One week ago, Aint it cool posted a defacto list of spring season premieres, which contains the dates of 3 shows I care about: Lost, Jericho, and Sarah Connor Chronicles. All Dates that I previously wrote about. Those Dates again are...
Sarah Connor Chronicles (Terminator) Series Premiere, Fox, Sunday January 13th
LOST Season 4, ABC, Thursday January 31st
Jericho Season 2, CBS, Tuesday February 12th
The other day Aint it cool posted a very similar list that detailed spring season finales, which were much different than i thought they would be.
Lost begins on Jan 31st and ends on Mar 20th. That's a mere 8 episodes compared to the scheduled 16 episodes. I guess the 8 episodes that were completed before the strike is it.. they didn't finish off the rest of the series whether it was written or not. They halved it. Just like Heroes, and every other show that started back in September.
No wonder Cruse and Lindelof think the season "ender" isn't as powerful as previous seasons.. It'll probably parallel the first 6 episodes of Season 3 over a year ago. "Here's a taste of this Season.. and you won't get the rest until later." Of course, with Season 3 they wanted to hold off until all the episodes were complete and they could air without hiatus. The strike paints a much different reason for hiatus.
I'm somewhat concerned about the future of Lost if the entire Season 4 is a mere 8 episodes...
Towards the end of Season 3, the creators of Lost states that Lost has an ending. Lost was set to end with 6 seasons total, with 16 episodes in each of its remaining seasons. I'm not sure how strong those set of previous facts were... if there is a contract behind that or...
What are these 8 episodes..? Are these 8 episodes all of Season 4 or are these the first half? and will we get the remaining 40 episodes that were intended to follow.. are those 40 episodes scaled down to 32 now?
If these 8 episodes fall flat, is Lost, as a series, in trouble..? Is Lost cancellable? God I hope not...
Speaking of cancellable.. Jericho Season 2 is literally Jericho's second chance as a series.
Over the Christmas break, I watched all 22 episodes of the first season and I'm hooked.. Jericho presents itself very much like Lost and the story of Jericho perpetuates it beautifully. The difference is that Jericho has split nearly all its mysteries by the end of Season 1. At that end of the season, I'm more concerned with what is going to happen than what is happening.
In Lost, they keep the important mysteries floating around and unsolved so you continue to speculate. Each season finale of Lost posts a significant milestone in the series. Some huge event occurs that dramatically alters the story, the final missing piece of a puzzle is revealed, and is topped off with a cliffhanger giving the direction of the next season.
The entire first season of Jericho continued to escalate and escalate. The writers basically threw everything into the fire to keep it burning as bright as possible.. but a brilliant fire burns twice as bright, half as long. Season 1 is a fantastic ride, but I really don't have the ambition to watch it over again. Once Season 4 of Lost is complete, I'll probably start the series all over again at episode 1, but would I do the same with Jericho?
ANYWAYS... Jericho Season 2 begins on Feb 12th and ends March 25th.. only 7 episodes. This is Jericho's final test for the market. If these 7 episodes don't get the ratings...
I dunno... I am skeptical... Jericho is pretty well laid out at this point... we just need to wait and see what happens.
On the other hand we have a completed new show: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which takes place 2 years after Terminator 2.. several years still prior to Terminator 3. I guess this story will show just what happened to Sarah Connor in between those movies and show how John Connor learned to trust her vision of the future.
This kinda screws up the beautiful chronological space the movies shared.. Terminator 1, 2 and 3 happened in 1984, 1991, and 2003, respectively.. both when the movies were released and when the events in the Terminator timeline happen.. In fact, Terminator 4 is slated for 2009.. 6 years into the machine war. ^_^
Oh well, a little side story filling in the important gaps in a different medium can bend the rules a little bit.
Keep in mind that in Terminator 2, they machine war break out was supposed to occur in 1997, but in Terminator 3 it came full circle that you cannot change the future... only delay it. In this case, the delay was 6 years, and the Sarah Connor Chronicles should reveal more of how this delayed.. or perhaps how it was inevitably set to ignite in 2003.
I really really wonder how well the Sarah Connor Chronicles will stick to the chronology of the series. 2 years after Terminator 2 is 1993.. Are we going to see 1993 objects? or 2007-8 continuity errors..
On last thing to note is that the good terminator, previously played by Arnold, is played by Summer Glau, famously known by geeks as River Tam of Firefly and Serenity. She's really the show's biggest star too... unless you count the Terminator branding, which will be the main, if not only reason people would bother watching this show.
ANYWAYS.. Sarah Connor Chronicles begins next Sunday Jan 13th, and continues on Monday Jan 14th to its normal timeslot. It will continue 8 weeks until March 3rd, spanning 9 episodes. Odd that IMDB has 12 episodes listed.
I'm definitely going to check it out next Sunday ^_^.. Check out these previous on yahoo: http://tv.yahoo.com/terminator-the-sarah-connor-chronicles/show/39221/videos