Sarah Conner Chronicles

TV has just gotten better in the last decade. Without a doubt, some of that has to do with our big screen TVs, HDTV, DVRs, and great sound systems. DVDs anyone? Is there a better way to watch a long serialized TV show? And now BLU RAY!

Today I bought my first ever BLU RAY disk, and I choose Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles. Instead of an actual movie, I choose a TV show. Of course. Being a fan of Lost and Battlestar Galactica, I love my serialized TV. Big stories, with twists and turns. Who here got LOST Season 1 on DVD and ended up watching the whole season in about 2-3 days? Who stayed up till 2-3 in the morning, watching... 'just one more episode?" Yeah! That is the way to watch TV.

Okay, so the visuals are better, the sound is better, and the story is BIGGER. But is it better? I think that's a great question. And I'm tempted to rattle of the top off my head a quick and surefire YES. It's just BETTER. But I have a tendency (and I bet you do too) to think the current thing we are into is the BEST we have ever seen. There was probably a day when I thought the ORIGINAL Battlestar Galactica was the best on TV. (Come on... I can't even watch an entire episode now, they are THAT bad.)

But... then I was younger, and far less picky. And I wasn't spending a great deal of my time WRITING stories, so I wasn't really thinking about what made a good one or a bad one.

Truth is poor visuals of old shows can really irritate me. But some stories I think stand the test of time. Though it is relatively new, The Sopranos is a character based story that I think will stand the test of time. But were they any really good TV shows from the 80s? The A Team anyone?

Here is another question for all of you: Does anything really stand up to the test of time? Did Lucas really need to go in an re-digitilize Star Wars A New Hope?

This has gone a long way from where we started, which was The Terminator, Sarah Conner Chronicles. Okay, does Terminator 2 stand up to the test of time? I think it does. It was a great STORY. (James Cameron, wizard of the special effects, was once a great STORYTELLER).

And so here we stand at Sarah Conner. Okay, I've watched ONE episode. But what about that ONE episode? First impressions mean a lot. And this is what I thought: Storytelling has gotten better on TV. This was a great and fun story. The visuals were great, but around the 20 minute mark, I was on the edge of my seat. It propelled me forward with some great characters. Sarah, who is trying to protect her son from 'the machines' and is thought to be crazy, and maybe... just maybe she IS! And then there is John himself, this messiah of the future who pretty much doesn't do anything but whine and bitch and run. He needs some work, but you get the sense that he'll become the star of the show. And Terminator wouldn't be terminator if you didn't have a bad robot, and... a good one. And this time around, why not go with an upgrade on the good robot, and make her a sexy teenager? The ensemble works, and has room to grow. You have the cop who is chasing them who will inevitably realize that there really ARE robots out there and that Sarah might be onto something! You have the jilted finance, who... might be more than he seems. But better than all that you have a pretty damn cool story.

It is the root of science fiction that robots, artificial intelligence, etc, turns bad. Hell Battlestar Galactica is entirely based on this concept. Most science fiction writers have a world invaded by aliens story, and along side that they also have the robots went mad and took over the world story. The Matrix wasn't original after all, was it?

And the genre has a lot of room in it. In this version, they throw in time travel. It's loosey goosey in the movies, and I'm hoping they expand it here and get some meat on it. But it's looking interesting. And it has built in tension. Being chased by a killer robot. It's relentless.

I like it.

I've only watched one episode. I'm sure it will twist, and it will turn. I'm sure it will have some dud moments, and I'm hoping it will have some great moments. But even if it's a dud, I think I will answer my original question with this answer: TV is better today. And not just because of the visuals.

I think it's because writers are getting better. So many stories have been told out there, and there is little original left, so if you tell a time travel story, and you tell a robots gone mad story, you better do it BETTER than the guy/gal before you did it! And in a lot of instances, I think that writers are stretching and getting better. Not all of them! And they aren't perfect. But the DVD serialized concept of TV, longer biggger stories, with room to explore multiple characters, has some promise still left in it.

And it doesn't hurt that they have big budgets and we get to watch them on DVD with big screens and great sound! Nah... that doesn't hurt at all.