Summer Glau is the new Terminatrix on Fox's "The Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles". Cameron (the Terminatrix) is sent from the future back in time by John Connor to be his bodyguard during his teenage years. Cameron is suppose to be a mix of innocent (discovering the world for the first time) and kick a** terminator toughness, which has similarities (weak and powerful combined) to her role in Firefly and Serenity. I recently read in an interview with Glau, that Josh Whedon wanted Glau to do all her own stunts so that he could shoot continuous fight scenes with no tricks, rigging, or breaks. He had her train in Wushu, Kung Fu, and Kickboxing, which must have been quite the switch from being a classically trained ballerina. In the choregraphed fights scenes of the series, all the punches and slaps are full force.

Back to Termintor, Lena Headey is playing the role of Linda Hamilton. Reviews of the pilot said that Headey and Glau kick a** but ThomasDekker as John Connor is reportedly a weak performance.  The Fox series ignores the events of Terminator 3, which in all essences was a crappy movie anyway.

I heard that backstage of the ballet that the dancers liked to have "bloodsport ballet" its a combination of ninjitsu and ballet and is deadly on a stage surface.  There were many fatalities of pierced brains on the ends of ballet slippers.

I watched a few moments of the pilot and wasn't particularly impressed.

Hmmm...  Chiquita's post makes me want to watch this, although I disagree that T3 sucked.  I enjoyed it.  It arced well as a trilogy.  (T1->Destiny, T2 -> No Fate, T3 -> No Choice)

Am I to understand that this series is produced by Joss Whedon?  That alone is reason to watch!

I beleive Chiquita was refering to when Whedon was producing the Serenity series.

Yeah, I watched an episode last night.  It didn't have the usual Whedon craftmanship.  It has/had a lot of potential, but I don't think it works too well.  The Sarah Connor character is creepy and detached, as she should be, but they put her in situations that would require less creepiness to be believable.  For example, last night's episode she picked up this guy and went on a date with him.  It just seemed too forced.

Summer Glau, as good as she is, doesn't make for a very threatening terminator.  She was more dangerously scary in Firefly, because she was unbalanced.  As a terminator I feel she needs to be more controlled and ruthless.  The female terminator in T3 was WAY more cold-killer-esque.

Chiquita says reviews knocked the John Connor actor as the weakest, but in last night's episode, I'd say he was the only one worth watching.  He even got (in my opinion) the best line, when his mom was chastizing him for wanting to save someone's life (thus putting himself in public eye).  He retorted that if he was supposed to be this great hero in the future, he better start acting like it.  If they're to remain heartless, why not just hand the world over to them (he gestured at Summer) if that's what they're to become.

I myself enjoyed T3.  I thought it was an interesting way to show how he becomes the saviour of the world.

As for the TV show, I find the premise will be it's undoing, because while in a movie you can have action and the characters dealing with their fate, the tv series will have some lame assed stuff about dating just to keep things fresh.  Dating?  I hardly think someone in the position of being chased by robots from the future would take the time to potentially expose herself by casually dating some stranger.

Well, she wasn't dating him because she was interested in him.  She was dating him to see if she had to kill him (in case he would ultimately contribute technology to what eventually becomes SkyNet).  So the whole time she was basically grilling him like a convict, sharing nothing of herself (real or made up), and looking at him like a cat toys with a mouse.  Maybe he likes creepy killer types, but I just wasn't buying it.

They should have made it a comedy, not a drama.  For 3 people who are on the run from terminators and the law, they are all hideously bad at blending in, even though they manage to live in houses, hold jobs, fake relationships, etc.  It's like trying to imagine Frankenstein living in the suburbs, and nobody seems to notice he's a big green monster.  Hmmm...  maybe that could be a basis for a new Neverending Story.  

I don't think the series will last... unless the writer's strike lasts in which case Fox will be desperate to have ANY kind of show to run regardless of merit... hey wait a minute, Fox does that already.

Ok, I have 2 major complaints about this show.  The first is the way Summer Glau is playing (or has played) the character.  In the first episode, she was completely normal, meaning you wouldn't know she was anything but a nice girl-next-door type.  After we found out that she was a terminator, suddenly everything she does is robotic and unnatural.

The other thing is even more picky, but it one of those things that sets my teeth on edge when producers or directors do it.  It's probably easiest to explain by example.  In the first episode, when John was sitting in a police car, the terminator shot at him, and the bullets were stopped by the door (I don't know why the terminator didn't shoot at the window, because everybody knows that cinematic car doors are made of kevlar, or possibly even adamantium).  But then later on, when the terminator was fighting the connor family in a house, Sarah hid safely behind an armchair while the terminator shot at her in futility.  To be fair, it looked like an old chair, and they don't make things like they used to, but come on!

Actually, it's a little known secret that the US Military is field testing armchair armour for their troops in Iraq.  The Canadian military also tried it in Afghanistan but discovered it doesn't block friendly fire.

Burn.