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One of the biggest complaints in this current era of serialized mythology is that of wheel spinning. Probably the poster child for this phenomenon is 24. It's when a show has a story to tell, with an end game in sight, but with too many episodes to get there. If Jack needs to be in Anaheim in hour 24 to stop a bomb from exploding at Disneyland, and the only thing keeping him from saving the day is friend-turned-enemy holding his daughter Kim hostage, he has to fill 24 hours of moles within CTU, layers upon layers of terrorist conspiracy, and several close friends' deaths to get there. The problem is, most network seasons (24 notwithstanding) run roughly 22 episodes. That's a lot of time to fill with - quite often - not enough plot. As good an example of this phenomenon as 24 is, I'll save that discussion for another time. A recent mythology show with tons of potential just got cancelled. I consider wheel spinning to be the show's greatest downfall and possibly the biggest reason audiences grew disenchanted enough for Fox to yank it after a season and a half run. That show is Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Before he won his three Oscars, James Cameron created the Terminator mythology for the big screen. We all know the story; artificial intelligence destroys the world except for a resistance led by John Connor. They send a killer cyborg back in time to the '80s to kill Connor's mother, Sarah. A resistance fighter named Kyle Reese also goes back and fathers John. Much has been written about how simple the concept is, yet how rich the potential of the mythology. And, at one time, I agreed.

By the time the third movie came out the cracks started showing. Cameron and Sarah Connor (otherwise known as Linda Hamilton) sat the third one out and, for the first time, the story started to feel redundant. Don't misunderstand me, I still dig it. The action sequences are top notch, the acting decent enough, and Terminatrix Kristanna Loken is a head turner to put it mildly, but it really brings nothing new to the table, save perhaps for a course correcting theme that makes Judgment Day inevitable, but I'll get to that in a second.

I love the idea of a female terminator. It's just that it's really no different from the liquid metal terminator from T2, from a storytelling point of view. Really, that's all she is, a liquid metal terminator with a hot body. Nor is the idea of Arnold coming back as a protectinator anything we haven't seen from the previous installment either. So, despite some solid entertainment, Terminator 3 really just wheel spins long enough for the world to end, despite the efforts of Sarah, John, and Good Arnold in T2.

Which is where the series kicks in. It drops most of the continuity of the third film, but retains the course correction theme. The machine apocalypse is coming, and all Sarah and John can do is delay it for a bit.

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