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Viewers initially tuned in to the show for John Connor, a character who’s at the center of the second terminator film ‘Judgement Day’ and who will ultimately go oesn to lead the Earth resistance in the future (and sends back the terminator in the first place). However, I think most people would agree that from the onset of the show Sarah was the more compelling character.

As the second season rolled along we found that John’s angst-ridden role as the teenage savoir of the universe just became more annoying than it did interesting, leaving Cameron and Sarah (as well as the fantastic subplots between Ellison, Weaver, and John Henry) to pick up much of the slack.

Now to name the show “The John Connor Chronicles” I think would have been a clichéd decision. Yet I can’t but wonder what directions the series might have taken had the show been simply named, “The Terminator Chronicles” straight from the get-go. When you put Sarah Connor in your title there’s a tendency to alienate many of the other supporting characters in the series, leaving audiences to unconsciously cringe every time the show focuses on another lead character. By giving the show a more general title (like “The Terminator Chronicles”) would have allowed more inclusive storylines to be told without pigeonholing particular characters and short-changing others. I suppose we’ll never know what would’ve happened had the writers initially decided to go with a different name. If only I could go back in time to warn them.

Now I know a lot of my posts recently have been full trailers released for new shows coming to television this fall. But to settle the score once and for all, Scifi Wire put together a chart detailing all science fiction shows that have been cancelled, renewed, as well as new shows set to hit the primetime lineup on one easy to view chart. These networks include ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and the CW. Here is the list as follows.

Some of the more notable changes include the Sarah Connor Chronicles being cancelled alongside Knight Rider, Kings, Life on Mars, Pushing Daisies, Eli Stone, Reaper, My Own Worst Enemy and many others. Medium has switched network after not being renewed for a sixth season on NBC but did get picked up by CBS (a good move in my book). Similarly, the biggest new show last fall was without a doubt Fox’s Fringe which get renewed for a second season.

For additional details be sure to check the list below to find which of your favourite shows made the rowster this fall season.

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Now I don’t want to drone on about this with a lot of fluff information because to be quite honest I don’t know the specifics surrounding the recent decisions of the Fox network, but if you haven’t heard the news already it seems that the Sarah Connor Chronicles is officially terminated (as lame as that pun sounds) while Joss Whedon’s new show Dollhouse has been granted a second season.

The cancellation of ‘The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ frankly doesn’t surprise me. And while I am (was) a fan of the series, I did however manage to predict its downfall months ahead of time with a previous post entitled “Why the Sarah Connor Chronicles is Doomed to Fail?” (Click Here to View), a post which led to an outpour of comments ranging from insightful to extreme hatred.

I am surprised, however, that the show Dollhouse was renewed for a second season and not because SCC was a better show (which it is) per se. I seemed to me that the premise surrounding the show was to have specific consciousnesses downloaded into a doll’s mind and have them carry out missions appropriate to that identity. All the while, however, I kept asking myself, why don’t they just send in super-intelligent spies to do these missions like that show ‘The Pretender’ instead of (in some cases) rather useless facsimiles in her place? When I have to question the basic plot of any show, a lot of the time I don’t give it a second chance.

Nevertheless, the more I mulled it over the more I think the decision to keep Dollhouse and axe SCC was probably the best thing to do. Yes I know that I’ll probably get in a lot of shit for saying this, but because Dollhouse is still very much in its infancy at the conclusion of its first season, and SCC wasn’t exactly the cheapest show to produce, this might be the best thing for Fox. I suppose only time will tell.

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• Report: Sarah Connor Terminated, Dollhouse Dodges Bullet (wired.com)

Well it seems that one sci-fi show did land on top this season as Fox announced that it’s thriller Fringe will definitely be renewed for a second season with a 22-episode commitment. According to the Scifi Wire, Fringe is the number one new drama among adults ages 18-49. This comes as no surprise, the show is great and there really wasn’t a doubt in my mind that the show would get picked up again for next year.

“Fringe proved to be a notable addition to our schedule all season and it really has fans buzzing as it builds to a fantastic season finale,” said Fox’s president of entertainment, Kevin Reilly. “J.J. and the whole Bad Robot team have been phenomenal partners, and we look forward to years of making great television with them.”

With only two more episodes left in the season (and a guest appearance by Leonard Nimoy as “William Bell” for this season’s finale) viewers now more than ever are becoming swept up in the Fringe phenomenon. The season finale “There’s More Than One of Everything” is set to air of Tuesday, May 12th at 9:00 EST.

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WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD!

In previous seasons of Lost, there’s sometimes been a tendency for the writers to be rather lax in their abilities seeing as their dedicated fan base with have no other choice than to tune in for these last episodes of the season, less they risk getting an incomplete picture once the finale goes to air. With only one more episode until the season finale of Lost, audiences were tempted to lower their expectations as a result, most likely expecting a less-than-stellar episode as we headed to the conclusion of season 5. Fortunately, last night’s episode delivered with flying colors and, in my opinion, surpassed most audience members’ expectations.

