Sarah Connor uses a motorcycle as a projectile weapon in this great set piece from last night's Sarah Connor Chronicles. Compare that with this lame motorcycle-fu clip from the last Bionic Woman, where the whole sequence is just a set-up for a dumb PMS joke. It's a good reminder that even though Sarah Connor once again sobs about her impending nervous breakdown, Connor is still a million times better than the alternative. More reasons why after the jump.
- Summer Glau is a better foil than Katee Sackhoff. Both Bionic Woman and Chronicles give our hero a crazy-ish cyberwoman to bounce off. But Sarah Connor and her pet Terminator are developing an awesome buddy-movie vibe that will be fun to watch. They can play good-cop, bad-cop, except that Glau really is prepared to shoot the criminals that Headey only wants to intimidate. (Like last night's fake-ID crime czar.) The scene last night where Headey pretends to be Glau's stepmom to get out of a sticky cop situation was priceless.
Sackhoff's crazy lady version of the bionic woman was the best thing about Bionic Woman, but she had no chemistry with star Michelle Ryan. And every time Sackhoff appeared, the message was clear: bro's before ho's. Jaime Sommer is way better off letting the boys tell her what to do than hanging out with other cybernetically enhanced women.
- Sarah Connor is a good mom. Okay, we maybe could have done without the bit where Sarah tells John where to find the turkey in the fridge. It felt like the show was telling us to go make ourselves a sandwich. But we'd way rather have those unsubtle moments (like the "Sarah used to read Wizard of Oz to John" speech) than Bionic Woman's constant Jaime-is-an-incompetent-surrogate-mom subplot. If we had to sit through one more scene where Jaime apologizes for letting sis down, we'd be rooting for the terrorists.
- Sarah Connor calls the shots. We see her being competent and making smart decisions, like the motorcycle thing and figuring out that Enrique is a snitch. And the scene where Glau tells Headey that she's the "best fighter," bar none got me kind of choked up. Sarah doesn't need the dumb suits at the Berkut Group stiffening her spine and aiming her at the bad guys.
Of course, there are some early warning signs. John Connor is a jackass, with his sneaking out to the mall to use unsecured computers and visit his crazy ex-step-dad. Headey's voiceovers are getting up there with Mohinder's on
Heroes for the "most annoying narrator" sweepstakes. But still, if there had to be only one girls-and-robots show on TV right now, we could do a lot worse than this one.
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Jan 15, 2008 12:20 PM
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