Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Season 1

Story: 8
Action: 7
Acting: 7
FX: 8
Durability: 8
Special Features: 7

I bet it was a challenge getting the pilot approved for this series. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles sounded like it was going to be a failure to begin with because it was taking one of the most sacred sci-fi sagas and not including any of the original cast members. Now Stargate also did this years ago, but they had a top name in Richard Dean Anderson to carry the weight. This series did not. However, it all turned out well. Season 2 begins tomorrow night and I'm reviewing the DVD set of season 1 that I gladly spent $20 on.

The 2 things that made this series successful were the story and special fx. The plot of each episode had to be carefully thought out because of the time altering aspects of the story arc. And it also acknowledged the 3 movies. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles took place between T2 and T3. It starts in 1999, but Sarah & John time travel to 2007 with the help of a new Terminator named Cameron to try to stop Skynet from being built. Some of the characters from the movies made appearances in the series including Dr. Silberman, Kyle Reese, Enrique and the Dyson family. There were also a lot of new characters added... Charlie Dixon (Sarah's new fiancee), James Ellison (FBI agent investigating the strange evidence of robots from the future) and Derek Reese (Kyle's older brother). While the main characters of the series were figuring out how Skynet was started, Terminators were also beginning to mobilize and prepare for Judgement Day.

The special effects were the best I've seen for a non-cable TV channel. The endoskeletons didn't lose that much detail. That was very important because it's the most memorable image from the movies. They also showed enough footage of the Terminators to keep me interested. They could've easily cut corners and made cheap replicas of the robots, but in the end the fx team did a great job working off of the movie imagery.

The most important character was of course the title one, Sarah Connor. Lena Headey's interpretation wasn't exactly the same as the original, Linda Hamilton. I felt that was OK because each Terminator story had Sarah go through huge life-changing experiences. In Terminator, she was a sweet diner waitress... a normal everyday person. In T2, she was obsessed with training her son John to be the leader of mankind and was also locked up in a mental hospital for years. In T2, Hamilton played a tough Terminator-like soldier. Headey in the series still had the toughness, but was more rational. This change in behavior could be explained by the events at the end of T2. She was reunited with her son and saw the importance of life. She gained sight of what they were fighting for again. As for the other characters, there was a lot of leeway. John Connor was a kid in T2, so getting a new actor was no big deal to play him as an older teen. Thomas Dekker did a great job with this role, combining characteristics of a budding leader and an everyday teen. He also looks somewhere between the T2 and T3 John. Summer Glau played the good Terminator and there was a lot of contrast in her character. On the outside, she looks like a sweet girl, but the way she acted stone cold was almost creepy... a "scary robot."

The timing of this TV series is great because it'll set things up for Terminator Salvation in Summer 2009.

You can catch season 2 Monday nights @ 8pm on Fox.

Related: IMDB, Official Site on Fox, Sarahconnorchronicles.org (fan site)

DVDeals 9/7 - 9/13

DVD Tuesday
The long awaited partnership of Jet Li and Jackie Chan will come out this Tuesday... Forbidden Kingdom. The regular edition is cheapest at Circuit City... $14.99. The 2-disc special edition is $22.99 everywhere, so it'll end up slightly cheaper if you buy from Amazon or Buy.com assuming you have Prime membership or purchase other things to qualify for free shipping.

Circuit City Deals
- Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon for $6.99
- Ong Bak for $6.99
- A Knight's Tale or $6.99
- XXX for $6.99
- Desperado for $6.99
- Mask of Zorro for $6.99

Best Buy Deals
- Seven Swords for $4.99
- Hero for $4.99
- Ghost Rider for $7.50

Google Chrome BETA

Google released Chrome, their new browser today. So I wanted to post my take on it. As usual, they did a lot of research and testing before its release. They must've studied user behaviors in depth because I felt right at home with it even though it has a different look and feel than my default browser, Firefox. I'm not sure if this browser if for everyone though. A power user who knows his/her shortcuts would have an easier time with it because there aren't a lot of menus to navigate with. They concentrated on making a lot of space for the web page itself, only displaying information when needed.

Pros
The look and feel is original and visually appealing. Space for web pages has been maximized and it breaks away from the standard Windows interface. Because of the simplified look, many interface elements perform more than one task. The address bar is also a search bar. The backend is treated as a mini operating system almost, doing an efficient job of dividing processes. If one tab crashes, it doesn't shutdown the entire browser. Tabs can be dragged in and out of windows. Developers need not worry too much about developing for another browser. It uses the same rendering engine as Safari. All of my pages look fine on it and I haven't run across any sites that didn't work yet.

Cons
It still lacks a lot when compared to Firefox, but Google Chrome is still in beta. It can't be customized to the level that Firefox can... no themes or plugins. Nearly all of the "pros" I mentioned can be achieved in Firefox with plugins. Google boasted about performance, but this browser renders images noticeably slower.

