15 Terrible Mistakes That Almost Ruined Terminator For Everyone

2. It Was On FOX (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)

FOX is a TV network frequently criticised for their extremely conservative approach to the content of their shows: the likes of 24 have demonstrated that it's perfectly fine for characters to be violently murdered, but they can't show even one female nipple or have one character shout the F-word, because this is apparently too offensive. This hypocritical philosophy has ruined a number of shows (remember that The Sopranos was originally pitched to FOX), and one can't escape the feeling that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was one of them. Though it made a decent effort of tying itself into the labyrinthine Terminator mythos, the TV show was seriously harmed by its lack of violence and adult content, considering the movies were all rated-R except for Salvation, and as such needed a show that reflected this (preferably on a network like Showtime or HBO). From the pilot, it just felt like a generic sci-fi series slapped with the Terminator logo, as well as suffering from by-the-numbers direction and a budget that wasn't large enough to support all the big ideas. On another network, it might not have seemed quite so dull and homogenised.