Paige Albiniak

First glimpse of Terminator comes to Yahoo TV
January 3, 2008

As I was flipping through channels last night, trying to find something to land on and really missing shows like Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money, I found myself uttering that clichéd phrase: “150 channels and nothing to watch!” But with the writer’s strike, it’s true. Unless I wanted to watch Deal or No Deal, Power of 10 or any other of the reality or game shows I typically avoid. I figure the seventh season of American Idol – which by now should certainly be in decline according to all the rules of television – will be bigger than ever because it will be by far the best thing on TV. It may be the one show to truly benefit from the strike.

                Another show that has a chance to hit it big is Fox’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  The way Fox is promoting this thing, I’m assuming it will be the biggest thing since 24.

Two things intrigue me about this show: first, the Terminator character is played by Summer Glau, a former ballerina who also played the “secret weapon” in Joss Whedon’s Firefly, so she’s this small, beautiful, haunted-looking girl who can kick some serious butt. Or at least make it look good on film.

Second, the show’s creator, executive producer and showrunner is Josh Friedman, who went to my high school. His writing was amazing even at 17. He’s written several movies – Chain Reaction, Black Dahlia and War of the Worlds – although I think his overall experience in Hollywood has been that it’s a bit rough to get anything close to what you actually wrote on to the silver screen. So it will be interesting to see how he fares in television.

                Interested viewers/deprived TV watchers can get an early glimpse of the show this Friday. Fox is streaming Terminator for 24 hours on Yahoo TV starting at 9 p.m. PT, featuring an intro by actress Lena Headey, who plays Connor. Why Fox isn’t streaming it on MySpace, Hulu and Fox.com, all of which it owns or has interests in, I neither know nor understand, but perhaps that is to come. Clips and trailers of the show are available on Fox.com (and the beta of Fox on Demand looks cool, although the episode of Family Guy that I checked out was having a lot of sound problems) and at MySpace TV. Word is that episodes will be available after their network airing on Fox.com, which is true for most Fox shows.

                The show premieres on the actual Fox network on Sunday, Jan. 13 at 8 p.m. ET, right before the two-night premiere extravaganza of American Idol on Jan. 15 and 16. But by then, we  all could have watched it online. It's ironic that in the midst of all this, the networks and studios are hitting the Web hard, proving the writers' point every day.

Posted by Paige Albiniak on January 3, 2008 | Comments (0)