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Yes, there's an official Terminator thread, but official show threads tend to attract people already into a show, and I'm desperate to reach out to anyone who might possibly have been interested in this show but missed the boat. Or fell off at some point. Whatever type of show you're normally interested in, I encourage you to take a look here.
I'll admit that season 1 of Terminator was not spectacular. It was above average, but was basically thrown together during the writer's strike when the executives had no other options. However, with season 2, the show creators have put together a masterful story that succeeds on pretty much every level.
Is it the "best" show? Honestly I'd say it's tied with some other quality stuff out there. "Good" is subjective. But while I enjoy other shows as much as Terminator, none of them viscerally impact me the same way it does, and few of them make me think as much.
• The original Lost and Heroes episodes had good mysteries, but even at their best, they tended to have quantity over quality. Terminator is the opposite. There's about 4 mysteries throughout Season 2 that are skillfully interwoven, with twists showing up just often enough that they really are shocking (whereas with Lost and Heroes I eventually stopped caring when every single episode we got 3 new surprises). And from the looks of it, all of them will be resolved by the season's end.
• Other shows (and movies, and books) have heroes who go up against terrifying odds, so far only Terminator really makes me feel what it must be like to be the only person who can save humanity, and to be utterly alone.
• Other shows have mothers with children, but Terminator is the only one that actually makes me go "Wow, that's what it must feel like to be a mother."
• Other shows have good acting, but Terminator is the only one I've seen where the writers actually rely on that acting to help tell the story instead of having them spell out their feelings all the time.
• Lost and Heroes have time travel, and they both handle it kinda stupidly. Until recently time travel had not been very front and center in Terminator, but within the past few episodes they've demonstrated good use of it for the story, and the few plot holes I thought they were ignoring have turned out to have good explanations. Overall an intelligent use of time travel.
• Few stories period (let alone TV shows) deal with artificial intelligence... well, intelligently. Most sci-fi authors use robots as a literary mirror of humanity without actually exploring how real robots would think and evolve. Terminator handles this excellently.
• Most shows don't have Summer Glau. This one does.
Eonline is having their annual "Save One Show" vote. I'm not sure how much impact this actually has, but it's better than nothing. Voting there is short and simple:
Tomorrow the last episode of the season airs. I don't actually expect anyone here to have a Nielson box (although I'm curious if anyone knows who gets them and why), but the episodes go online on fox.com the day after. Right now you can get the original pilot for free on iTunes and the second half of Season 2 on fox.com (fox.com impacts the ratings more than Hulu does, and the quality is identical).
There are various ways to catch up on the rest of it, with varying degrees of legality. If you like the free pilot, I recommend renting Season 1 on DVD. The first few episodes have a kinda silly subplot but it gets steadily better. As for Season 2 (where the quality jumps up an order of magnitude)... honestly, I'm fine with encouraging piracy here, since it's the only way to watch the first half of Season 2, which is a must before you legally watch the second half at fox.com.
I highly recommend giving this show a try if you haven't seen it yet, whatever your normal inclinations are. And I recommend checking it out as soon as possible, before the bean-counting machines at Fox have made their final verdict.
[ April 10, 2009, 12:24 AM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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Terminator was put onto the friday Kiss of Death slot.
Now I am not saying that it is impossible that Terminator might get picked up for another season but let's put it this way — if God wrote the ultimate television show and it gave you orgasms just by watching it, it would have only about a 50% chance of getting another season if it was played during Terminator's current time slot.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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But... but... Prince of Egypt says there can be Miracles if you Believe!
...
Seriously, while I've made my peace with the possibility/probability it's not coming back, I think the show is good enough that any reasonable effort to improve it's odds is well worth it. It takes less than a minute to fill out the poll, and season 2 is good enough all by itself that you should be watching it regardless of whether you expect it to continue.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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I am a bit more cynical and jaded and I expect based on reports that the decision to cancel the show has already been made and I have an extraordinarily poor estimation of the industry's ability to be conductive to good television in the realm of Terminator, or, say, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, Freaks and Geeks, etc.
I filled out the internet petition and I expect it to have as much impact as I have ever seen an internet petition have!
