Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - The Complete 2nd Season

Warner Home Video
975 Minutes

List Price: $79.98 (Check Price at Amazon.com)

Available 9/22/2009

Disc 1 Contents

• Upfront Ad (1:10) (can be skipped by selecting the Menu button)
  
  • Blu-ray Promo
• TV Episodes 1-4
• Special Features
  
  • Commentaries (for episodes 1 and 4)
  • Featurette: The Storyboard Process: Cameron Goes Bad

Disc 2 Contents

• TV Episodes 5-9
• Special Features
  
  • Featurette: Cameron vs. Rosie Fight Rehearsal (5:27, 1080i HD, 2 ch)
  • 2 Terminated Scenes (1:31, 1080p HD, 2 ch.)
    

Disc 3 Contents

• TV Episodes 10-14
• Special Features
  
  • 2 Terminated Scenes (1:55, 1080p HD, 2 ch.)

Disc 4 Contents

• TV Episodes 15-19
• Special Features
  
  • 5 Terminated Scenes (4:09, 1080p HD, 2 ch.)

Disc 5 Contents

• TV Episodes 20-22
• Special Features
  
  • 3 Terminated Scenes (2:43, 1080p HD, 2 ch.)
  • Commentaries (for episodes 21 and 22)
  • Gag Reel (6:04)
  • Collision with the Future: Deconstructing the Hunter Killer Attack
  • The Continuing Chronicles: Terminator - 8-Part Featurette Gallery (1080i HD, 2 ch.)
    • Write the Future (12:39)
      
    • Conceptualization (8:18)
    • Blood and Metal (7:39)
    • Designing Destruction (7:32)
    • Choreographing Chaos (7:21)
    • War Stories (9:15)
    • Setting the Tempo (13:15)
    • Motivations (9:51)

About the TV Series

First, there was The Terminator, the 1984 movie by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a robotic killing machine sent from the future to destroy Linda Hamilton, a waitress who just happens to be the mother of the man that organizes the human resistance movement against the killing machines in the future that declared war on mankind. The movie spawned two sequels, Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991 and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in 2003.

This TV series picks up where T2 left off, essentially ignoring the existence of T3. After season one answered the question about whether the creators of the series could they build upon the Terminator story in a way that pleased long-time fans of the franchise and draw in the fickle TV audiences, we could follow Sarah and John Connor as they fought against the future that was not yet certain.

At the end of the second season, it was announced that the series was cancelled due to lower ratings. This set may represent the last we'll see of a TV series involving the Terminator franchise for a while.

About This Title

This package is a set of five Blu-ray discs that comprise the entire second season of the series. Anywhere between three to five episodes are featured on each disc, with a sprinkling of special features, extended cuts, deleted scenes, and cast/crew commentaries to sweeten its appeal.

How Does it Look?

The high definition Blu-ray release looks really good! There has been enough time since season 2 was on the air, so I can't make a good comparison to what was broadcast in HD, but the episodes are very high quality.

The production quality of each episode probably contributes to the high quality of this set, and that may be one of the things that doomed the series. Perhaps the budget for each episode was more than the studio wanted to bear?

How Does it Sound?

The sound quality is standard Dolby Digital 5.1 -- no lossless audio for us Terminator fans. This is understandable, given that we're talking about a TV series, and not a feature-length movie. While watching some of the episodes, I felt that the sound was slightly better on this set than on the Blu-ray set for Season 1.

Extras

There are actually quite a few good extras in this package! The deleted scenes are interesting in that they flesh out some of the shows a little more, but they were most likely cut for time considerations. I listened to the commentary on the first episode after rewatching the show normally, and it was interesting to listen to the banter and some of the behind the scenes tidbits that were provided. The 8-part featurette series on the last disc is an exhaustive behind-the-scenes look at the series, unlike anything I've seen for a TV series.

Conclusion

If you like the show, or haven't seen it, but are interested in the series, this set will satisfy you and is worth at least renting, if not purchasing. Extras like what are provided in this package help to make such a release a purchase more than a rental. They allow you to enjoy the material more over time and they reward the time spent with them.

If you are a fan of the Terminator franchise, the show is definitely worth watching. Anything worth watching is better watched in HD, so this is definitely the choice to make if you want to purchase the final season of the TV series. Even though the purchase price may scare away some, there is a lot of material here, and the price is not out of line with other TV sets with a similar number of episodes.

Recommended Reading

Don't just take our word for it, check out these resources for more reviews of the movie and of the disc.

• Blu-ray Reviews
  • Ryan Keefer of DVD Talk
  • John Sinnott of DVD Talk

A copy of this title was provided at no cost by the movie studio/distributor for the purpose of this review. No expectation of the results of this review were set as a condition of receiving the item.