Both Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Dollhouse have quite bad ratings and are unlikely to return next season. Nothing I say here is new - I’ve read the same things in many places.

Terminator has been really impressive recently. The first season was a little boring, but the second has been much better. The story has played with time travel using multiple timelines (people coming from different futures and creating different pasts). A lot of the episodes are fairly deep, which is probably hard to get approval for when you’re on Fox. It doesn’t rely on one major character and it is brave enough to kill off a favourite in a completely unexpected and abrupt way. For me, it’s taken over from Battlestar Galactica in the nerd entertainment department.

On the other hand, I do not think Dollhouse is worth saving. The main problem is that Eliza Dushku is extremely dull. I’m not sure if she can’t act, or it is a bad character, but I just don’t care about Echo. Some parts of the story have been interesting - I often wonder if it would be better if they killed Echo. Or study Alias, which was a show about a kick-ass chick where you really believed she could be kick-ass and also have a softer side.

In general both shows are about solving a mystery with strong female leads. Unfortunately I only care about one story.

It reminds me of XKCD: his blag on female leads in action movies and (understandable) obsession with Summer Glau (one, two).

9 April 2009 - 11:53 | Tags: tv, terminator, dollhouse, summerglau