Let me start off by saying that I did enjoy Terminator Salvation – it was a hell of a lot better than T3 (not that that’s saying much) but over all it was a fun movie and it leaves the franchise room to grow. But I can’t help but thinking that the movie could have been a LOT better.

First off, as some critics have mentioned, there’s really no “villain” in the movie – just Skynet. Which isn’t a terrible thing in and of itself, but it does make the whole movie feel like more of a military flick than an action movie. Actually, it had more of a video-game feel than I expected. Again, not a horrible thing to take the franchise in a different direction, I was just a little thrown off by it.

And when your enemies are soulless killing machines, you’d think they’d be a bit better at actually, you know… killing. There’s one fight scene where a Terminator punches John Connor. He punches him! Why not snap his head off? Isn’t that what it’s programmed to do? And why didn’t they build Marcus to kill Connor? Isn’t giving him emotion and free will and choice sort of counter-productive from their anti-humanity point of view? But if they did think it was such a good idea, why would they only build one of him?

But my main complaint was that the movie needed more John Connor. There was way too much screen time given to Marcus, and I just didn’t find myself caring about him. And the movie just has Connor in a leadership role – there are people who don’t believe in him, but for the most part he is worshiped. Which is great – that’s his destiny after all, but I would have loved to have seen HOW he came to be in that position. What, he just told everyone about his destiny, and everyone believed him? I find that pretty hard to believe. (And while I’m on things that are hard to believe, why is it that if Kyle Reese dies, everyone dies? I mean, if he dies then Connor won’t exist – I get that, but why does that mean all the humans will die? If they could stop the machines and sacrifice Reese, wouldn’t it be worth it?) But the main point is that Christian Bale is a hell of an actor, and he really wasn’t given much of a chance to act. He is John Connor, an amazing soldier and leader. Period. No emotion, no punch, no drama, just a guy who hates and shoots at machines.

So will I go to see the next movie? Probably. I still say they could have left well enough alone by letting things end with the amazing T2. But at least TS kept up with the first movies’ mythology, and I’ll always like hearing the duh-DUH-dum-duh-dum – except in T3, of course.

Before I get to, Lost -one ultra important note: WATCH BRINK TONIGHT!  There is a very special cameo about three minutes and change into the show.  So don’t miss it!

Anyway, a lot has happened since my last Lost post, but to recap a few key points:

• Holy crap, they shot a kid at close range!  Yeah it was Ben, but still, how many TV shows can claim to have shown a kid getting shot like that?
• What bothers me more than the fact that Rose, Bernard, and the rest of the 815′ers are missing is the fact that no one has mentioned them at all.  The following simple exchange would have appeased me. Jack: “Where’s everyone else?  They OK?” Sawyer: “We all split up, and we tried to find them, but we couldn’t!” Just that would have showed that the other folks haven’t forgotten about them…
• I LOVED that we are getting to see what turned Harry Potter Ben into Evil Ben, and that it wasn’t just Sayid shooting him, it was also the fact that Jack refused to help him out.  Wrap your brain around that!
• I didn’t love that what Sawyer said to Kate on the chopper and what what Kate did with Aaron were both exactly what I suspected, but oh well.  And Sawyer must be a fast whisperer to give Kate Cassidy’s name and address so quickly!

Smallville has been really decent this year, but I have to say that I am a little bummed that the show is going to continue for another season.  I mean, at some point, Clark needs to embrace his destiny, and that point has just been dragged out for so long already it is hurting the show.  But as long as the show can keep up it’s momentum, I guess it’s a good thing.

And I am still very close to giving up on Terminator, but I have to say even that show has picked up slightly in the past few weeks.  Dammit, I’m trying to cut back on the amoutn of TV I watch – why won’t more shows let me quit them?

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, and there are a lot of TV shows to catch up on, so I’m making this a two-parter.

