TVSquad

No clips or spoilers this week. The second Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles video podcast features a candid 13-minute interview with executive producer Josh Friedman. He starts the interview by saying "I will never do another television show that has to do with time travel." At the end of the interview, he says season two might conclude with "one more good character death." Place your bets now, folks. My money's on Riley.

Friedman also talks about fan comments (they want John to grow up already), serialization vs. stand-alone episodes, and his relationship with the cast. I especially enjoyed his comments about the show's time travel issues and about actor Richard T. Jones, who plays James Ellison on the show.

(S02E08) There was an interesting framing technique used in this episode. "Sarah's Story" gave way to "Cameron's Story" and so on. Each one happening simultaneously and ultimately coming together to tell a very complete story. I'm a sucker for creative storytelling, so I was all on board with this experiment. In fact, they sacrificed the intro sequence for the story.

I'm not sure if that's a sign that they think there's no need to explain the premise anymore, or just that there was no room for it tonight. We know we're signed up for a full season, and if the show can maintain at least most of its current viewership, it might just be able to survive in the ratings wasteland of Friday night. Unfortunately, it looks like its going to go up against CBS's Ghost Whisperer, generating tremendous buzz with its latest twist.Still, even that isn't as tough as the ridiculously stiff competition on Monday. In fact, FOX is going to make it even worse by dropping House in Sarah Connor's timeslot, followed by 24 come January.

(S02E07) Well, there's definitely a split between the terminators in the future. Even though Cromartie is after the Connors, he destroyed the Ellison model that was sent to replace the original, explaining by saying that Skynet didn't have the faith in the real Ellison to deliver the Connors the way Cromartie did. I'm still not sure what he meant by that. But then later, Weaver seemed genuinely intrigued by this turn of events as well, even asking Ellison if he knows why the T-Ellison may have been sent.

Meanwhile, Cromartie draws closer and closer to deducing the current location of the Connors in his own quest to find them, even enlisting some help from a former "friend" of Allison's Cameron's. This episode was pretty light on the time travel elements, which helped minimize the potential headaches in watching it and trying to figure out how the hell it all connects, but pretty high on the entertainment.

It's a rare thing when one of the major networks takes up an hour of its schedule almost every single night of the week to air the same show, but that's exactly what FOX is going to do this August.

The network is going to run a marathon of the first season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles starting on Sunday, August 10 at 9pm. Then the other episodes from the first season, in order, will air at 9pm on August 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 24. The two-hour second season premiere then airs on September 8 at 8pm.

FOX is giving The CW pages a run for their money -- the network's hired a bunch of, dare I say it, "Fox-y" microphone runners for the tour.

Like yesterday, they all dress in a theme of whatever panel is going on. On Sunday, they were TV reporters for Back to You; today, they're in commando fatigues for The Sarah Connor Chronicles. You get the idea.

One of pages, Cal, who used to be a cashier (and aspiring actor) at my local health food store, says hi during a break. I got a feeling back then that I'd end up seeing him at TCA one day, but I always thought he'd be on a panel for a new series.