Last night’s episode (entitled “The Variable”) focused on Daniel Faraday. Until last night we didn’t get a suitable back story for his character. In fact the closest thing we did get was earlier in the fifth season through Desmond’s eyes in the episode “Jughead”, where Desmond learns more of Daniel’s past experiences including his work with time travel, his dismissal from Oxford University, and the crippling state of his ex-girlfriend, Theresa, that he caused with those experiments.

The episode begins with Daniel Faraday appearing on the island after an undetermined amount of time from Ann Arbour, Michigan (a subplot that was never fully explained to begin with)—What’s also interesting to note is that another submarine has come to the island maybe, what, a week after Jack, Kate, and Hurley travelled back to 1978. Weren’t they told in episode “316” that there wasn’t another sub coming in for another few months? WTF?

In the first half-hour of the show, Daniel’s antics come off as comical more than they do serious as he tries to basically do everything to sabotage the cover of our Losties living in secret among the Dharma Initiative. In his ramblings (primarily to Dr. Chang) he states that he’s from the future and that an ‘incident’ is about to occur on the island that will have ‘catastrophic consequences’ to the inhabitants living there (apparently only six hours from when the event is set to occur).

It’s very rare in Lost that I find the flashbacks of a character more interesting than the island story but they were truly exceptional both in terms of pacing and in continuity with the Lost series. Daniel is raised alone by his mother, who turns out to be none other than Eloise Hawkings, and is denied the normal activities  that every child should experience (which apparently also includes playing the piano) so that his intelligence won’t be squandered in the name of other scientific pursuits. After graduating from Oxford University he basically denounces his mother at a lunch when she acts tersely towards his new girlfriend, Theresa, who is also his lab assistant at the university. However, his experiments with radiation and time travel leave him mentally crippled, and his girlfriend in a vegetative state, that is until he is given an offer by Charles Widmore to return to the island where Oceanic flight 815 crashed, an island he claims can heal his mental defects.

What’s the big reveal in this episode? Daniel’s mother in the past kills the future Daniel in the present. Apparently when you have to communicate with the Hostiles, it isn’t the best idea to point a gun at their leader while surrounded by literally a dozen Others with guns. Couldn’t have Daniel taken the same sub that Kate, Jack, and Hurley were on and not act so rash in this episode? Had it not been for Sawyer holding Horace hostage, Daniel’s hasty actions could be easily explained away. One has to question whether Daniel’s complete disregard for the other Oceanic survivors was to show his unstable mental state, or just sloppy writing on the part of the writers. What is also find out as a nice touch is that Widmore is indeed Daniel’s father, making Penny his half sister at least. Overall, a good episode that really could have been a lot worse, but when there are some plotholes to big to point out (and I’m usually terrible at finding plotholes) this episode lacked.

WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD!

Let me get my own personal biases of last night’s Fringe episode (entitled “Midnight”) before I commit to writing an entire review, but I loved it for several reasons (surprise!). One of the things that Fringe has done particularly well is how it paces its episodes across an entire season. One week you’ll get an episode involving a genetically-mutated monster, another week you’ll get a man who invades people’s dream for his own misdeeds, but then every few weeks or so you’ll get one that makes us question whether in the face of science gone awry what it ultimately means to be human? According to Fringe that answer is love, lust, and devotion.

“Midnight” centers around a serial murderer killing men around the Boston area by brutally twisting their necks until their spines are exposed, at which point it’s discovered that their spinal cord fluid has been completely drained. Traces of an extinct form of syphilis from the victims lead them to a scientist named Boone who has previous ties to the biochemical terrorist group ZFT.

Once in FBI custody though, Boone claims that his wife has been abducted by said terrorist group, however, this turns out to be a rouse, but not entirely. ZFT injected Boone’s wife with a poisonous agent that allows her to survive as long as she has enough spinal fluid to keep her alive. After Boone previously depleted most of his own fluid to keep her alive, her baser instincts kick in and she goes on the prowl to a popular nightclub where she seduces her victims like a praying mantis before killing them.

Boone goes on to explain that this was his punishment for leaving ZFT and that he will explain everything he knows about the organization, if Olivia and the Fringe division help save his wife. In the end they capture Boone’s wife, however, it is a hollow victory. In order for Boone to survive Walter Bishop had to remove even more of his spinal fluid in order to synthesize an antidote. The wife is saved, however, Boone dies from a stroke. In the final moments of the show we find out that William Bell, CEO of Massive Dynamics, was one of the founding members of ZFT.

I think what this episode did so well was inadvertently parallel the everlasting love between Boone and his wife, against the love that Olivia had for her now deceased fiancée. Although seemingly supernatural events do happen in this episode, it is very pushed to the background for greater themes at work here, a subtext. It isn’t by coincidence that they also decided to place the divorce subplot of Olivia’s sister in this episode as well.

In the end though it made us ask one question, “Would you die for the one you love?” or maybe more accurately, “How strong would a love have to be in order to sacrifice one life for another?” This episode targets the reason why people turned into Fringe in the first place, a question of what ultimately makes us human rather than all of the things that don’t, and the invisible thread that strings all of these random events together, love.