<![CDATA[io9: The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]> http://cache.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png <![CDATA[io9: The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]> http://io9.com/tag/the sarah connor chronicles http://io9.com/tag/the sarah connor chronicles <![CDATA[ Caption this Photo to Win A Cyborg-Sized Load Of Terminator Gear ]]> The two-hour season finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles airs tonight on Fox, starting at 8pm (so set those clocks early, folks) and we're giving away a giant chunk of swag from the show. See the photo above of John and Cameron sitting at the table? All you have to do is come up with a funny caption. You can try to come up with a deeply moving caption if you want, but it'll probably be easier to come up with something funny than something that will make us re-think out lives. What will you win?

TermySwag.jpg We've got Terminator shirts with silvery writing on the front, military style hats, light-up red glowy bracelets, and Terminator eye window-clings, and Terminator flashlights that throw cool LED logos of the show into dark areas.

Simply submit your caption in the comments below, and you're officially entered. Be as long or as brief as you want, but above all try to be funny. Heck, we'd even take a good Firefly or Buffy joke. Just go nuts, folks. The contest will be open until roughly 10:30pm Pacific Time, right after tonight's finale ends on the West Coast. We'll pick a winner at that time and announce it tomorrow. The contest is open to everyone, unless you're living on the moon, and we'll pick up the shipping charges. However, we are not responsible if actual robots from the future start chasing you.

The window clings are massive and aren't pictured in the top photo, but they'll be included. You'll be the envy of all your friends, or you can just open your own Terminator merchandise store. The future is not yet written.

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Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:33:45 PST Kevin Kelly http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=363005&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Sarah Connor Chronicles Wants To Be Battlestar Galactica ]]> Sarah Connor's uppercut to her ex-shrink's jaw was one of the most satisfying moments in last night's episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. That annoying psychiatrist who kept Sarah drugged and locked up in Terminator 2 finally apologizes to her for being such a jack-ass (after he's just torched an FBI agent) and she decks him. Awesome. The rest of the episode was scattershot, but actually pretty great. Click through for a recap, with spoilers.

This definitely felt like another water-treading episode of Sarah Connor, but at least this time around all the characters felt true, and everybody got a nice bit of character development. Sarah and her pet Terminator Cameron are still searching for the dumb chess-playing computer that may possibly become Skynet, and they have to dispose of the last piece of the Terminator that hunted Brian Austin Green a few weeks ago. And Agent Ellison (now with 1000 times more Bible-thumping, which comes from actor Richard T. Jones' real-life Christianity) runs into Sarah's ex-shrink, now a nutcase himself.

I really liked the stuff about Sarah freaking out in the mental institution, and signing away her right to be John's mom. It makes the present-day wound-up-tight Sarah seem more impressive by comparison, and yet you know she's still freaking out somewhere deep down inside. (But maybe with better drugs now.) When John sees the tape of her relinquishing parenthood, Thomas Dekker's acting actually worked for me this time around. And then when he and Sarah re-bond, I could sort of believe they were related and cared for each other, which was a major weakness in earlier episodes.

Meanwhile, Brian Austin Green continues to be a bad houseguest. He messes up Sarah Connor's bedroom. He fucks around with her guns. He's a paranoid maniac who doesn't trust Sarah's ex-boyfriend or her robot pet. He won't eat his pancakes at the breakfast table like a civilized adult. Was he raised in a barn or something?

I was dreading the Terminator-learns-ballet stuff in advance. It was mercifully brief, but pretty much just as awful as I'd feared. We're obviously supposed to think Cameron (Summer Glau) is growing a "soul" because we see her randomly practicing ballet at the end of the episode. And Sarah's voice-over talks about how if the machines learn to appreciate art and beauty the way we do, they can replace us and become us instead of just wiping us out. It all points to a major weakness in this show, which is that it wants to be Battlestar Galactica. It wants Summer Glau to be like a Cylon, with emotions and a conflicted soul, instead of just a machine with a single purpose. Or at least, it wants to toy with the idea that Summer Glau has a soul.

All in all, this episode was way better than I was expecting, and much better than the last couple of episodes. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for next week's final two episodes, airing back to back. Sadly, the show's ratings continue to drop, and Hollywood insiders are saying a second season still isn't a sure thing.

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Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:30:23 PST Charlie Jane Anders http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=361052&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Come With Me If You Want To Get Big Ratings ]]> Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles can breathe an Arnold-less sigh of relief. The first half of their premiere scored 18 million viewers last night, giving it the best opening night of any new show in three years. More good ratings may be ahead: The second part of the premiere tonight has the advantage of not going up against a new episode of Heroes.

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Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:00:52 PST Kevin Kelly http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=344662&view=rss&microfeed=true