Conclusion
Google Chrome is a nice alternative browser and it's better than Internet Explorer, but it has a long way to go before getting me to change my default from Firefox.

Related: About, Comic Book, Download, Video

Happy Labor Day

Labor Day BBQ

We had a nice little BBQ in Ben & Uncle Rupert's backyard. Uncle Rupert & Ben live in consecutive houses on the same block and have their backyards combined into one large one. It's perfect for outdoor occasions and a rarity in the city.

DVDeals 8/31 - 9/6

There's not much going on this week with DVD releases and just a few sales, but it's better than nothing.

Best Buy Deals
- 10,000 BC for $9.99
- Transformers (w/ Optimus Prime mask) for $9.99
- Fast & Furious Trilogy for $9.99
- Beowulf (Director's Cut) for $9.99

Circuit City Deals
- Punisher for $4.99
- First Blood for $4.99
- First Blood II for $4.99
- Alien for $4.99

Signs of Autumn

Original Dates: September 1980 - September 1993

We're not even up to September yet, but it's felt like October for about a week now. Perhaps the transition to Fall has accelerated because school starts up early this year with a Sept. 2 Labor Day. There were certain signs in nature that reminded me of the beginning of the school year when I was a kid. There was of course the temperature drop that's a bit too cool for swimming. When my parents installed a pool, we would have parties almost every weekend. Friends and/or family from out of town would stay over for days at a time. When temperatures got cooler, less people would come over and gatherings would get smaller. The shortening of daylight symbolized that the fun days of Summer activities were over. I've always wanted to like Autumn because I feel more comfortable with its temperatures, but these memories of the end of leisure time are still triggered by the same changes in the environment that happen every year. There's also a smell in the air that I can't describe. Because of this, I don't think I can ever enjoy the beginning of Autumn.

Liam's Baptism

Today was baby Liam's big day as he officially entered the St. Paul & St. Andrew community. It was a great blessing for him to become part of the best environment in the city. All of the members are pretty close with each other and it often has a family feeling to it.


I usually don't get a chance to attend the Sunday service at the Church of St. Paul & St. Andrew since I spend weekends with family & friends in Queens. But I was able to shuffle my schedule since Liam's Baptism was already planned weeks ago. It was great to see everyone again. I usually only see the church community during the school year because of the volunteer work I do there.

Congratulations to Andrew, Joanne & Liam!

DVDeals 8/24 - 8/30

DVD Tuesday
There's nothing that interests me, but I'll post Heroes: Season 2 since everyone else in the world watches that series! Circuit City and Amazon both have it for $24.99, but you get a free film cell @ Circuit City. Best Buy has a special edition for $34.99 if you feel like getting a Kensei Mask with your DVDs.

Circuit City Deals
- The Island for $4.99
- John Q for $4.99
- Natural Born Killers for $4.99
- Italian Job for $4.99
- Blade for $4.99
- TMNT for $4.99
- Mission Impossible for $4.99
- Minority Report for $4.99

Carmine's (Times Square)

Location: 200 W. 44th St, New York, NY 10036
Cuisine: Italian
Hours: SUN (11am-11pm); MON (11:30am-11pm); TUE, THU, FRI (11:30am-12am); WED, SAT (11am-12am)
Phone: (212) 221-3800
Website: www.carminesnyc.com
Prices: about $25/person
Credit Cards: All major

Food: 9
Service: 9
Value: 8
Environment: 8

Frequency: Unique

Auntie Janice treated a bunch of us to lunch @ Carmine's today. So that makes it 3 times this year for my parents eating in Manhattan (the others being Michael Jordan's & Safran)... must be a record! We went to the 44th St. restaurant (the original is on Broadway & 90th), so parking was difficult, but the restaurant crowd level was comfortable. It was probably not as packed as other Times Square restaurants because Carmine's is family style, while Times Square is more for tourists and couples.


They started by giving us a fresh-baked bread basket, which was handy to keep around for the whole meal and was perfect for dipping into the entrees' sauces. We had fried calamari for the appetizer, which was a good amount for all 7 of us. Calamari is always a good, safe dish. It's hard to do wrong and everyone likes it. Out entree choices were mixed seafood linguine, chicken scallopine W/ lemon & butter and eggplant parmigiana. All of it was great. My initial thought of eating Italian was that it will be safe and at least good, but Carmine's truly stands out as one of the best I've had. All of the ingredients of each dish went well together. My unlikely favorite was the eggplant. It's a dish I usually don't get, not because it's bad, but because I usually prefer chicken or veal parm. I think I'll go for the eggplant more often now! The portions for all dishes were huge. This restaurant just wouldn't work for a 2-person meal. We were a party of 7 and only ordered 4 dishes, 2 of which were classified as appetizers!

The atmosphere was just as a family restaurant should be... spacious with great acoustics. We could hear each other talk just fine. There was no loud music in the background. They did a good job laying out the tables. The only negative was the less than clean restrooms. They just didn't match the presentation of the rest of the place.