As put forth by series producers Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna(two of the producers of the original Terminator films), The Sarah Connor Chronicles takes place a few years after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day(the film in which the potential for Skynet to exist was destroyed, and thus the future war against the machines would never happen), yet before the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Set initially in the year 1999, Sarah Connor(Lena Headey) and now fifteen year-old son John(Thomas Dekker) are living in New Mexico, where they have a semblance of a normal life: John is in school and both live with a man Sarah has come to love, and who loves her enough to propose to her.

     After a nightmare in which John is killed by a Terminator and the nuclear holocaust occurs(and in which Headey is dressed in the shortest waitress skirt ever designed...thank you, director David Nutter), Sarah realizes that she's become complacent and that it's time to move on. Shortly afterward, when the boyfriend goes to the police to try and put out a missing persons report, he is intercepted and questioned by FBI agent James Ellison(Richard T. Jones), who was closing in on Sarah and John, and who is of course, skeptical about her belief in the upcoming Judgment Day.

     Meanwhile, John has settled into a new school and is in the process of meeting a new, hot classmate named Camer-on(an obvious nod to Terminator creator James Cameron, the character here played by The 4400's Summer Glau), when a new substitute teacher named Cromartie(Owain Yeoman) begins taking role call. When he gets to John's alias name however, he rips a gun out of his own leg and opens fire. Cameron takes most of the shots for John, who leaps out the window. What looked like a typical, boring and standard action scene in the tv spots is actually anything but. Display-ing strength rivaling the Hulk, Cromartie overturns a school bus to reach John in his pursuit. He's bashed aside by a truck with Cameron at the wheel, who utters the standard Termina-tor line "Come with me if you want to live."

     With this one scene, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles starts off on a very promising note. It only gets more promising when Sarah herself gets captured by Cromar-tie, who impersonates her voice to lure John into a trap at their home. Displaying the wisdom which will one day make him into a leader of men, John instead sets a lure of his own in the form of Cameron, who tricks Cromartie into leaving Sarah be so that the two of them can duke it out. It's a very good fight scene, and brings to point something I had been concerned about when I knew this series was going to air...

     Not to sound sexist, but the pure fact is that while Camer-on and Cromartie are both powerful engines of war, each are built in the image of the two sexes, and have accompanying size ratios. I had been curious for some time as to whether the producers/writers would let them fight it out as equals, or if they'd realize that given simple physics, a smaller machine--no matter how strong--can simply not overpower a larger one. For instance: if a small Mitsubishi car is blocked in traffic by a bus, the Mitsubishi can't just roll up on the rear bumper and push the bus out of the way. It just isn't possible. Fortunately, this has been taken into account, and it's really cool to see that Cameron has to think her way out of the fight, and find another way to(temporarily) beat Cromartie.

     Not to say the pilot episode is perfect. While Lena Headey is absolutely magnificent in the role of Sarah Connor--a more worthy successor to Linda Hamilton could not have been found--and Summer Glau shines as Cameron(the two females are undoubtedly the strongest members of the cast), the script does suffer on a few points. For one, there are a couple of one-liners that simply aren't necessary(i.e., Sarah to John on their leaving her boyfriend's house: "Half an hour. One bag, plus the guns. I'll make pancakes.") Even in an action series, any comedic situations should arise organically out of the tenseness of whatever problem is being faced...it shouldn't be forced. Also, there is a scene where shortly after the Cromartie fight, Cameron has her bra off while she repairs herself(calm down, guys--it's a tv show! You don't see anything), and when Sarah tells her "You might want to put the guns back in the holster", Cameron has to look around for her bra. It's brief, but it's inconsistent with the fact that Termi-nators are multi-tasking machines that are always aware of their surroundings. Cameron should have just turned in one direction and found it. Nitpicking? Not if you take into account the type of universe the story takes place in, and that even a minute detail like that can throw a person out of the story instantly. There is also a scene where the trio go to the home of Miles Dyson's(the man originally responsible for the construction of Skynet) widow, and upon her questioning their arrival, Cameron replies "We're back."(in relation to the Terminators). To emphasize the point, director David Nutter(X-Files, Smallville) has Cameron's eyes glow a metallic blue for an instant. This is completely unnecessary--the line should have carried it all, which shows a lack of faith on Nutt-er's part in either the script or Glau herself.

     The rest of the story is rock solid, however, especially in regards to the character of FBI agent Ellison, who begins to question the certainty of his own beliefs when more than a dozen witnesses to Cromartie's attempts to murder John state that he had "what appeared to be some type of robot leg". One thing I'm not a fan of though, is how John suddenly turns into a crybaby at one point who wants mommy to make sure the war never happens, rather than stepping up(as Ed Fur-long once did) to accept his destiny. It's arguable that this was just a momentary crisis of faith for John, but it's been stated that later episodes will also show him questioning his future role. While it does make for good conflict on some level, John can't have mommy fighting all his battles for him, and the writers will have to work on this at some point.

     The producers have already gone on record as saying that the trio of main characters will have more threats to face than the simple Terminator of the Week, but in a show like this, options may be limited. We discover in this episode that Cameron can eat food(obviously to make her a more believ-able infiltration unit), but where do we go with her character from here? If she's simply an automaton designed to follow John and Sarah's every whim, will he eventually make her into a programmed sex toy? There'll have to be an episode where John is critically wounded, and Sarah must decide what to do if he dies. There are other extrapolations which can be made, many of which will curtail the show's growth if not handled properly.

     For now though, the twist at the end of the pilot episode is intriguing enough that I'll keep tuning in and hope to be as pleasantly surprised as I was tonight. I didn't have high hopes when I first heard about this show, but it's nice to be proven wrong...