First up since it is fresh in my mind: Jack is back! Last night’s 24 mini-movie totally got me excited for Jack Bauer and 24’s return to TV this fall. The real-time action! The political intrigue! Jack taking out bad guy after bad guy after bad guy before they have any idea what’s coming at them! Yeah, last season was a let down, but I’m not ready to write off this show yet. Seeing Jack in Africa (instead of LA for the first time ever) was a nice change of pace, and having him run around D.C. should bring some fresh changes to the show. As for Redemption specifically, I thought it was enjoyable, although the boy soldiers thing did feel very reminiscent of Blood Diamond. And I didn’t totally get why Jack needs “redemption” – he’s saved the free world several times already. But the action was good, Jack yelled “Dammit!” a lot – everything was there. Oh – and one season seven prediction: Tony Almeida isn’t really a bad guy. He’s actually a good guy working inside the terrorist organization to take it down from the inside. I have to believe that – I just don’t accept that Tony would turn rogue.

True Blood ended up being one of my favorite new shows of the season. It got off to a rocky start, but once it found its footing, the show really started to work. The cliffhangers kept the show moving, they weren’t afraid to kill off characters, and none of the supernatural elements felt hokey. My only complaint with the tail end of the season was that the last 15-20 minutes of the finale felt like it was all set-up for season two. But hey, it worked, because I’m looking forward to it.

My other favorite new show has been Fringe. It feels like a cross between Lost and The X-Files – it was supposed to – but the format works. The acting is great and the stories are fun – I really hope the show can keep up its pace.

Meanwhile, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has been really, really bad. I almost lost it last week when a human villain from the future showed up in the present, and Derek and his girlfriend killed him, but let the present version of the guy go, because he wasn’t yet that monster, and hopefully he wouldn’t become him. Hopefully? What? Is that how this show works now? Why do they bother protecting John then? Hopefully he’ll survive and defeat the machines and everything will turn up rosy. This may be one nitpicky point, but it is representative of the huge errors in logic this show has been making this season, and it’s getting to be too much.

All right, that’s it for now – more to come tomorrow!

I’m doing these piece-meal, so deal with it.

Entourage: The All Out Fall Out – I could not believe that the young punk agent let Ari bitch-slap him and didn’t try to take him down.  Ari is more popular in the Hollywood world, but that kid could have definitely taken him in a fight, abd uiit would have redeemed him in the eyes of all the people who were watching.  Oh well, things just work out for Ari, don’t they?

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Mousetrap – Finally – Cromartie decides stop sitting around twiddling his thumbs and go to kill John Connor.  He’s supposed to be programmed for nothing else, and it has been frustrating that he seems to have forgotten that mission.

Heroes: The Second Coming & The Butterfly Effect – It’s great to have Heroes back, but these two episodes did not deliver the huge punch they should have.  My main problem with the plot is that it once again revolves around the gang trying to stop a catastrophic future vision.  They’ve already done that twice – there’s no other way they can save the world?  The other problem with the time-travel element is that is Future-Peter quickly discovered that shooting his brother was a bad idea, why didn’t he go back again and stop himself?  Why not travel half-an-hour further back and simply explain that it wasn’t a good idea?  Still, I appreciate the faster pacing of the show, and I’m optimistic that the writers will be able to keep things interesting.

The Office: Weight Loss -  Ah, The Office, how I missed you!  This was a fantastic season premiere, and they seem to have finally gotten the hour-long episode down; instead of trying to just glue two stand alone episodes together, this episode was one long story, that brought us through the summer, and it worked perfectly.  Jim finally proposed!  Michael totally choked with Holly!  Ryan is back and taking names!  All in all, a fantastic season premiere.

Two side notes: I watched the first (of four) episode of the new animated Spaceballs show on G4, and I barely eeked out a single chuckle.  The premiere episode poked fun at (wait for it…) the Star Wars prequels!  How timely!  But not only have the prequels been lampooned a million times already, this half-hour just wasn’t that funny.  Excepting one joke where a Sithee (instead of the Sith – get it?  Heee-larious!) questions why their powers are somewhat inconsistent.

And everyone should really be watching Z Rock on IFC: It has celebrity cameos, female nudity, and scenes that take place at Dinosaur BBQ.  What more do you want?

I’m starting with last week’s HBO shows; I didn’t get to watch last night’s due to the Emmys, but fear not, I’ll get to them…

True Blood: The First Taste – This show ain’t getting any less cheesy, but I’m still enjoying watching it. And apparently, I’ll enjoy it for a second season as well, if I so choose. I find it a little odd that the show got renewed after its second episode, but hey, HBO has gambled successfully before. So far, I’m liking Sookie and the vampire Bill, and I wish the show would spend more time on them than on the jerky brother and the sassy best friend.

