TV is the New Reading

‘Terminator’ series

a rush of adrenaline

You’ll have to excuse me. It’s taken me about this long to scrape my jaw up off the floor.

“Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” launched a mind-blowing reboot to the deadly-androids-from-the-future series two weeks ago that demonstrated just how dark the writers were willing to go.

From the opening sequence, cut with beautifully explosive violence across the haunting strains of singer Shirley Manson’s cover of the traditional “Samson and Delilah,” we as viewers were given notice that we could assume nothing.

The explosion that disabled Cameron – the guardian reprogrammed by John Connor in the future and sent back to assist him and his mother, Sarah – also reset her programming. So Cameron – the android character played by Summer Glau – was now targeting him.

The Connors made a run for it and hid in a church, where they confronted Cameron but couldn’t disable her. Ultimately, it took being crushed between two trucks to slow her down so they could focus on whatever was going wrong with her chip.

And that wouldn’t stop the archnemesis working against them. Along with providing some amazing vocals, Manson turns in an incredible performance as the head of an electronics operation guiding the evolution of SkyNet, the apocalyptic robot army of the future. One really cool thing about Manson’s character is that she’s one of those shape-shifting androids from the “Terminator 2” movie – the first to make an appearance in the television series. That opens up thousands of possibilities – not to mention, entire worlds of scary for the Connors.

In this week’s installment, one of John Connor’s resistance operatives from the future arrived in the present day with some critical information about a nuclear power plant – one which becomes the base of operations for the Resistance in the future. Skynet androids attempt to induce a meltdown, which Sarah and Cameron are able to prevent in a brilliantly choreographed fight sequence. Even so, by taking over operations of the plant while in disguise, Manson’s operation may have come out ahead in that skirmish.

Even so, the Connors aren’t left empty-handed. The runner from the future managed to leave them an extensive if cryptic message on the wall of their home, which they will doubtless spend the rest of the season deciphering.

As sci-fi action thrillers go, “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” is an eye-grabbing adrenaline rush unlike much of anything else on television, and well worth the time, although the violence could get to be a little too much for younger viewers.

The show airs Mondays at 7 p.m. on FOX.

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