“It’s gonna be one hell of a dogfight,” Sarah Connor says at the end of the first episode of “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” and one can’t help but believe her.

The killer robots from the future that made Arnold Schwarzenegger famous are back, only this time on the small screen, and without the Governator’s accented one-liners. And if the amount of action and gunfire present in the pilot is any indication, viewers are in for a season full of serious ass-kicking.
The show takes place after “Terminator 2” and centers around Sarah Connor (played here by Lena Headey) and her son John (Thomas Dekker) as they try to stop the creations of Skynet, a computer that will wage war against humans in the future. John, destined to become the leader of the human resistance, is hunted by “terminator” robots from the future and helped by a friendly one (Summer Glau). It’s a complicated, time-twisting plot that makes little sense if you haven’t seen the first two “Terminator” movies.
Beyond that, “Chronicles” is a compelling action-drama that works to more fully develop (and complicate) the “Terminator” timeline. The pilot episode doesn’t wait long to kick the action into gear, and it never lets up, making it feel as if you’ve been dropped into the middle of an intense big-screen action flick.
People smash through walls, overturn vehicles and unleash bullets as if they were expending a blockbuster movie budget, and robotic CGI effects blend seamlessly into the equation.
The casting is the only sticky point in the film-to-TV transition. Headey, while a nearly perfect replacement for the masculine Linda Hamilton, retains a hint of her British accent. It isn’t necessarily important, and many viewers may never notice it, but it can be a minor distraction during her voice-overs.
Also, Dekker creates a much milder John Connor than the one from the movies – no 1990s grunge tendencies or criminal streaks here – but one could argue that’s actually a good thing. After all, the savior of mankind probably shouldn’t keep up his thieving ways.
On the other hand, Glau’s stoic demeanor is perfect for her role as a sexy/friendly terminator, and her casting continues the trend of strong female action heroines.
In fact, the contrast between Headey’s and Glau’s characters is intriguing, if not complementary. Headey’s Sarah Connor is a tough, obviously jaded woman who seems preoccupied by her doom-and-gloom mentality, but Glau’s friendly terminator is a blank slate, sent through time with the simple task of saving John Connor. She is calm and focused – the kind of force needed to give panic-stricken Sarah and John the upper hand in their fight.
If they’re successful in their fight, then John Connor will be the future savior of mankind. But if “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” is successful in its mission, some people are calling it the savior of the winter TV season. That might be a bit of a stretch, but it sure is nice to see some new faces on the lineup during the writers’ strike.
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