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‘Sarah Connor Chronicles’ fills void, ‘24’ still sorely missed

“Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” is, by a good margin, the best new show on television. Period.

Well, maybe I should rephrase that. ‘The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ is the only new show on television.

It is true that Fox’s new series, a spinoff from the classic James Cameron directed “Terminator” film franchise, seems to be the only new show on TV today. With the crippling writers’ strike, it won’t be long before your favorite television stations run out of the few shows they have already written, filmed and in the can. After that (or until an agreement is reached), we’ll be forced to deal with a slew of second-rate game shows, talk shows and reality shows, the single bright exception being this: the happenings between “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and the “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.”

Now, I’m a “24” fan. A big one. In fact, the ongoing historical documentary charting the heroic actions of Jack Bauer and his CTU cohorts is about the only program I follow religiously. So you can imagine, then, that the prospect of a spring semester without my weekly fix was, for me, unsettling to say the least. Stupid strike.
p. But then I caught the pilot of Sarah Connor’s time traveling, cyborg battling ‘Chronicles’ last weekend and had a reaction to the strike I hadn’t before. Though I still miss “24,” I couldn’t help but admit that had there never been a strike, and had “24” been completed and aired in January, I would never have had the chance to follow the ‘Terminator’ series — and what a horrible prospect that would have been.

Frankly, “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” is awesome. I’ve proven to myself that I only have time for one show week-in, week-out, and if it were “24” there would sadly be no ‘Terminator.’

And just what makes ‘The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ so captivating? Some argue that, since it’s all we’ve got, we’ve lowered our standards. I, however, would argue a different point. The show rocks because we all already love the “Terminator” story. What better way to break a television slump than by reintroducing an old standard?

After the success of ‘Terminator 3,’ it’s been proven that 21st-century special effects and a female terminator can sell just as well as the series’ original installments, so the move to television was a no-brainer. In fact, it was immediately apparent during the pilot that the show was planning on capitalizing on the success of ‘Terminator 3’ by keeping with the female terminator idea, this time played by Summer Glau (“Firefly”) as a young, hip, hot terminator named Cameron.

We all know why ‘Terminator 3’ introduced the idea of a female terminator. Sure, there’s the femme fatale notion, that a sexy woman — one that’s made of indestructible metal — can do much more damage than a beefy guy. But let’s all be honest — male fans were sick of seeing dudes go naked through the time portal. Sex sells, and the prospect of a female terminator showing up in the buff sells. ‘Chronicles’ took the exact same idea, and used it within the pilot’s first 15 minutes. Sarah Connor, John Connor and Cameron the female wonder go through a time portal for some classy, nude time-traveling action.

Sex also sells with the new, younger incarnation of Sarah Connor, played by Lena Headey. You probably remember Headey from her gratuitous, slow-motion sex scene in “300” as Leonidas’ queen.

So what more could a guy want from a primetime, strike-time, mid-season rebound epic? There’s certainly action — a shotgun-to-the-face filled battle with the evil terminator opens the series with a bang (literally). And there’s certainly sex — see above paragraphs. I suppose there’s a certain Jack-Bauer-less quality that takes some getting used to, but the world isn’t perfect. I never thought I’d say it, but, in a way, I’m content. Thank you, Fox.

Conor admits he has a solid man crush on Jack Bauer, but insists it’s “purely professional.”