Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles 2.01

Monday night marked the return of Sarah and John Connor and their pet android Cameron with the Season 2 Premier: "Samson & Delilah".

Carrying from the excitement of last seasons finale, the episode opens with a slow motion and choppy musical montage as two dudes I forgot about from the finale snatch Sarah and John and blow Cameron up in a jeep. The force of the explosion wreaking havoc on Cameron's fetching frame, she limps inside to do away with the bad guys in over the top fashion, just like last year! Except....OH NO! Her program's been reset! Now's she's reading termination orders on John Connor! (We know this is true because we get to see it from her HUD, natch.)

Thankfully, this slow-mo bullet time nonsense only lasts for a couple of minutes. Seriously folks, not a good way to start a season premiere. We want action and shit blowing up, not MTV music videos. Opening sequences aside, this episode turned out to be a bit ho-hum after the excitement at the end of Season 1.

For those that haven't been keeping score, pretty much all of our cast is back. Lena Heady is back as Sarah Connor and while she is in fact a gorgeous leading lady, she's a bit weepy for the mother of savior of man kind. Thomas Dekker returns in the role of John Connor...but if he didn't, it wouldn't be much of a show would it. Since we'd already know how it ended and all. The thing that I feel most disturbed about with this show is the fact that I'm enjoying Brian Austin Green as the freedom fighter from the future, Reese. Sure, the douchey tough guy schtick probably comes naturally to him, but it fits well for the roll. The surprise addition here is Shirley Manson, lead singer of "Garbage". (Note: She's a babe too. We're up to 3 now in this show!) Shirley comes in as Catherine Weaver, who is the latest to latch on to the chess playing computer AI from season 1. This episode introduces her character as a feisty high powered red head for some leading computer firm, who wants the AI to start a project called "Babylon". (It's from the Bible.) This is all well and good, and there's a nice little surprise that rolls in at the end of the episode involving Ms. Manson. The verdict is still out though on whether or not she can act. To be honest? She's a bit wooden. Then again, I wasn't really paying attention because I have a soft spot for red heads, especially ones with Scottish accents!

As you can tell from the intro, this entire premier centers on Cameron turning bad and gunning for John Connor. They run the usual staple of good guy/bad guy feats, failing to bring anything new to the table. For the most part, it was okay. We get to see some genuine threat to Sarah and John for a change as they're banged up pretty bad and bleeding, and there's some nice chuckles as Summer Glau limps about and patches herself up with a staple gun. Where this episode turns south is when they turn John Connor, the savior of the human race mind you, into a giant pussy.

Yah, that's right all say it; they turned him into a pussy this episode. They've repeated ad nauseum through out this series that no matter what, John Connor must live. He must live. He's a badass, he's going to save us all, he must live. So when Cameron his body guard bot turns bad and tries to gun him down, does he finish her off in one fell swoop like one would expect from such a bad-assed dude? Hell no. He decides at the last minute to give her a second chance because she said she loved him.

What. The. Fuck.

This guy's going to be the person that grows up to finish off the robots that are decimating the human race by giving them a second chance because one says she loves him? Come on dude, grow a pair.

I've been a strong and vocal support of "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" throughout the first season, and looked forward to this premiere quite a bit. It wasn't the worst hour of television that I received, but it was pretty lacking for what I've come to expect out of the "Terminator" universe. I still hold out hope that this season will work out the kinks and the final tweets of this premiere may help it along the way.

If nothing else, Shirley Manson's always nice to look at!