Entourage: Unlike a Virgin – Johnny was obsessive and Turtle made fun of him, which always makes for good comedy. The more serious side of Vince and Ari, as they discussed the reality of his future as an actor, made for a nice contrast. I was surprised to hear Ari speak so candidly about Vinny’s so-so acting ability, though – it kind of seemed odd that he would be so invested in someone he didn’t really believe in.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Automatic for the People – What the hell is going on here? I am seriously confused. So everyone is a Terminator? Did the Terminators want the reactor to open and for it to poison people? Or was it just prepared that, if that plan should have been foiled, the T-1000 would find a way to buy and automate the system? This whole multiple timeline and multiple people and machines altering destiny thing is getting a bit confusing for me. It might be that I’m just over analyzing, but hey, that’s what good geeks do.

Fringe: The Same Old Story – I love that the whole baby-turning-into-an-old-man bit didn’t go anywhere near where I thought it was going to.  The show is still sort of finding its footing, but it has tons of potential.  I wasn’t that crazy about the “seeing the last thing the dying person saw” bit, especially since last week’s episode introduced the concept of questioning dead people.  There are plenty of paranormal concepts out there that they don’t need to repeat themselves, and I’m hoping that was a one-time lapse in judgment.

Smallville: Odyssey – My expectations were so low – how was I still able to be disappointed?  Well let’s start with how Jor-El allows someone to “control” Clark – he loses his powers.  Yawn.  How many times has that happened already?  Then Clark manages to escape to Russia from the North Pole without any special powers?  All of the scenes with him in captivity were just blatant attempts to get him in a wet T-shirt.  It was cool to see (half of) the Justice League going to find Clark, but I’m not so sure I want Green Arrow coming to rescue me, when if a couple of armed guards enter a room, he is so slow that he couldn’t fire off a single shot.  And the whole “spinal fluid kryptonite that controls you” thing was totally shoe-horned and under used.  And without powers, an arrow through the heart doesn’t kill Clark right away?  Huh?  The show ended with the potential of Clark *finally* accepting his destiny, leaving the farm, and moving on to the Daily Planet, but it was still a weak premiere.  Oh, and why does Tess look exactly like Lois?  Awkward.

The 60th Primetime Emmy Awards – Cons: Five lame reality show hosts that talk too much, everyone spewing their politics, and hokey TV show “sets.”   Pros: Ricky Gervais vs. Steve Carell, and 30 Rock getting its due.

Sorry to keep y’all waiting, but I warned you the posts would come a little fewer and further between. The TV season has kicked off, so here are some real quick mini-impressions of what’s premiered so far.

True Blood: Strange Love – This series has potential, but the writing has got to improve. The characters all seemed completely over the top, and all the exposition really got in the way. But that might have just been necessary for the show to get it’s footing, so I’ll give it another chance or two. Although the whole silver-hurts-vampires thing really bugged me, I did appreciate the fact that they called out the fact that it’s normally reserved for werewolf lore.

Entourage: Fantasy Island – The boys of Entourage are back, and I realized how much I missed them with this episode. It probably helped the show that I wasn’t that crazy about True Blood and anything would have looked good by comparison, but Entourage felt fun again after taking itself too seriously in it’s most recent run.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Samson & Delilah – While I understand that it wasn’t the show’s fault that the first season was cut short by the writer’s strike, this season premiere just didn’t feel like a season premiere. And of course it couldn’t, because it took place immediately after the very cliffhanger-y moments of the previous episode. I found myself not totally remembering everything that happened last season with the Turk, and the “Previously on” didn’t help much. I also hated Shirley Manson’s character right from the start, with her boring speech on the majesty of the machines, and the reveal that she is a T-1000 just felt haphazard. Does this show really need *another* Terminator running around? And WTF was up with John’s repairing of Cameron’s chip? The Terminator’s main circuitry works like a NES game – you just blow on it, clean off the dust, and it goes back to working all of a sudden? Lame.

Fringe: Pilot – So far, this has been my favorite television of the season. This episode worked brilliantly as both a stand alone and as a series premiere. They completely resolved the episode’s main mystery, but tied it into one over-arcing conspiracy story that should play out really well as the series continues. The introduction of the characters was handled well, the plot didn’t seem overly convoluted, and the extended length plus limited commercials made the pilot feel like a movie. My only complaints would be the way the music was very close to what you hear on that *other* J.J. Abrams show, and while I dug that they tried something new with the “this-scene-takes-place-in…” text, the bold letters in the middle of the locations just didn’t work for me.

