny, the numbers haven’t been great, but for the moment they seemed to have stabilized — sadly, they’ve only seemed to stabilize at around 3.5 million viewers.  You see, two weeks ago the show “crashed down” to 2.9 million viewers and the prospects only seemed to indicate it was still going to get worse.  My personal belief?

Watchmen.

The ratings crash occurred on the same day that Zack Snyder’s adaptation premiered on the big screen.  And then, one week later, the ratings rose back up to normal.  To me it’s not that far-fetched to think that the Watchmen audience and the TSCC audience are one in the same — both are in the sci-fi (or should I say SyFy?) genre, both deal with a potential nuclear holocaust, and yada-yada, you get the point.  These are only my beliefs, though.

Anyway, I suppose the ratings increase could also be due Summer Glau’s guest spot (where she played herself) on the CBS sitcom, The Big Bang Theory.  Who knows?  But as I said, the ratings have picked up, and as the title of this thing indicates as well, so has the show’s plot.  Some have complained that the show seemed to have slowed down this season, and that there were too many “Terminator-of-the-week” episodes.  Everyone has their niche, but I’ve found that I quite enjoyed each episode this season and to me it seems the show really found its voice this year: intelligent and introspective.  But for the enthusiasts that maintain that the show needs more action (and I won’t completely argue against that), you’re time seems to have arrived.  At the conclusion of the last week’s episode, “Today Is The Day, Part 1,” the viewers were given a more interesting, in-depth look at the future that Jesse arrived from, and watched sadly as John apologized to his girlfriend, Riley, now deceased.  The episode also saw the Connors preparing to skip town as they created a quick cover for Riley’s death, just enough to provide them with a day or so head start.  Meanwhile, Agent Ellison MUST be starting to suspect something is awry with his new boss, Catherine Weaver — her reactions to John Henry are becoming too odd and disturbing not to!

And so the story steadily builds now.  We know that there are two more deaths to come and at some point Weaver and the Connors will have to cross paths.  With only four or five episodes left I expect plot twists galore!  Could the ratings continue to rise?  Sure.  Absolutely.  Maybe that’s wishful thinking but, as I said, the story is picking up, starting to flow faster now, and as there’s only a handful of episodes left, it can only increase more and more.

What if, some may ask, the show doesn’t get picked up for a third season, will this season conclude everything properly?  Short answer, no.  As is showrunner Josh Friedman’s belief, and I tend to agree, that can’t be what the viewer really wants — tying everything up into a perfect little bow just to be on the safe side?  Come now, that’s for cowards.  The odds are against the show, to be sure, but then they always have been; the show’s had more than its share of bad luck.  A writer’s strike forcing it to cut its episodes substantially down (Fox cut the original season to 13 episodes to try and be safe with the impending WGA strike but in the end only 9 were able to be filmed).  As the second season premiered, while the show was still in need of time to garner it’s audience, it was placed in the highly competitive Monday night slot where it struggled and struggled until finally a line was tossed and the back nine episodes were finally ordered.  By this time, though, much of the audience had lost the show in all the competition and as the show moved to Friday nights to accompany the premiere of Dollhouse, well, how many people do you think actually watch TV on a Friday anyway.  Both shows are lucky to have maintained what they have, especially TSCC after all the kicking around it’s received.  (But the DVR numbers just get better and better each week, by the way).

And yet the show is still here, and it’s still as good as it always was, and it can only get better from here.  So this Friday night, as your heads and your wallets continue to recover from your St. Patty’s Day antics, do remember that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles airs on Fox at 8 P.M. EST — oh, and do stick around for Dollhouse afterwards because from what I hear, this episode has been a long time coming: Prepare for total Mind-Blowing.

And while you’re waiting for all of that, do enjoy this clip (and song), lifted directly from TSCC’s season 2 premiere.  In my opinion: Definitely one of the best TV moments ever.

See you Friday!