summer glau

I'm almost to the end of Firefly, my Jane After Dark readers' choice for this week. I really love this series, from the quirky characters to the general theme of a band of renegades burgling their way through the universe.

But even though it's set 500 years in the future, Firefly isn't your typical sci-fi space series that includes all manner of aliens and weird creatures. They're on a spaceship, and yet they rob trains. How cool is that?! It's like Alias Smith and Jones meets Babylon 5.

As with the other Whedon shows I've watched – Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel – the stories are fun and deep and fanciful (yes, I said fanciful), but it's the characters and their interactions that make the shows.

And yes, I am probably the 50th person to use that headline for this story. Thank you.

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello is reporting (from various sources he has skulking around the television world) that FOX is just about to cancel The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The ratings haven't been great for the sci-fi show. FOX paired it with Dollhouse on Friday nights and there has been no reason to keep the show alive for another season (ratings-wise, anyway - I'll leave it to the fans to judge the quality of the show itself). Things don't look that great for Dollhouse either, but that's another story.

Officially, the network won't announce its fall schedule for another month or so, at their annual upfront presentation. Unofficially, you probably shouldn't look for the show on that fall schedule. Now I guess we'll just have to wait for the premiere of the movie where Christian Bale yelled at everyone.

(S02E21) Wow. Just, wow! This was one of the best episodes of the season. It was also one of the most heartbreaking episodes of the entire series.

I loved everything about this ep -- the pacing, the storytelling, and the surprises. It was all great. But did I mention the heartbreak? Click through for the spoils.

John Connor finally earned my respect. Did he earn yours?

This episode might have started out telling Jesse's story, but it was really about John and why he's destined to become the savior of humanity. Jesse has been scheming all season to turn John against Cameron and trusting reprogrammed "metal." Mistakenly, she assumed that John's decision to employ Terminators in the resistance was influenced by an emotional attachment he had to the machines.

This was a crazy episode. Basically, it seemed like a half-hour long ad for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Summer Glau guest-starring and the guys not being able to keep their fanboy-ness at bay makes total sense, except for the fact that Big Bang Theory is on CBS, and Terminator is on FOX. It's rare that you see that much cross-network love going around, so that was strange, but interesting.

Now, I don't watch The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but I did see the pilot, so Summer Glau's robot affectation on that series made some sense to me. She's playing herself on this show, though, so what's her excuse? She wasn't given very many lines, but everything she said was so flat and emotionless that it would have made more sense for the plot if they had just explained that she's really Method and never breaks character. But they didn't, so it was just... bad.

(S02E17) It feels good to have our show back, doesn't it? After taking a mostly tedious three-episode trip inside of Sarah Connor's head, TSCC returned with a solid ep that addressed Riley's suicide attempt and featured Cameron getting a little twitchy. "Ourselves Alone" was light on Skynet conspiracy theories, but it delivered some definite payoff for one of the season's most talked about plot lines. Click through for the spoils.

(S02E15) Have you ever been to a funeral? They're not usually very thrilling. All that awkward silence, standing around, and the hard-to-watch mourning will deflate anyone's day. So why set an episode of Sarah Connor at a funeral?

I guess the writers wanted to remind us about the Skynet war death toll. It's high. We get it. Can we move on now?

I have mixed feelings about CBS' The Big Bang Theory. Being a geek, it feels a little strange watching a sitcom that wants to cater to you and make fun of you at the same time. I find myself wincing at the lazy geek caricatures on display every time I watch, but for every wince, there's always a laugh. The show is funny, and I like that none of the plots ever really seem to add up to much. It's all about the jokes, and it reminds me of Seinfeld in that way.

Now I have another reason to watch. Summer Glau, Cameron from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, will guest star in an upcoming episode of TBBT. Glau won't be playing a robot – that would be too cool – she'll be playing herself. From what I can decipher from other Interweb rumblings, the episode will feature Sheldon, Leonard and crew somehow rerouting Glau's train trip to San Francisco in order to meet her. (Reminds me of Raj and Wolowitz's plan to find the Next Top Model house from last night's ep.) The episode airs March 9.

'Housewives' loses a star, octuplets mom fields TV offers and more ...

ABC is bleeding stars.

With Katherine Heigl and T.R. Knight rumored to be scrubbing out of ABC's 'Grey's Anatomy,' Nicolette Sheridan is bidding adieu to Wisteria Lane and 'Desperate Housewives.'

In other news, octuplets mom (and Angelina Jolie look-alike) Nadya Suleman is being inundated with TV, movie and book offers, and 'Terminator' siren Summer Glau will make the 'Big Bang' boys' dreams come true in an upcoming ep.