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I had a friend who filled out a form about everything they watched for a week (and who and what age they were) for Nielson. But it was only a week and was like 6 months ago. I think she said was just randomly called and offered some sort of compensation and said yes.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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quote:Originally posted by brojack17: It started off ok, but got pretty boring for me. Sorry, I'm out.
This season's a huge improvement, yanno!
If you got the time to invest in the backdrop, like, nights where you would just be watching letterman or something, I'd go for it.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I watched season 1, and even came back for season 2, but quickly got bored and dropped the show.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I've seen every episode but I don't think it's a very good show. I watch it for Lena Headey and Summer Glau and, now, Garret Dillahunt. They've had a bunch of crappy episodes, a bunch of crappy acting, more than any television show's fair share of awful writing, but also a steady stream of fair-to-average episodes, and I daresay ONE terrific episode. (Last week's.)
To be honest, I hope it gets canceled so I can stop watching it. And so those actors I really like can move on to do better things.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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I'm the same as MPH and PT. I was really into the first season, but quickly lost interest on the second.
Posts: 1766 | Registered: Feb 2006
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I saw one episode, and as far I can tell, there was a lot of standing around being angsty.
I guess I don't get what the goal is - stay alive? I can see how if that's the only motivation it can get thin. Even the Fugitive needed to look for the one-armed man.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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My parents have a Nielsen Box. AFAIK my Dad filled out a form with them and based on his age, the number of people in the house, and the channels he watched, they selected him. He says he only did it to do his part to inflate PBS' ratings.
Posts: 681 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I didn't know they still had boxes. I figured digital cable and satellite tuners send information back to the provider on what you're watching, and that those distribution channels were probably sufficiently widespread and common to make the boxes unnecessary. Guess not, huh?
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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For me this show is all about the characters - it’s a show about time travel and robots and explosions, but it’s also about family and tragedy, philosophy and responsibility.
WARNING - SPOILERS.
Sarah’s not a great parent, she makes mistakes - in the end, she’s just trying to hold everything, including herself, together for her son. She’s a gun toting waitress who fights off the evil robots and then cooks pancakes for her family. For me, if Buffy was about fighting the demons of young-adulthood, Terminator is about the terrifying responsibility of being a parent.
Miss Weaver has kids too. Her small human daughter knows that Mummy has changed into something strange and terrible.
Whereas Sarah is an emotional, vulnerable human being with a human son she loves and a robot daughter she can‘t understand, Weaver is a robot with a human daughter she barely knows how to touch, and an artificial son she‘s building in their basement. Everything she does is for her son.
John Connor wants to go to school, make out with his girlfriend, have a normal mother he can look after. But he has to fight, has to kill, has give up everything he wants, to become someone both fearfully strong and horribly alone. He can’t stop, or everyone dies.
Once upon a time, Cameron remembers being a real girl. But really she’s just metal and wires, created to destroy. She’s discovered that she is capable of much more, of art and friendship and maybe even love. And yet her programming, her mechanical body, her killer instinct, all hold her back from becoming who she might be, if she just had the chance.
I love the fact that the time travel actually makes sense. The glimpses into the possible future. That the secondary characters all have their own motivations and lives. The way the story actually goes somewhere and provides answers to fundamental questions. The fact that one of the characters has a pet eel.
Why aren’t people watching this show?
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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How important is the show going to be to the Terminator franchise once the new movie comes out? It seems to serve as a filler between movies. That's not a bad role for a TV show to hold. Sometimes fanboys need fed.
I'm not doing my part, but that's because, with the exception of lost which I watch on ABC.com, I have stopped watching TV. That's partly my choice, and because there is not much of an opportunity where I am right now. I wish I could do my part, but I think I would rather get the show on DVD after it's canceled.
Posts: 684 | Registered: Jun 2002
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The show actually is a completely different timeline than the movie. The director was asked about that in an interview and said he would have liked to work more closely with the movie production but the two projects were began in completely different places by different people and that getting they might have tried to organize the two together, it was too late and too complicated.
That said, if there ever was a story where it's OKAY that one version contradicts another, its would be a story explicitly about going back and changing the past (over and over again).