Also, a belated goodbye to Swingtown, which seems unlikely to get picked up for a second season. Watching swinging suburbanites in the summer of ‘76 (say that fast three times) made for some enjoyable viewing while nothing else was on. Except anytime the daughter was on screen…

Summertime has come and (almost) gone, and now that we’ve all gotten that pesky fresh air and outdoor goodness out of the way, it’s time we can focus on the things that REALLY matter, namely TV. There are only a handful (thankfully) of new shows coming this season that I’m looking forward to checking out, and there are plenty more of my favorites coming back for another go-round. So here, for your reading pleasure, is my complete list of Must-See-TV this fall, in chronological order by season premieres.

First up is the (already behind us) premiere of Robot Chicken, which happened this past Sunday night. If you have a DVR/Tivo, you have no excuse to miss this show. It’s about 12 minutes long and consistently funny in it’s satirizing of random pop culture nuggets. Think of the throw-away gags in a Family Guy episode, but without any attempt at a coherent plot.

I’m also passed the premiere date of Z Rock, which airs on IFC.  It’s a sort of Spinal Tap meets The Office meets Entourage sort of show, about three hard rockers who play kid parties during the day.  It’s raunchy and simple fun, or at least the first episode was.

True Blood premieres on HBO this Sunday, September 7. The buzz has been mixed, but having recently gotten into TV shows about vampires, I figure this one is worth a look. Besides, I’ll already be on my couch watching HBO on Sunday for…

Entourage, which returns this Sunday right after True Blood. Entourage started to feel a little stale last season, and it didn’t help that it was paired up with the hysterical Flight of the Conchords. But it’s still good old fashioned mindless entertainment.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles gets to pick up from where it was so rudely interrupted in it’s first season run when it comes back on Monday, September 8th. Like I’ve said before, I was totally over the Terminator franchise, but this show has restored my faith.

The next day, Fringe makes it’s debut. J.J. Abrams, the dude behind Lost, is co-creator and executive producer, which is kind of all I need to tune in to see what it’s all about. Add in that it’s inspired in part by The X-Files, and I’m more than signed up. According to an interview with Abrams in the NY Times, viewers can drop in and drop out without missing a beat, which isn’t really an issue for me, because if I’m going to watch the show, I’m going to watch them all.  And while I’m a little afraid that giving a show with an overall arc the Law & Order treatment might dumb it down, I’m still curious to see. (IGN also has an interesting article on Fringe here.)

Smallville returns for Season Eight on September 18th. I’ve already said all I can on this. I’m worried, but I’ll watch anyway; with my expectations so low, I can only be pleasantly surprised. Or be disappointed even further, I guess.

Heroes’ third season picks up on September 22nd, and I am definitely jazzed. Some fans were really bitter with the way Season Two went down, and while I agree that it wasn’t amazing, I didn’t think it was that bad, and I’m totally confident that the show can really make this whole “Villains” story work. Besides, Kirsten Bell?  Check. Hayden Panettiere?  Check.  A funny and lovable Asian time-traveler? Check!  What more do you need?

Also that night is the return of Two and a Half Men.  The wife got me into this show, and I have to admit that it always makes me laugh.  It’s light-hearted and surprisingly dirty, but it works.  I also had hoped to watch the previous seasons of How I Met Your Mother this summer in time for that show’s premiere (same night), but that didn’t work out.  Though it’s never too late, I suppose.

The Dunder-Mifflin crew returns with new episodes of The Office on September 25th, and after last year’s amazing post-strike run, the show has set the bar incredibly high for itself. But I’m not worried; these guys have proven time and time again how amazing their writing can be.

Sunday, September 28th sees the return of Fox’s Animation Domination, with new episodes of The Simpsons, Family Guy, and American Dad. The sheer fact that a show I started watching and loving when I was 10 is now entering it’s 20th season is something I never would have imagined.  In the past 19 years I’ve never missed an episode, and I don’t intend to start now. Family Guy has definitely lost some of its magic lately (especially after the “Cartoon Wars” episodes of South Park), but it still does have great moments here and there. And despite initially being written off by a lot of people as a Family Guy clone, American Dad has completely come into its own, and often times is even funnier than the show that inspired it.

