Terminator Salvation: The Machinima Series (2009)

The Machinima Series is an animated prequel set two years before the Terminator Salvation (2009) movie. I've no idea if it improves upon or adds additional depth to the movie's back-story because I haven't watched the feature, nor do I think I ever will, so I'm able to judge the series on its own merits, of which there are few.

It's a CGI animation constructed using the game engine of the movie tie-in video game. Already, alarm bells should be ringing in your head.

It's a bold idea but the result is pretty awful. The movement is stiff, limited by the engine's existing parameters. The environments are structured like a game environment, coloured by the seven shades of shit-brown and six shades of concrete-grey that dominate the uninspired action genre.

Its blandness is matched by its obvious padding out of story. There's a story there but it could've been easily told in one 25 minute short. Instead, they stretched it to 6 episodes, approx 12 minutes each.

When the first episode ended there was a fraction of a second when my brain said it was time to pick up the games controller and prepare for some insipid shooty action. I was unconsciously making ready to target exploding barrels for easy kill points. Thankfully. that didn't happen, which was comforting. Although, what that means is that very quickly the Machinima Series feels like it's a game without any actual gameplay. No, not like Heavy Rain.

1 system crash out of 5

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Season 2 (2009)

It's common for a second season to introduce new characters and explore new threats. Sometimes it falls flat. Fans reject the new faces and resent the disruption it causes. Sometimes it works. The new additions fill a gap that wasn't initially apparent, or create a triangle of conflict that heightens the drama. In this case it's neither of those things. Instead, it puts a face to an element that was already evident in Season One but remained unseen. It's a decent idea badly executed, in part because of the lack of originality and also because it's Shirley Manson of the band Garbage. Shirley is a great vocalist, but less successful as an actress; her character is two dimensional and she doesn't yet have the experience to make it any less flat. She improves as it progresses but not enough.

She's just one of a trio of new female faces. The other two are written in to tug apart the collective Connor 'family'. Again, it's good in theory, but it forces the series to return to the chase mechanic of the films, which is an element that's overused, predictable and contrary to the initial premise. It also doesn't help that the women are often written as being irritating and offensive.

Add a run of bad scripts that deviate drastically from the formula to explore some ridiculous conceits, some past/future filler that feels like padding in an already poorly stitched garment, and you have a season of huge disappointment. It falls to Cromartie and Agent Ellison to keep the show on track, but mostly TSCC turned into a bona fide damp squib.

The final episode is the opposite of everything I've said so far. It has edge of the seat excitement and captures (even surpasses) the greatness of Season One. It almost makes up for the chore that watching the previous twenty-one episodes felt like. It really was the FINAL episode. Fox didn't renew the it for a third Season.

22 episodes, approx 44 minutes each.

2½ shit-kicking boots out of 5

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Season 1 (2008)

I'm not a Terminator fanatic. I enjoyed the first film, thought the second was okay, turned off the third halfway through the first time I tried to watch it and didn't bother with the fourth at all, so I wasn't expecting much from TSCC. It takes place after events in Terminator 2 (1991), so it's essential to have watched it. It also follows a similar template: the machines are hunting the teenage John Connor, so a modified one is sent back from the future to protect him. The biggest difference is in the perspective. In the films the protagonists were mostly on the run. In the series they're no longer running. They're taking the fight to Skynet. That new dynamic makes it a million times more interesting than the films ever were.

There are two strong female characters. Lena Headey plays the mother figure, Sarah Connor. She makes the character her own. She portrays a woman torn between duty and personal tragedy, giving a performance full of both strength and vulnerability without compromising one or the other. Beneath the hardened outer shell is a burden of desperation that fuels her; she thrives on it despite wishing with all her heart that the need for it be removed. She deserves all the praise I can heap upon her.

Similarly, Summer Glau brings a strength to her role as the machine tasked with protecting the young John. She has to be emotionless but engaging, which is a tall order. She does it well. Her character is saved from the one dimensionality of the Arnie model by having an ambiguity about her, one which the viewer is manipulated into not trusting one hundred percent. It keeps you on a precipice and gives the writers a fun toy to play with.

The aforementioned vulnerabilities of the characters make them endearing. The fight to survive and save the future is contrasted with the daily grind of their everyday life, within which the possibility of failure keeps it exciting.

9 episodes, approx 44 minutes each.

5 resistance fighters out of 5