The one thing that IS going to bother me in the movie is that Derek Reese won't exist (to my knowledge anyway). Well, that and there won't be any Summer Glau, but I'll just have to manage.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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There has been a LOT of e-interest over the show as it gets closer to the chopping block. I haven't seen, but is there hopefully something of a bounce in its ratings?
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:I didn't know they still had boxes. I figured digital cable and satellite tuners send information back to the provider on what you're watching, and that those distribution channels were probably sufficiently widespread and common to make the boxes unnecessary. Guess not, huh?
You could still be right. My dad is steadfastly against cable, so I don't know.
Posts: 681 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Originally posted by scifibum: I didn't know they still had boxes. I figured digital cable and satellite tuners send information back to the provider on what you're watching, and that those distribution channels were probably sufficiently widespread and common to make the boxes unnecessary. Guess not, huh?
They also track when people are watching dvds, and presumably they'd keep track of any other similar devices hooked up to the tv.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Wow... I'm so torn. The shows on that list that I absolutely love are:
Dollhouse Kings Life Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
I really like:
Chuck Lie to Me Reaper
And Havah loves Chuck and would be really bummed if it got cancelled.
I don't even know how to choose between the first four. I mean, from what they're saying, Kings and Sarah Connor have virtually no chance. So am I wasting my vote on them? Whereas Dollhouse... this past episode was so amazing. Gah!
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Yeah, there are definitely a lot of shows that don't deserve the fate that befalls them. The factors going into my decision making process are A) how good is the show, period, B) how unique is the show, C) how much help does it need. (Too much help and its not worth it, too little help and I'd rather help out another show)
All the ones in your top 4 are good, but Life gets scratched off my list immediately because when all is said and done, it's a cop show. A well done cop show, but there are other good cop shows that will appear in the future.
Terminator, Kings and Dollhouse are all pretty good and unique. I personally scratch Dollhouse off the List because while it IS a unique story in some ways, it's not unique it what I personally get from the show. There may not be other shows with the same plot, but there will be other shows with the same kinds of mysteries and characters. Plus, Joss will certainly have himself another project if it's cancelled, and hopefully this time he won't tie himself to Fox.
I would not begrudge anyone who votes for Kings. It's the only show of its type I'm currently aware of, and it's very well done. If I wasn't already so emotionally involved with Terminator I might be considering it more. But aside from that, I think Kings needs too much help to be worth it. It's a slow, ponderous show that is only going to appeal to select people, and nothing is suddenly going to change and bring new people in.
Terminator is doing very badly, BUT has a few good things going for it. The last five episodes have gotten extremely good reviews. It didn't happen fast enough to affect the ratings (the 3-dots Sarah arc in the middle of the season kinda screwed them), but word is spreading, and the fanbase is extremely motivated.
Second, Terminator Salvation comes out in a month. I'm hoping they're smart enough to at least cross-promote the Season 2 DVD there. Regardless it's sure to help renew some interest.
From what I gather, Terminator is *currently* winning the vote, but that's largely because its fans were just given the most awesome/ridiculous cliffhanger ending ever, and other shows may make a comeback as their season finales happens and fans get more motivated.
I just purchased the season on iTunes. I'm too scared to wait until the DVD comes out. I'm also starting to leave fox.com on in the background playing episodes, although I'm not sure if there's a diminishing return there and/or a point at which I get flagged for ad fraud.
[ April 13, 2009, 11:09 AM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
I'd add to Bella Bee's list the subplot with Ellison, who always wanted to have children and was deprived of them in a way I don't normally think many men experience. I'm actually as interested in an ongoing story of Ellison, Sarah and Savannah as I am in John going to the future. While Ellison could not more be a husband to Sarah than Cameron could be a daughter, I think their connection will persist. They may even have to go underground with Savannah after all that happened recently. And remember those letters Weaver had prepared in case she needed to cover up Ellison's death? And maybe the Turk would come along to keep playing with Savannah. That would be crazy. There's tons of sci fi potential just in figuring out whose "soul", if any, now occupies the hardware. I think it was interesting how the writers provided a new inside man to replace the role Ellison used to fill.
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