Terminator: The Sarah Connors Chronicles Blu-ray review

A few weeks back I reviewed the DVD release of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ first season, and now with its eyes glowing red with desire to kill comes along the shiny Blu-ray edition.

I’m not going to regurgitate what this show is about for those who’ve been in a bunker since T2 awaiting judgement day, but suffice to say it’s a continuation of the Terminator heritage. Actually it seems, like many reviewers would want, to have wished away the third movie and is set after the events in the second.

The DVD release I slightly slammed because apart from four deleted scenes it was an arid vista for those expecting extras. As if Warner Brothers hung on every word (yerr…right) the Blu-ray addresses all those complaints pretty comprehensively.

Being just nine episodes long because of the writers’ strike of 2007, season one is assembled onto three Blu-ray discs. Disc one contains the first three episodes, two of which have commentary tracks by Josh Friedman and other members of the production team and cast. It also has three very nice mini-documentaries totally more than 45 minutes presented in high-def, a gag reel and six deleted scenes.

Disc two has the middle three episodes, but curiously they’re not separated so they run as a continuous movie. Not sure why, as they have credits on each part.

The extras here are a single deleted scene plus the audition tapes for Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker and Richard T. Jones. We also get to see Summer Glau rehearsing her ballet, which she’s exceptionally good at. To complete that disc is an animatic of the school sequence from the pilot show.

Disc three closes out the season in spectacular fashion. The shows are again presented in sequence, but you can’t select each from the menu again. But you do get an extended cut of ‘The Demon Hand’ plus two deleted scenes from that show. You also get a commentary track on ‘What He Beheld’ by Josh Friednman, Ian Goldberg (the writer), Summer Glau (Cameron) and Brian Austin Green (Derek).

The overall quality of the presentation is fantastic, better than many movies I’ve seen translated to Blu-ray. Given that some TV episodes are so poorly recorded, I recall Friends is such abysmal quality picture wise that it doesn’t actually justify being released on DVD, this TV production quality is a revelation.

The RRP for this pack is another tenner more than the DVD, but considering what’s on here and that it’s probably in better quality than your might have seen it on TV it’s well worth the extra dosh. Congratulations to Warner’s for delivering a season pack that actually lives up to the show and the hype, for once.

For fans of the show this is an absolute no-brainer, you must have this version or the Governor of California will come looking for you.

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