We Have the Technology...

.... therefore we can download tv shows before they air. Which is why, loyal reader, today you can have reviews of the pilots for The Bionic Woman and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
The Bionic Woman first. Basic premise: Bird off Eastenders is seeing older bloke and expecting his baby. She is also raising with her 16 year old deaf sister. Older bloke happens to work in big scary underground base where they make bionic people. The last one (maybe the first, not totally confirmed), who is played by Katee Sackhoff from Galactica, did a bunk and is now out for revenge. I think. Despite being all super powered now n shit. You'd think shed be grateful. Anyhoo, she drives a truck into bird from Eastenders and Older blokes car .... and the only way to save her is ... yep, make her bionic. We then have a few obligatory scenes of her adjusting to her new bionics, escaping from underground base that looks remarkably like some of the SGC, on the run .. blah blah blah... leading to a big showdown with Bad Bionic Girl. Of course, she chooses to be free and go back to her life, Bad Bionic is still on the run and that's now the premise for the series.
If that all sounds a tad rushed, then it does a good job of getting across the tone of this show. Its a 45 min episode and needed to be a full 90 min pilot. However, I do think this is going to make a cracking series. The FX weren't finished in this version ... just as well as they were risible for the most part. Jamie Summers running alongside a car was possibly one of the funniest things I have seen this year .. but i am sure that will be tidied up. The performances are sound and the script, aside from the aforementioned pacing issue, seems solid enough. Looking forward to more from this.
Which isn't something I can say about The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Imagine T2 boiled down to a 43 mins episode, remove the cool CG morphing effect, and this is pretty much what you get. We open in 1999 with a dream sequence - its a dead giveaway when the Skynet attack starts, wiping out a building and a Terminator but leaves Sarah & John unscathed. We also know its 1999 by the small snippets of late 90's music they continually chuck at us, while digging us in the ribs and winking, 1999! Remember what was on the radio in 1999? We then have a bit of back story that I am hoping and praying forms the backbone of the series, even if its tossed aside in the pilot - Sarah has been on her mission to kill those who will eventually cause Skynet to happen, she is on the run from the FBI and such like who want to lock her up in the nuthouse for life. Sadly, we don't really pursue this but instead go for a quick show of her constant moving on by way of leaving current fella, despite Johns protests. Soon, we are in new town, new school ... but Terminators and the cops are closing in. Enter geeky schoolgirl in Johns new school. Its Summer Glau from Firefly/Serenity and The 4400, so we know she isn't just some squeeze of the week ... no, she is a Terminator sent to protect John. Some 12 years before the events of Rise of the Machines were everyone seemed so shocked to see a female Terminator ... but i am sure its not important. Johns first day in the new school also brings a new teacher ... who seems very intent on taking the register .. surely he cant be .. what .. he is a Terminator? Well, fuck me I didn't see that coming! Cue big face off betwixt good and bad Terminators ... resulting in John, Sarah and Terminator flipping forward in time to 2007. And we know what happens when Terminators travel in time ... they get nekkid. Yep, so that an older woman, a younger one and a hot teen for the male admirers ... that ticks most boxes, yes? Well, no .. it didn't tick mine frankly. I bet my mate Nabusan would start drooling though .....
And that's where it leaves them. The biggest issue I have with this show is what point can there be to it? We have seen a 20 something John Connor in Rise of the Machines. We know the war doesn't kick off yet, we know Sarah will die at some point, but he wont. The good Terminator will have to get terminated too, as she ain't around by the later years either. Its the same as Enterprise and this dumb fuck of a Trek Movie prequel they are planning. You could actually get a good drama out of the scenario, even though the ultimate ending is a given ... but generally the industry and particularly the big studios, just wont take those kind of risks. So they water it down and give us shoddy bollocks instead. Get James Moran, Steven Moffatt and Paul Cornell in there - give it some real welly! Otherwise, this looks to be for die hard Terminator fans only.