The Humans Are Dead

I'm back again for some more thoughts on the only subject I know: television. Two posts in the span of eight days! That's gotta be a new record here at Paul's Superblog. (Yes, Paul's Superblog. I defy you to find evidence that anyone else writes here.)

Let's discuss The Sarah Connor Chronicles, or The Sarah Connorcles for short. It's the new Fox show that premiered this week. Lucky them, having done all of their filming but none of their airing before the strike hit, leaving them with a bunch of new episodes to show while everyone else is in reruns. Anyway, this show is based on the Terminator movies, of which I've only seen one (I think it was T2?) but have a basic knowledge of.

So, the show is actually pretty good so far. Lots of Terminator battle scenes and explosions and so forth (I'm easy to entertain). And Sarah Connor is actually an interesting lead character, unlike that ultra-bland whatshername from that awful Bionic Woman show. Plus one of the three lead characters is a cyborg, so that should hopefully cut down on the sappy, melodramatic nonsense. You can't have any tear-filled, emotional scenes when you literally don't have a heart!

My main problem right now is with John Connor, who fits that typical "dumb kid" role who does the exact wrong thing at all times. For instance:

SARAH: "John, whatever you do, don't leave this house. If you leave the house, you will be killed by cyborgs."
JOHN: "Got it."
(5 minutes later)
JOHN: "Well, guess I'll leave the house."

Also, I don't like the kid who plays John Connor. He used to be on Heroes, as Claire's friend (the one who videotaped her jumping off the bridge). Then, the actor found out that his character was going to be revealed as gay, and he raised a huge stink about it and refused to participate, to the point that the entire plot was scrapped and the producer publicly called him out. Then I saw an interview with the kid recently where he said he felt like he didn't have a connection with a single person in the Heroes cast or crew. Well...no kidding, bro. You can't act like a homophobic diva and expect to be Mr. Popularity on the set. Just look what happened to Isaiah Washington-- he got canned from a hit show, then was hired by Bionic Woman. Honestly, I'm not sure which of those was more damaging to his career.

There are still a bunch of things I don't understand about the Terminator mythology. The basic premise is that, in the future, a race of evil robots has taken over the world and wiped out almost all humans.* But a band of rebel humans-- led by John Connor-- manages to fight back and destroy most of the robots.

(*That reminds me of this video.)

So, the robots-- as a last-ditch effort-- send a Terminator back in time (oh yes, they can time-travel) to kill a young Sarah Connor before she can give birth to John. When that doesn't work, they send another Terminator back to when John is a kid, hoping to kill him. That doesn't work either. My question is-- why stop there? Why don't the future-robots keep sending Terminators further and further back in time to wipe out anyone in the Connor gene pool? For instance, they could kill Sarah's parents before she's conceived.

Granted, the Connor family seems to be rather athletic and adept at eluding robots. But if the robots go back enough generations, they're bound to find the black sheep of the family, the ultra-lazy and/or dangerously obese ancestor that they can obliterate in a second. Like, Filbert "Stumblebum" Connor, a man so fat that he can barely leave his armchair even when a Terminator shows up to kill him. Bang. The robots finish him off, and they've forever altered (or wiped out) the Connor lineage, and John Connor will never exist to destroy them in the future.

Why is it that I've figured this out so easily when the robots couldn't? When robots do take over the world, I hope they'll consider hiring me as a policy adviser. I work cheap.

Strike Out

I guess if we're going to keep up this fruitless charade of having a blog, somebody should post something. Mike keeps saying he'll post-- something about a certain High School Musical star and her botched nose job-- but he never seems to get around to it. I'm not sure he enjoys writing. (Totally called that, by the way.) Now, granted, it's not like I've been Captain Frequent-Updates either. But at least I have an excuse: my near-total lack of knowledge or interest in the general goings-on of the world. So...yeah. Not my fault.

But I guess I'll chime in on this writer's strike. This thing just keeps going, doesn't it? It's as if the people involved are more concerned about their own well-being than the fact that I no longer have anything to do with my time. Asses. By now, most shows have completely used up their stock of new episodes, leaving us with an unappealing selection of reruns and poorly thought-out reality shows. (Celebrity Apprentice? What the hell, man? How is anyone learning about marketing and business if Gene Simmons can just call up some millionaire friend and say, "Buy a hot dog from me for $10,000. Okay, we win!")

At least Lost is coming back for a truncated 8-episode season. And Survivor is returning with a half-All Star season (by which I mean half the cast are All-Stars, not that the All-Stars have each been sliced in half. That would be messy). But pretty much every show that was on in the fall-- which Mike and I so helpfully previewed for you a few months ago-- is pretty much finished for the season, with their return date unknown. Heck, 24's entire season has been scrapped, which means we'll have to live with the sour taste of Season 6 in our mouths for another year.

Well, it's not a total loss. All the late-night shows have recently returned to the air, though most without their writers. I'm not sure that's going to work too well for, say, The Daily Show, which relies almost excusively on its writers (except the interview portions, which are usually the lamest part of the show). But actually, Conan O'Brien has been really good without writers. He's the most naturally funny of any of the late-night hosts, so he can carry a show by himself. Hell, I'm starting to think the writers have been dragging him down all these years with their terrible monologue jokes and such. Let's just see more footage of Conan crashing an NBC studio tour or interrupting his staff's game of Rock Band. Funny stuff.

Anyway, this strike can't last forever, but it sure is a pain in the ass. The other day, I almost resorted to reading a book. I kid you not! A book! It's a dark, dark world out there, friends.