Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Looks like the UK start date for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has changed, either that or we’ve made a mistake. The series starts its second season run on Virgin 1 on Thursday 23rd October at 9pm. In the meantime, here are a couple of SCC related news stories from around the web (latest item first).

What Can Save The Sarah Connor Chronicles?

Sarah Connor has a serious problem. And it’s not the relentless army of bots cloaked in human skin determined to kill her and her son.

It’s the show ratings, which are steadily dropping with each episode.

Entertainment Weekly‘s Michael Ausiello delivered a grim outlook last week: “An SCC insider tells me that if the show’s numbers don’t start to climb, Fox is unlikely to order any additional episodes beyond the 13 currently in the pipeline.”

The season premiere started out with a bang: The opener featured great action sequences and an emotionally wrought, tense struggle between the Connors and their high-tech bodyguard, Cameron, after a malfunction caused her to flip from protecting John to attempting to assassinate him.

So, what happened? Maybe it’s the multitude of new cast additions: John’s oddball girlfriend Riley and Shirley Manson’s shape-shifting character have been slow to pick up speed.

Whatever the reason, if ratings and viewership don’t increase, Sarah Connor might be the first major causality of this season’s sci-fi television lineup. Maybe Monday’s episode will do the trick: In “Allison From Palmdale,” another software glitch causes gynoid Cameron to go missing, giving viewers a peek at the Terminator’s back story along with more robot-riddled glimpses of the future.

Charlie Jane Anders, sci-fi blogger at io9, thinks that killing off future rebel leader John Connor (played by Thomas Dekker, pictured) might be a viable solution: “That would be a pretty shocking turn of events, and a powerful storyline — and it would have the bonus effect of getting rid of the show’s weakest link.”

Does the show need a more radical boost to kick-start ratings, like Anders suggests? Or could an influx of a few new characters, like Battlestar Galactica alum Stephanie Jacobson, do the trick?

Wired

Terminator: Gadgetry Salvation for Sarah Connor Chronicles

Apparently Sarah Connor’s devilish charm and ripped biceps aren’t enough to prevent the Terminator show’s own judgment day.

Fox will be saying “Hasta la vista, baby” to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles if the series’ ratings don’t find salvation. Every subsequent season-two episode has seen a drop in viewership, and it’s unlikely Chronicles will be back for a third round if the decline persists, an SCC insider told Entertainment Weekly.

Wait a minute — a sci-fi TV series set in 2008 involving robots trying to destroy the world? What better opportunity to toss in some of the hottest new gadgets to revitalize viewer interest? Oddly enough, the Connors thus far have been using mostly analog gear — screwdrivers, shot guns and cleavage — to infiltrate Skynet. Why not treat themselves with some retail/warfare therapy? Surely, the Connors have to carry some disposable income if they’re running to-and-fro with wads of benjis stuffed in their jeans.

Wired has list of some juicy new gadgets they’d like to see appear on the show.

Shirley Manson Nails Creepy as Sarah Connor’s New CEO From Hell

The thrilling season premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles revealed that the Connor family may have a lot more to worry about than malfunctioning machines and finding a new safe house.

Cryptic and chilly ZeiraCorp CEO Catherine Weaver, a character introduced in Monday’s season two premiere, isn’t exactly what she seems. In addition to controlling a high-tech research and development company, Weaver (played by Garbage rocker Shirley Manson, pictured) is also the new owner of a powerful supercomputer called The Turk, which she plans to develop under a top-secret program dubbed “Babylon.”

Wired.com got on the line Wednesday with Manson to talk Weaver’s master plan and playing a “woman from hell.”

(Spoiler alert: Major plot revelations follow.)

Amid many other throwbacks to the Terminator legacy came Monday’s startling revelation that Weaver is a T-1001 Terminator (pictured), primed with mimetic polyalloy capabilities that let her morph into shapes at will.

“It’s harder to be a robot than one would think,” said Manson of her character’s role during a conference call. “They’re very economical with their movements and undemonstrative as possible, which as a musician is challenging.”

In Monday’s season premiere, Weaver — a top-of-the-line robo-infiltrator sent to live among the human population and ensure the genesis of self-aware computer network Skynet — outed her shape-shifting abilities by taking out a ZeiraCorp employee with a liquid spear through the head in a scene that couldn’t have been more classic unless the unlucky victim had been drinking milk from a carton.

Weaver described the combination of her character’s high-powered position and Terminator pedigree as a “woman from hell.” And while she couldn’t say much about her full-fledged robo-killer abilities, she did say that viewers would be in for a “really nice surprise.”

Meaning that Weaver and Cameron, the android assigned to protect John Connor, would eventually square off?

“I fear that [Weaver is] so sophisticated, I don’t know if she needs to get her hands dirty,” said Manson, who suggested she would love to see the show’s Terminators meet at some point and face off in an ultimate battle of the bots. “I’ve been making hints it would be fun to meet and use our powers against one another.”

Wired