The Terminator Television Show

There is a television show coming out in the new year called “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”. At first I was massively excited. My father said that he thought it is taking place in between the first and second movies when Sarah was learning to be a hardcore bad-ass. I thought this was a brilliant idea: someone traveling through Mexico and the U.S. with a baby engaged in what amount to ostensibly terrorist activities. All sorts of questions about our society and terrorism would get brought up and, instead of the usual ‘us versus them’ situation, we would be rooting for the terrorist on our own soil. Any casualties/collateral damage would always be a decent person just doing their job: no one could foresee the rise of the machines. And what ends would Sarah go to when faced with a serious problem – she is working to save the future of humanity and she is the only one who knows it. We know she won’t shoot through a kid to kill the father, but that leaves a lot open, and she is under a good deal of stress. Never mind having a baby/toddler along for the ride who will grow to be the messiah.

Then I saw a recent commercial and it was a bunch of pretty 20 somethings in some US city. No crazy military types, no terrorist training, no her struggling to provide for a kid while keeping free of any public records, no Mexico, no her trying to convince people she isn’t psychotic. Granted, they were blowing something up in the commercial, but then I saw that there were multiple new terminators. Back to ‘us versus them’.

I’ll still give it a chance but my expectations are much lower now.

(update: caught the tail end of a new commercial in which I heard some female say, “You pack the bombs, I’ll make pancakes.”  Some potential…)

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On the subject of TV there is one other point that is very important. CBS is channel 2. NBC is 4. Fox is 5. ABC is 7. I really have trouble accepting other channel lineups. They don’t count. I know this is ridiculous but I don’t care.

I surmise I feel this way because the news is exciting around here (NYC area) and the anchors are awesome. When I leave the area the stations just don’t have the same feel.

Happy birthday to Jim Rosenfield of CBS 2 news (December 18).

Other matters of some concern:

Boston Legal is the only scripted show I (somewhat regularly) watch. Those characters are my heroes. No ‘reality’ TV unless This Old House counts. NFL football/MLB baseball depending on season. I once had a logic midterm during the world series. Forget studying. So we convinced the teacher not to give us the test, the morning of the test. Not postponed, canceled. He pulled the test from his bag to pass out and we got him to change his mind. This was in a (Leiter-rated) grad school. Damn right we were that good.