On October 3rd, The Clone Wars makes it’s television debut, and after enjoying the movie, I am definitely stoked for the small screen version. Sure, I’m a geek for anything Star Wars, but this show is dripping with potential, so count me in.

October 8th will bring another animated show, and that’s the return of South Park. The first half of this season definitely had some pretty big misfires, but I can’t help getting excited for new episodes. Matt and Trey can redeem the season with a strong second half, and I fully expect at least one episode with a biting election/political slant.

Eli Stone gets it’s first full season to start on October 14th, and the show’s run earlier in the year was a lot more fun than I expected. It was initially given the time-slot after Lost, and it will remain to be seen if the show can pull in good numbers without it’s big lead in. The concept is definitely a little out-there, but the wife and I came to really enjoy the show’s great characters.

30 Rock returns at the end of the month, on October 30th, and though it will be tough to wait so long for new episodes, it’s a safe bet that it will be well worth it. The writing on 30 Rock is definitely top-notch, the jokes come fast and furious, and the long arcs fit seamlessly into each episode. It really is, quite simply, a brilliant show.

Finally, deep into fall on November 23rd, we have 24: Exile, the two hour prequel to 24’s upcoming seventh season. It seems like 24 lost a lot of fans with it’s sub-par sixth season, and the fact that there haven’t been any new episodes since May 2007 doesn’t help matters. The show definitely allowed itself to slip into old habits its last time out, and it will have to really try new things this year if it wants to keep going. I’m willing to keep going with 24, if for no other reason than last year, the show *did* have some moments of brilliance, even if they were lost in the sea of mediocrity.

On Monday, it was announced that Fox had officially picked up Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles for a second season. While the news wasn’t particularly surprising, I was still happy to hear it. Because not only did I enjoy the show, but it got me back loving a franchise that I had a pretty serious falling out with.

I loved the first two Terminator movies. And Terminator 2: Judgment Day had a perfect ending to the story. But a third movie was always an inevitably, even as the franchise rights got passed around Hollywood for what seemed like an eternity. I was excited for T3, figuring that all they had to do to make me and most fans happy would be to provide a clever enough reason as to how there could still be a future with Terminators.

In the movie, when John Connor refers to the events of T2 and says, “We stopped Judgment Day,” the Governator responds, “You only postponed it. Judgment Day is inevitable.”

The theme of the first two films was that the future was not set, that it could be changed, that humans are responsible for their own destinies.

T3 took that all back, and did so without even bothering to give an explanation.

After I walked out of T3, I had given up on the Terminator franchise. Even the news that the estimable Christian Bale himself would be starring in the next Terminator movie (and possibly two more after that, if the whole “Terminator Salvation” trilogy comes to pass) didn’t change my mind.

The announcement of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles didn’t immediately sway me either, but I tuned in, largely because there was no other television to watch thanks to the writers strike. But the show gripped me right away, by continuing the story of the first two Terminator films and largely ignoring the third. When John and Sarah Connor encounter Terminators, they are confused as to how they can still exist in the future. They set out to stop Skynet, once and for all, and they enlist Cameron to get to the root of how Skynet still comes to be despite their actions at the end of T2.

Now THAT got me interested again. Finally, we were going to get a real explanation as to how the machines come to rise.

The show was a bit uneven in the beginning, (how was Cameron a totally convincing normal teen girl one episode and a socially awkward machine the next?) but the show quickly found its footing, and has introduced a lot of new elements to the story, while building upon the mythology of the first two movies. The re-introduction of the Dyson widow, Dr. Silberman, and the Reese family were handled brilliantly, and I found myself really enjoying Brian Austin Green’s acting (certainly a first for me.) The show seems to have large plans and a lot of back/future story left to flash out involving the history of SkyNet, what kind of a machine Cameron was, and what the Terminators were doing to Derek and his friends in that creepy house. The “cliffhanger” ending wasn’t supposed to be a season finale, and I don’t think anyone really suspects that Cameron is gone – would Fox really get rid of hottie Summer Glau that easily? – but there are still more than enough loose ends to make Season Two worth watching.

And now that the Terminator franchise is interesting again, I’ll be tuning in.