FOX announced today that, in anticipation of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ two night-premiere beginning Sunday, January 13, they will make the pilot of The Sarah Connor Chronicles available on line at Yahoo for one 24-hour period.  Starting this coming Friday, January 4 at 9pm ET the pilot will be available, commercial-free, for exactly 24 hours.  The streaming episode will also be accompanied by an introduction from Sarah Connor herself, actress Lena Headey.  To access the streaming pilot, head to tv.yahoo.com

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is the first TV show incarnation of the revered Terminator franchise and takes place in the time line between Terminator 2 and Terminator 3, in a universe the pre-supposes the events of Terminator 3 won’t happen.  Make sense?  It stars Lena Headey as the eponymous Sarah Connor, Thomas Dekker of Heroes fame plays John Connor and fan boy favorite Summer Glau plays…well, you should watch the pilot and find out for yourself (if the promos haven’t ruined it already).  FOX is counting on Terminator to be a solid hit in 2008 as it’s the only scripted series poised for an extended run of episodes on the network.  The hype machine is already ramped up to 11.

This trend of networks pre-releasing their un-aired pilots on the internet really kicked up in full force last fall, with NBC leading the way.  NBC pre-released every one of their hour long pilots, though the results weren’t great.  Chuck and Life received full season orders, Journeyman is done for good and Bionic Woman is almost certainly finished.  Terminator is the type of franchise that should translate to success on the small screen and, if the pilot is any indication (I saw it at Comic-Con in July, and it was very good) the creative team has done the Terminator brand justice. 

-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
Source and Image Courtesy of FOX

Oscar Dahl

Senior Writer, BuddyTV