TVSquad

The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a new drama that continues where the Terminator films left off (well, Terminator 2: Judgment Day to be exact) will hit FOX midseason, but at least one scene will be changed before we see it.

The series focuses on Sarah Connor and her son John, the young boy who will grow up to lead the battle against the machines. Sarah's duty is to protect her son from harm, but in one scene, John is attacked at his school. Executive producer Josh Friedman had explained, prior to the massacre at Virginia Tech, that the scene was central to the series as a whole: school is the one place where a parent cannot absolutely protect a child.

Do you know what we don't have enough of on reality television programs? Slutty chicks who like to party.

Sarcasm aside, Donald Trump is developing a new reality series for a possible midseason slot on the FOX schedule called Lady or a Tramp. The series, unfortunately, is not a series of cage matches between women and hobos, but is instead a competition in which girls who love the party life are sent to charm school to learn to behave like proper women.

If this idea sounds familiar, that might be because you're British already saw the series this one is based on, Ladette to Lady.

(S02E22) I need to pay more attention to the opening credits, because I had no idea Kelsey Grammer directed this episode. You can see a video of Grammer talking about it here.

First of all, I loved how Chris' dad thinks everything can be fixed with duct tape. Who knew Julius and Red Green had something in common?

This episode had me, and then it lost me. When Chris decides to final exact revenge on Caruso, I was all set up. This was going to be yet another great episode of a series that never relies to heavily on sitcom conventions for its humor, but by the end, that's exactly what the episode had done. I'm sure a bunch of cats being turned loose in a school might work on a lesser show, but it's an idea that seems way too "sitcom-y" for a show like Chris. Also, isn't the show supposed to be based, at least somewhat, on Chris Rock's real childhood? What school did he attend that would allow him the ample time he needed to set up such an elaborate prank?

(S02E15) I never skipped school when I was young, mostly because I was a good kid, but also because I attended school in a small town and it was likely that if I skipped, someone would notice.

In this episode, Chris and Greg skip school to see Ghostbusters, which is understandable since that movie was a huge phenomenon when it came out. We all had the shirts and the Ghostbusters Trapper Keepers and that ubiquitous theme song running through our heads incessantly. I think some teachers would actually yell at us if didn't skip school to go see it: "why the hell are you kids in class? Get out right now and go see Ghostbusters, it's one of the defining movies of this decade, damn it!"

(S02E12) In this review I mentioned that the character of Ms. Morello seemed to be switching from a dimwitted woman misinformed about black culture to your basic run-of-the-mill racist, and in this episode she wasn't much better, returning to a trip from Africa with a tiny bone for Chris he could put in his nose.

Now, if that's merely a choice on the part of the writers to have Ms. Morello completely oblivious to her own actions as a means of comic relief, that's their prerogative, but what I loved about her character from the early episodes is how she demonstrated that not all racism is blatant: sometimes you can have what seems like the best of intentions and still be completely wrong in your approach. Now, she's just another idiot.

(S02E15) When you get older and have to actually drive to work when the winter weather gets bad, it's easy to forget just how much you loved those days when you were a kid and didn't have to go to school. My school was always the last to close on snow days, and my father, who drove a school bus, was often already headed into work before they'd announce it.

(S02E14) I don't think this episode had as many laugh-out-loud moments as other episodes, but what really struck me was how tenacious Chris is when it comes to his social situation. Clearly, no one at his school likes him, but Chris still makes an effort to be respected and fit in.

Most of the students want nothing to do with Chris because he's black, but it's also because Chris has no interest in going along with the group-think that's prevalent in most schools. There are essentially two ways to go for any adolescent: you can take the path of least resistance and do what everyone else does, or you can forge your own path and earn the respect of your peers that way. The famous adult Chris is obviously a product of the latter, but what Everybody Hates Chris shows is how difficult it can be to constantly swim against the current.

I said there weren't as many laugh-out-loud moments, but the montage showing Chris giving a beat down to anyone who disrespected his role as hall monitor almost had me on the floor. Chris eventually learns that "fear" and "respect" aren't the same thing, but even he would have to admit that giving his antagonists a taste of justice felt pretty damn good.

OK, here we go again with a SPOILER WARNING. Do not, do not, do not read on or scroll down if you don't want to find out what happens on tonight's episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation.

