“Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” is gone and producer Josh Friedman isn’t optimistic that he’ll get to revisit his portion of the “Terminator” universe again any time soon.
“Everyone says having your show canceled is like a death, but I’ve been dead before, and at least when you’re dead you don’t get thrown off the Warner Brothers lot for haunting your old parking space.” He goes into much more graphic detail about his exit from the studio,” Friedman wrote on his blog. This news may be the final nail in the coffin for some who were hoping the series might get picked up by another network or if this summer’s latest movie installment made a lot of noise at the box-office.
However, looking back on the 31 episodes of the show produced over two season, Friedman says he feels the series was “faithful” to the spirit of the first two “Terminator” films and that he thinks the series compliments the entire “Terminator” universe.
“Over time, however, you also find yourself owing a debt to the work you’re doing, the material right in front of your face,” he told SciFi Wire. “So you’ve got to make good with that and still try to maintain an integrity with the work that’s inspired you. ‘TSCC’ is an expression of the Terminator universe. But it’s four years of creative decisions distilled into 31 hours that will probably not jibe with everyone’s idea of the Terminator puzzle. That’s OK. I go with the “uncanny valley” theory on this as in most things: The closer you get to making one thing like another thing, the more the ways in which it differs stand out.”
Friedman said that the decision to kill off two major characters wasn’t one he considered to be controversial.
“I don’t think killing Riley or Derek was particularly controversial,” he said. “I think both events were organic outgrowths of the choices they made and the lives they led. Both of their deaths are among my favorite moments on the show. And we do see Derek again, albeit a different Derek.”
Reflecting on the two seasons of the show and how certain stories developed and some didn’t, Friedman says the original path for Cromardie didn’t include using his body in the A.I. development storyline that dominated the second half of season two.
“Most of that is due to the genius that is Dillahunt—there’s a reason David Milch couldn’t leave him dead in ‘Deadwood’,” he said. “We explored other ideas there, but ultimately we couldn’t stand removing Cromartie from the chess board.”
Friedman went on to say there were certain plotlines from the first season that were developed but had to be scrapped due to last year’s writer’s strike.
“The high-school intrigue re the suicidal cheerleader and the guidance counselor was a chunk of it,” he said. “We had a character who was blackmailing various students and teachers, and John would have run afoul of him/her. We never got that far, and by the time season two rolled around, I think everyone just wanted to move past it. Obviously that’s an annoying attitude if you’ve invested time into that storyline, but for everyone who wanted to continue that, there [were] probably 10 who were happy to get the hell out of high school.”
Friedman said he was proud he got the show to air each week and that “we never took the easy way out of a story problem, and we gave the audience credit for being able to follow us no matter where we went.”
As for the series continuing on beyond the upcoming DVD release of season two, Friedman says that decision is beyond his control.
“I don’t own this franchise or control it in any way,” he said. “I can’t just go make a deal to do a comic book or a DVD movie or anything like that. The people that control the franchise need to be interested in another iteration of not just Terminator, which clearly they are, but TSCC, which at this point they are not. I’ve tried to pull this proverbial band-aid off as quickly as I can, but I don’t want that confused with me giving up on the show. It’s been my entire creative existence for years and nothing strokes my ego more than hearing about people clamoring for more TSCC and e-mailing network executives to that effect. But I want people to have a realistic understanding of what’s going on. I owe them honesty.”
mymatedave says
Friedman should be incredibly proud of himself, he worked on one of the best scifi series on TV in the last couple of years.
And like he said, he never did the audience the diservice of acting like they needed to be spoonfed, which although some could say that may have contributed to the cancellation, made for some absolutely amazing story telling while the show was on.
I’ll be sure to check out whatever he works on next.
Chavalier says
I’m sad to see the passing of the TSCC. I think the show still had amazing potential. It’s probably not fair where they placed it in the Friday death slot and the uneven writing didn’t help in the second season either. I know I wasn’t the only one who was about to kiss it goodbye during its midseason story arc, but after the funeral episode and Riley arc it was arguably as good as anything I’d seen in the SciFi genre.
I like where it ended, it leaves a lot to the imagination and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Peace,
Chav
scallywag says
I still can’t believe TSCC has gone – I’m an avid lost and 24 man….but by the midpoint of season 2 TSCC had completely taken them over as far as I was concened…..absolutly brilliant story telling and Chactorisation. Went to see the new terminator film this week and although very good on the effects front you simply cant care for the charectors you’ve only met for 2 hours…….Friedman you are a legend…good luck