Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 2
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 2 continues the story of Sarah Connor protecting her son and trying to prevent the world being taken over by machines in the future.
Film making 20/25
Video 21/25
Audio 19/25
Bonus Features 20/25
Total 80/100
Season 1 of The Sarah Connor Chronicles saw Sarah being introduced to a new protector in Cameron, played by Summer Glau, a Terminator that John Connor sends to the past from 2027 to protect himself. Sarah played by Lena Heady and John played by Thomas Dekker run for their lives as the future robots send more of their kind back to the past after both Sarah and her son John.
In Season 2 they take on the major threat of a well built Terminator named Cromartie who plays the major protagonist through much of Season 2. Also behind the scenes for most of the season is a liquid metal Terminator who hides as the CEO of a major high tech corporation named ZeiraCorp.
While Sarah and John fight off mostly unnamed lesser foes trying to stop them the storyline is shaped a bit differently than you would expect. The main storyline of trying just to survive is kept but a few times it is pointed out that things are changing.
Due to different characters going back in time at different times things for them both are different due to happenings in the present. This is pointed out by two of the secondary characters of Derek who is John’s uncle and his lover from the future with some of their differing past experiences.
The Sarah Connor Chronicles keeps faithful to the story of Terminators returning from a future that several have come to know will happen but unfortunately the series has been cancelled by the network. The show did not finish off the story other than wrapping up a season and close several loose ends but also left the future open and unknown.
Sarah is almost obsessed with finding and destroying a computer thought to be the start of the Skynet computer that becomes aware and ends up destroying humanity. The show does follow along with this for several episodes and takes this into another direction entirely as well toward the end with a serious twist to the plot that does leave several questions unanswered.
The Sarah Connor Chronicles does a great job of showing the more human side of people fighting to save the future but showing they are just people doing their best. The show started out as such a success because of this but somewhere along the way they lost something that did not sit well with many viewers.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles takes off in a new direction for the ending of season 2 that could have made a great starter for a new season but alas this was not meant to be. While the show did leave a few unanswered questions they did keep the actors roles even if a few of them got killed off in the end.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is a pretty good show and on Blu-ray was very good with some great special effects, makeup artistry and well done stunts. The show keeps the faith to the movies of well made science fiction and does use a lot of references to the movies throughout the season.
The Blu-ray release is well done with very good transfers to Blu-ray for audio and video for a nice entertaining package. Audio is done in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound which is good but a step down from the usual lossless DTS-HD Blu-ray is becoming known for.
The situational sound is well done and things like smaller noises of crickets, wind on the desert or people shrieking in the background as Cromartie terrorizes a small Mexican town work out very well. Larger sound effects are not quite as up to the standards of Blu-ray but still deliver enough of an impact that you can enjoy the show despite the lower quality of audio.
The video is a well done transfer and looks great, even better than the audio in fact with good colors and well done skin tones. The series has an overall gloss to it that is noticeable after the first few minutes and continues throughout the show but is not very prominent or distracting, just noticeable.
Things that really stand out are the well done textures and colors done in various scenes that go from smooth and well manicured like the office scenes of ZeiraCorp to the future shots of rubble filled tunnels of the human’s last hideouts or even the Mexican jail scenes with the downtrodden look of the small town south of the border.
The special effects are a bit lower key and obviously costing less but are still well done but the makeup effects are a movie quality throughout the series. The makeup artistry is performed by Rob Hall and by Almost Human Inc. which is highlighted in one of the Blu-ray bonus features.
Other bonus content throughout the series is commentary for various episodes by director, creator, cast and other crew members on most of the discs. There is a smattering of making of features including several featuring specific sequences like fights and chases with others about the entire season.
The bonus content is a well done bit of extras that really adds a lot to the entertainment value including the interactive piece with its choices of content from Production, Direction, Visual or Special FX. Overall the extras fill out the film and really do not get boring or add too much fluff to the good entertainment package of Season 2.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles does a great job of continuing the story of humanities fight for survival even if most of us don’t know about it. The show does a great job of adding the human side to the people who know what our future holds and are willing to give up everything to see that does not happen.