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Join Lower Decks as two of our writers tackle the question of whether FOX’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles should be renewed for a third season. They’ll each present their cases and then open the floor to comments.
Quinn – Yes, It Should
I review this show here at Lower Decks, and so I’ve seen and analyzed every episode of this season. And this show is good. Not just in an “exciting” way – it is written well, acted well, and it has been planned well. There is inner continuity and emotion that you don’t find on “action” shows. Like I’ve said in my reviews and on the Observation Lounge, this isn’t “24 with Terminators” – it’s a lot closer to “LOST with Terminators.”
And, yes, it can be that good at times.
And while it wouldn’t be a surprise for FOX to cancel a good show, I think it deserves another season to grow. This is a show with a lot of potential, and I think it should get another chance. Heck, another great FOX show, Arrested Development, got three seasons. Sliders got three seasons. Let’s give Terminator three seasons. At least.
Yes, the ratings aren’t great. But this is a show that moved from Monday to Fridays without much fanfare, and Fridays are a death trap. I review the freaking show, and I don’t watch it live on Fridays. I don’t even get around to watching it until Sunday, and I’d consider myself a pretty solid fan.
And if I’m not watching it on it’s night, I can imagine that a lot of people aren’t either. But FOX knew what it was doing when it moved the show there – it knows that it was sending it to its death. And I hate it when networks send a show to get bad ratings, and then it cancels the show for getting those bad ratings.
But let’s see if the new movie, Terminator Salvation, stirs up a bit more interest in the show before we cancel it. The movie is getting a lot of hype, and it should be at least fairly successful. The show’s writers have already agreed to tie the show to the movie…so you’d have a connection right there. Wouldn’t FOX love the idea of leeching off the success of a summer blockbuster?
So I believe the show should be given a little more time to find some success. It has a hot young cast (Summer Glau and Lena Headley for men and Thomas Dekker and Brian Austin Greene for women), it has action and it has drama and it has heart. It is more than just a show about terminators – it is a show about family and survival. It is a hundred times the show we were all expecting, and I think we all need to give it another chance.
forst – No, It Shouldn’t
For better or for worse, when Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles premiered, most viewers were probably under the assumption that there would be fights and explosions and gunplay and lots and lots of Terminators running around trying to kill Sarah and John. And there have been fights, there have been explosions, there has been gunplay and there have been a fair number of Terminators running around trying to kill Sarah and John.
After 30 episodes and only one left to air this season, it’s safe to say that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles didn’t live up to those assumptions. The show has been a character study more than a all action, all the time. It has probed the depths of Sarah Connor’s mind, depicted her fears and motivations, shown how far she’ll go to protect her son and more.
Looking strictly at the numbers, I can’t help but notice that after drawing 18 million viewers for its premiere, the show has averaging just 3.5 million since it moved to Fridays. And yes, there’s been a slight uptick these past few weeks but that’s all it is, a slight uptick. It wasn’t doing all that well on Mondays during the first half of the season and it isn’t doing well at all now.
Talk of how Terminator Salvation will draw new viewers to the series is meaningless; the show goes off the air next week and the movie opens on May 21st. Are those movie goers expected to wait around for four months until September, still excited, and tune in en masse for the Season Three premiere? I don’t think so. Like every television show, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has its core fanbase. Unfortunately, it isn’t a very big one.
What doomed the show was its connection to some very popular movies and mismanaged expectations. Viewers thought they were getting one thing while the writers and producers were intent on providing another. Does that mean it’s a bad show? No. But it had a chance to attract viewers and it couldn’t. Renewing it for a third season won’t change that.
Now hit the comments to let us know what you think.
April 4th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Okay, so the UK is only up to episode 18 so far, but…
If it didn’t come back you wouldn’t see me weeping and if it did you wouldn’t see me cheering.
It’s a ‘boy’s comic’ nonsense that can’t decide if they are changing the future or not and that’s it.
Virgin have recently moved the show from 9pm Thursdays to 10pm, which I assumed was because of the violence. Actually that meant there was no clash with new Bones episodes which suited me fine.
And if you’re interested it is the channels 6th most viewed programme with 209000 households watching, right behind the reruns on Deep Space Nine! What does that tell you?
April 6th, 2009 at 11:50 am
It seems you two are answering different questions. The first answers “should the show be renewed?” while the second answers “will the show be renewed?”. It should be renewed because it’s a good show. It won’t be renewed because it was put in a time slot that could only get it bad ratings.
April 6th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
That’s a fair assessment but I think we were both answering the same question.
Quinn was certainly looking at the question from the point of view of a fan while I was taking the cold, harsh view of a network executive. If it were a bad show in terms of quality but the ratings were huge, FOX would renew it without question.
In that case, Quinn could have argued that the show should not be renewed because it is lousy while I would say it should be renewed because it draws a crowd.
I also think I touched upon some of the reasons why the show might not be catching on with viewers. The time slot is certainly a big factor. But Ghost Whisperer on CBS draws ten million viewers so obviously there is an audience on Friday.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Well, I came up with this idea a few days ago, and forst basically did exactly what I thought he should do. Because I don’t think there’s a whole lot of things you could say about the quality of the show – all you can really discuss, at least as far as I can see, is the ratings and the expectations.
To find someone who dislikes the quality and yet still watches enough to be educated would’ve been difficult. So I think forst was a great perspective…since he watches a great deal of television and also understands the business behind it.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Its painful to fans of new shows to see them cancelled early on. There is a Catch 22 here that the networks may or may not be aware of. The networks want people to watch their new shows and give them a chance but if not enough people watch them, the network will unceremoniously cancel them, leaving the people who DO watch the show raw and jaded. Those people will be less likely to take a chance on something new again because of the ever present threat of cancellation.
There are only a few shows that both my wife and I can watch together and Terminator is one of them. The quality of the program is similar to what Joss Whedon did in Buffy and Angel, giving audiences action but also character development and exploration. The show would become dull if it was a “Terminator of the week program” b/c it would alienate core fans (who would think, if its that easy to send Terminators back in time, send an army of them and Sarah and John wouldn’t stand a chance).
The new Terminator film should spark interest in the franchise again. Its worth Fox giving Terminator another try in the fall, with a 1/2 season run (to give the show a full two seasons, at least) and see if it takes advantage of the movie tie-in and DVD release. If its still not sold on audiences, cancel it at the end of 12-13 more episodes. Than there can be actual resolution for the true fans and an adequate amount of time to allow better ratings.
April 8th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
I think we’d definitely take something like that. I wonder how many seasons the writers had in mind? They delayed Judgment Day to 2011…is that when they wanted to end it?
I just wouldn’t want to see them rushed…especially since this season has gone at a slower pace…if they rushed it next year (let’s say they got the Jericho treatment and got 7 new episodes) it’d feel really weird.
But I’d definitely take it.
April 8th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Given how season two has really picked up the pace during the last few weeks, I think if FOX decided to give the show a third season of thirteen episodes (perhaps as a midseason replacement), it could probably wrap up well enough. But I think even that is a long shot