See more of today's TV headlines, casting scoops and premiere dates after the jump.

In a conference call with media outlets this week, Summer Glau said she was "shocked" after reading the script for the season two finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Glau, who plays the Terminator Cameron on the FOX series, told reporters that she was also "a little sad" but excited about the upcoming season ender. "I think everybody is going to be shocked at what happens at the end of this season," she said.

Her reaction might have something to do with the possible death of a major character. Series creator Josh Friedman has spoken publicly about possibly killing off a character from the show in an upcoming episode, even saying that the current season should end with "one more good character death." (Feel free to place your bets on who might bite it in the comments.)

Friedman, who also took part in the conference call, didn't reveal any spoilers about the possible death, but he and Glau did discuss some details about the show's return on February 13, including the show's move to Fridays, the possibility of a third season, and Cameron's love for John Connor. Click through for the somewhat spoilery details.

I officially take back some of the things I've said about the lack of promotion of Fox's new Friday night sci-fi line-up. They've released a new promo that takes a page from the grindhouse age of cinema and made a very cool trailer for both Dollhouse and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, even go so far as billing the shows as a double-feature.

Granted, this does not mean that the shows are going to win in the ratings (which is unlikely due to their schedule placement), but it does at least appear that Fox is more aware of its target audience. This is a point Joss Whedon has made in a couple of interviews.

Maybe I'm wrong and Friday nights will turn into a big winner for both shows. Whatever the case, I hope this promo is included in one of the DVD sets when they're released, preferably Dollhouse.

The commercial is after the jump...

(S01E13) "We all know how reliable bloggers are." Words spoken by John Connor, the future savior of humanity. Therefore it must be true.

It's hard to believe the season is so far along. If this season is the traditional 22 episodes, then there is only nine to go when the series returns in February. On Friday nights. On Fox. I hope it makes the full nine.

This episode didn't thrill me and was disappointing for something hyped as the "Fall finale". I was hoping for more of an action-oriented episode rather than a Riley backstory. Even the Riley flashbacks and flash-forwards weren't as interesting as previous episodes.

... Eleven babes worth watchin'

Oh sure, there may be 12 shows a stinkin', but there's still reason to tune in. See just like advertisers, show-runners and TV executives know that sex sells. And hot chicks sell. And hot chicks selling their sexuality sell like hotcakes ... or chicks ... I never can get that right. But just being hot and sexy isn't enough. To really sell it, they need to be as close to naked as legally allowed on the airwaves. We're talking "Oops, sorry to barge in on you standing there in your underwear bending over the bed pulling on your fishnet stockings. Nice rack."

Sometimes near-nudity, and even nudity, legitimately serves the plot. Let's face it, Anna Paquin had to bang that vampire on True Blood so she was going to have to get naked. It's a necessity. But Yvonne Strahovski on Chuck? Does she have to be in her underwear that often to protect the Intersect? Was it required by Simon Elder that Karen Darling be in her underwear in order to talk to him? Of course not. But it's hot and that's the way we like it. Hell, they made Catalina a stripper on My Name is Earl.

(S02E12) One of the major differences between this television series and the movie upon which its based is that time travel in this series is more complicated than anybody in the movie universe could have imagined. That is probably one of the reasons why the show has adopted such an unusual method of telling a story as of recent.

Mind you, time jumps and parallel storytelling is not a new method. I think Pulp Fiction started the craze and the show Lost has pretty much been built on such a concept. However, in this instance the three separate stories involving past, present and future (or perhaps more accurately cause and effect) tied into one instance. There is even a parallel to John Connor himself (who played a virtually non-existent role this episode) when the baby Sydney born at the end (although fully grown in the future-flashes) became the savior of humanity. If John Connor is supposed to be a modern take on Jesus Christ, who would Sydney be? I liked how they ended the show with Sydney's birth, an experience your average story tends to associate with hope.

I got a laugh when the Fields named the dog Charles Barkley. Get it? "Bark"ley? This show does a lot of play on words.

(S02E11) If ever the show Cold Case did an episode involving killer robots from the future, it would be tonight's Sarah Connor Chronicles. The reverse is also true.

Cameron certainly earned her "most efficient killing machine on the planet" title tonight. And she didn't even have to do laundry. Obviously, the mystery of her constant attendance at the hall of records at night is not going to be solved this episode (since it was only brought up this episode). The real mystery is what happened to Eric at the end? Did he succumb to his cancer? Did he take sick leave? Did he just up and quit? I wouldn't mind knowing.

This episode was entirely Summer Glau, and she was brilliant in it. I think this is her best acting on the show to date. John Connor did play a minor role in the B plot with some development of his relationship with Riley (who is, at this point, either playing with his head, insane or both).