The Sarah Connor Chronicles

God knows why I'm still watching this, but I can't do without it. And I know I'm not alone in this.

When they come to write "The Big Book of Television Missed Opportunites" this will be up there, along with "Crossroads 90210". It's a telly series about Terminators and time travel and so on. And it's got Summer Glau and him from Heroes Who Used To Be Gay Then Wasn't Cos His Agent Complained And Then Got Written Out And You Would Do In Some Pictures But In Others He Looks Like He's A Regular At The G-A-Y Bar So No.

Season One was lurchingly inane with the odd weird moment (that scientist having a bath with a Terminator) and the odd great one (slo-mo gunfight at the end). And then mercifully there was the writer's strike, so you'd assume Season Two would be a complete reset.

And yes it is. Every single week. It's a new show every episode, none of them any good. They go undercover at a nuclear plant! Summer Glau scrambles her memory and becomes a hooker! Now it's set at a school! A therapy centre! A bowling alley! Back at the nuclear plant! Mexico! Hahahahahah-heeeeeheeeeheeeee-makeeeet-stopppppppp!

Just like last year's dead-end plot line about grafitti doors, this year we have the Special Moble Phone Code which you know is going somewhere - only it gets dropped without explanation.

They even do an episode which is "Told From Different Points Of View" which is "Groundbreaking Telly And The Best Thing Ever", unless you've seen Buffy, or even Star Trek: Next Generation, and even they did it better, but worth it cos Summer Glau is wearing an iddy biddy pink bra (cutes).

I think the reason I'm still watching though is the Shirley Mansonator. She's brilliant. Surrounded by people doing Serious TV Acting, she just doesn't bother. She looks hungover and bored, as though she's leafing idly through the script while the camera's not on her. She's great.

Although if you try and work out her motivation, you'll get giddy. Come on. Have a go. She's a Terminator from the futcha who has taken over an electronics corporation in order to do bad things, but she's also a hard working single mother who is pretending to be a vigilante intent on hunting down terminators while trying to develop an artificial intelligence despite, um, being quite an advanced one herself.
She likes Lego, though. No, really. She does. So she's great.

It's also worth it for Lena Hedley's Grim Expression. I imagine they have great fun trying to make her smile on set. But no, that sour face has been chemically set. She's grimmer than Dr Gillian Magwilde. Oh, I miss you Magwilde.