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Despite being a childless, science fictionloving grad student with nothing but time on my hands back in 2008, I somehow missed Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles when it was on TV. Created by Josh Friedman, The Sarah Connor Chronicles was canceled after two seasons and 31 episodes, despite mostly positive critical reception. Bingeing it under pandemic conditions, as I have been doing recently, has been unexpectedly cathartic. This is a show about people living in a sunny, beautiful, Southern Californian present day while haunted by the knowledge that a grim future might be coming unless they change it by their actions. Its also about parenting under stress and feeling constantly under siege by inescapable circumstance, whichwell, if thats too real, you can always focus on the nifty killer cyborgs instead.

The haunted, hard-pressed characters on this show are nonetheless fun to watch. The Sarah Connor Chronicles stars Lena Headey as Sarah, the monomaniacal mama bear originally played by Linda Hamilton. Sarah Connor has a bit in common with Game of Thrones Cersei Lannister, now Headeys most famous role, in that both characters are driven to protect their families, but compared with Sarah Connor, Cersei is a beam of sunshine. Sarah Connor has but one single purpose, or at least a related set of themworry about Skynet, find out Skynets plans, thwart Skynetand that makes her understandably a little bit of a tough hang.

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Luckily, the other main cast members are delightful. John Connor, played by Thomas Dekker, is a teenager whos growing into his charisma and strength, all the while wishing there were some way out of his fate. Summer Glau, who put in some serious time in the science fiction TV mines in the 2000s and 2010s with Firefly, Dollhouse, The 4400, Alphas, and Arrow, might be my favorite Terminator in the whole Terminatorverseshes so icy and strange, with perfect skin and an intense, deadpan gaze. The casting director was clearly great at picking actors who can tap into the uncanny valley. (Garret Dillahunt, a wonderful hey, its that guy actor who plays the first seasons Big Bad, also has this gift.) And when Johns uncle Derek Reese appears, sent back from the future to help the Connors survive, you can enjoy the sight of Brian Austin Green convincingly playing a battle-hardened, tattoo-covered resistance fighter, offering world-class handsome uncle from out of town vibes.

The episode I recommend to the Sarah Connor Chroniclescurious out there is the second season premiere, Samson & Delilah. The action starts with an explosion: Glaus character, Cameron, the Terminator assigned to protect John, has been car-bombed, and her chip is damaged, causing her to turn on him and try to kill him. Samson & Delilah showcases Glaus creepy, quiet strength as well as plenty of run run run, shoot shoot shoot, drive drive drive. Theres a lot of action in Samson & Delilah, including some cool callbacks to the surprise special effects that made Terminator 2: Judgment Daythe best Terminator movie, dont @ meso memorable.

Working together, John and Sarah figure out how to trap Cameron and force her to reboot, giving them some time to access her head, open up her scalp, and take her chip out. John cuts into her, but before he takes her chip out of her head, she begs him not to, saying over and over, in a girls robotic voice, I love you! I love you! John goes ahead, then cleans her chip, and in the episodes climactic scene, as every trusted adult in his life warns him not to do it, reinserts it. Johnwho knows he will one day be the leader of the human resistanceoften struggles to understand how his future self would handle a problem, a dynamic thats not as well explored in the other Terminator films. What would it do to a person to know that hes going to grow into a leader everyone trustssomebody whom people will willingly die for? A future John Connor (this show posits the existence of multiple timelines) sent Cameron back to help his younger self survive. But his family tells young John that no metal can be trusted. Who is right?

The rest of Season 2 will see a lot of tragedy unfold because of the mistrust between Cameron and the adults who are protecting John and fighting Skynet. There are deep meditations about the meaning of humanity, tests of familial bonds, and revelations about peoples capacity to collaborate with evil. But most interesting of all is watching John, a dippy kid with messy hair, become John Connor. Im just sorry this show got canceled before we got to see where it wouldve taken him next.

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Where to start watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Season 2's Samson and Delilah. - Slate