I remember watching the original Degrassi, back in the 50s or whenever it was originally broadcast (I feel old). I was never a regular viewer, but I remember thinking that the show was better than most teen shows, better written, with a realistic cast. And then tackled some serious topics: sex, drugs, violence, relationships. But I don't think they ever had anything like what happens on tonight's show.

(S02E11)

As a change of pace, I asked TV know-it-all Paul Goebel to write a rebuttal to today's review. Goebel is an actor and comedian who appeared as the "TV Geek" on the short-lived Comedy Central quiz show Beat the Geeks and has appeared on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Ally McBeal, Will and Grace and other shows. He currently hosts a show at the UCB Theater in Los Angeles, and does a weekly podcast with his pal Jim Bruce called "The Paul Goebel Show." If you like TV, you should check it out. His response is after my review.

Ever since Linda Lavin helmed the CBS Schoolbreak Special "Flour Babies" in 1990, the idea of students being assigned fake babies has been spoofed numerous times. The winner for best spoof goes to the Strangers with Candy episode "A Burden's Burden" in which Jerri and her classmates are assigned actually babies. There's also the South Park episode "Follow That Egg" that manages to tackle both gay marriage and child custody battles when the kids are given eggs and told to treat them like real babies.

(S02E06) This episode dealt with the line between faith and reason, which may be why I wasn't as drawn to it as other episodes. I thought it was a good episode, but the way in which the citizens of Moralton use fractured reasoning to explain their religious beliefs has been a major component of the show since it began. This episode merely brought that idea to the forefront, and while it was still funny, there wasn't much to surprise a fan like myself. I laughed several times, but was ultimately left with a feeling of "oh yeah, I knew they were gonna say that." That being said, this wouldn't be a bad episode to introduce someone to the show, as I think it's a great overview of the show and what it's trying to say.

(S02E06) One of the things I love about this show is how they pick simple one word titles (the first season did it too) and the given episode stays committed to portraying that title (a theme really) from everyone's perspective. It's a very cool storytelling technique, the way they expand upon everyone but manage to keep it cohesive. Ethan Reiff, Cyrus Voris, and everyone else who has a hand in writing and producing this show deserves a real pat on the back. They've created quite the epic. Entertaining because, well, it is. And scary because... it's real.

(S02E07) I've said before that while Everybody Hates Chris doesn't stray too far from the sitcom template, it at least gives the genre its own funky twist, making it one of very few sitcoms I'll actually watch.

For example, have you ever noticed that when a person becomes class president on TV, they tend to wield more power than any class president in real life would have? Someone gets elected, and suddenly the whole school is changed. Chris actually believes he has this kind of power, but learns too late he can't keep all the promises he made while running (fall and winter vacations, book reports only for books based on movies, etc). Chris may be the first black president the school has ever had, but he's also the first president to be impeached.

(S02E03) This episode, in which Chris runs for class president, borrowed plenty of quotes from famous speeches about race and race relations. Chris tells his best friend and campaign manager Greg he plans to beat Joey Caruso "by any means necessary," a clever nod to Malcolm X. Later, during a Q&A with the school body Caruso answers every question with a variation of Alabama governor George Wallace's infamous "segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" line from his 1963 inaugural speech. When asked what flavor of Jello should be in the cafeteria, he answers: "grape today, grape tomorrow, grape forever." When asked about handicap access, he just repeats the quote with "ramps" in place of "grapes." After swiping the speech Greg wrote for Chris and presenting it as his own at a school assembly, Caruso rattles off quotes from both Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson, a stark contrast to his own racist outlook.

(S02E02) I still love this show, so let me get one minor negative thing out of the way right now: is it just me, or did the character of Rochelle, Chris' mom, seem like a real bitch in this episode? I understand she's a high-spirited "ghetto snob" with a tendency to overreact, but this is the first time watching the show when I actually started to dislike the character. When Julius comes home from the doctor and tells her he has high blood pressure and needs to find ways to reduce stress, she goes off on him about the fact that she's the one who's stressed, not him. Julius, as always, just goes along with it, not wanting to exacerbate the situation. Typically, this dynamic is hilarious, but in this episode it just didn't work for me, and Rochelle just came across as cruel while Julius seemed like more of a milquetoast than usual. Of course, another way to look at it is that I'm becoming more involved with the characters, which could be seen as a good thing. Like everything else, it's all in how you frame it.