Mania Grade: B
Maniac Grade: C+
39 Comments | Add
Rate & Share:
Related Links:
Info:
- TV Series: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
- Episode: Samson and Delilah
- Starring: Summer Glau (Cameron Phillips), Thomas Dekker (John Connor), Brian Austin Green (Derek Reese), Richard T. Jones (Agent James Ellison), Garret Dillahunt (Cromartie), Shirley Manson (Catherine Weaver), Lena Headey (Sarah Connor)
- Written By: Josh Friedman
- Directed By: David Nutter
- Network: Fox
- Series: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES: Samson and Delilah
Batteries Not Included By
Stephen Lackey
September 10, 2008
Charley (Dean Winters, L) and Derek (Brian Austin Green, R) help Sarah (Lena Headey, C) in the TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES season premiere episode "Samson and Delilah"
© Fox TV
The Sarah Connor Chronicles took over half of its nine episode first season to find its footing but when it did, it became a really entertaining must see series. The saying absence makes the heart grow fonder applies heavily to this series because there’s so much good acting here after spending a summer with so much TV that featured really poor acting. Right away, Lena Headey and Summer Glau are both excellent in their roles. This leads to a problem with the series that requires discussion – the fact that the Terminators are getting way too human. There’s a scene early on that Glau performs fantastically but the scene is awfully human. Up to this point, even when the terminators try to act human, it doesn’t feel very human. This is still the case with Cromartie who feels like a machine no matter what he does. Obviously Cameron (Glau) and the new terminator played by Shirley Manson are more advanced models but they still need to maintain robot characteristics to set them apart on the series. Cameron goes back to robot mode by the end of the episode but Manson’s terminator feels more like Cruella De Ville than an advanced robot. This isn’t a new complaint for this series but it’s always worth discussion.
Speaking of Shirley Manson, the opening moments of this season premiere were phenomenal due in part to an original song performed by Manson and composed by the creator of the theme music for the series. The slow motion intro was moving and extremely effective. Last season ended with Cameron blowing up in a car and a couple of thugs busting in on Sarah and John. Simultaneously, FBI Agent Ellison and a bevy of additional agents bust in on Cromartie, who proceeds to kill them all, except for Ellison - more on that later. The two sequences of the final confrontation between Cromartie and Ellison and the action in Sarah and John’s house along with the haunting song was again fantastic. The episode was directed by David Nutter, who is a maven when it comes to directing television, so the solid execution of this episode should be no surprise.
As far as the rest of the episode goes though, not much happens in the big story. This ends up being more a story of the week which is kind of OK to get viewers reinvested back into the characters. The only real problem with it is that the big struggle to get this hard drive ends up being completely moot, wiped away with a couple of lines of dialogue. Last season in a review of this series was some discussion based on a scene in one of the episodes with Ellison led to a possibility that he is an inactive terminator. Many readers commented that this was dead wrong but in fact it appears that Ellison may be a terminator or at least be more connected to the future war than was first thought. There’s a big reveal later involving Shirley Manson’s character that makes her having some personality even more frustrating but that aside she was much more fun in the episode than I expected her to be. Sure, there are things to complain about, but this is a great series and this was an entertaining episode with some great performances and a perfectly executed opening sequence.
LOGIN
REGISTER
RSS
HOME
