Sorry, Sarah, the Governator has bigger fish to fry

“The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” a midseason drama from Fox, certainly carries the heaviest burden of expectations going into the new season. Because the more common shorthand for it is "The 'Terminator’ TV show.”

The story of the series follows Sarah Connor (Lena Headey, from “300”) as she continuously tries to protect her son, John (Thomas Dekker, Claire the cheerleader's is-he-or-isn’t-he-gay friend on “Heroes”) from a Terminator sent from the future. The action takes place after the events of the second movie.

On Monday, during the panel for “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” at the Television Critics Assn. press tour, the elephant in the room had a name: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the show’s pilot episode, there are two Terminators, one good (Summer Glau, late of “Firefly”), who protects John, and one evil (Owain Yeoman), who comes to kill John many times.

But what about the Governator? Might he ever make an appearance on the show?

James Middleton, a consulting producer on the show, fielded the question. “We’ve talked a lot about it,” he said. “But the reality is that as governor, he’s incredibly busy. As a star, he’s incredibly expensive. We don’t know. We just don’t know.”

OK, since Gov. Schwarzenegger is understandably both busy and expensive, what about images of him used somewhere in the show? No, the producers said, they don’t have any ability to use any of the iconic Terminator images.

That answers that! Earlier in the panel, critics asked the producers about a key scene in the pilot in which Mean Terminator comes looking for John in his high school classroom. Mayhem ensues, and critics wondered whether it was too graphic and frightening in a post-Virginia Tech (post-Columbine, also) era.

Yes, Josh Friedman, one of the executive producers agreed, it was going to have to be reshot. “I grew up not far from Columbine,” said Friedman. “When I wrote it, I didn’t write it for shock effect. I’m a parent.”

David Nutter, the director who shot the pilot, who is known for his amazing track record picking pilots that get picked up, said, “When this gets on the air, I think there’ll be adjustments made that will be satisfying."

And one other thing of note for “Heroes” fans who will miss Dekker’s character next season: The actor said that Zach, who went on to become Claire’s best friend and confidant, was never meant to be on any more episodes than the first “Heroes.” “I was never a regular,” he said. “I was surprised every time, every week, that they called.”

A TV journalist asked him about the controversy that Dekker and His Agent-y People didn’t want Zach to be gay for fear that it would jeopardize his high-profile role as John Connor.

“Controversy is such a nice, fancy term,” Dekker said. "It’s something that got blown out of proportion.”

-- Kate Aurthur

(Photo courtesy Tom Hevezi-Pool /Getty Images)

Comments

[SpoilerT]

Spoiler

What's the point? If you saw the T3, then you'd wonder why bother. Everything goes kablooey in the end!