This weekend, watch Lena Headey of Game of Thrones fight the Terminators

Nowadays, streaming options and contradictory recommendations are so numerous that it's hard to see through all the bullshit that you could watch. Every Friday, The edgeThe Cut the Crap column simplifies the choice by sorting out a multitude of movies and TV shows on subscription services and recommending just one thing to watch this weekend.

What to watch

The 2008 pilot episode of the Fox TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. A direct sequel to the 1991 blockbuster Terminator 2: the day of judgment, the series begins in 1999 with single mother Sarah Connor (Lena Headey, who plays Cersei Lannister on Game of thrones) having sacrificed any semblance of normal life in the years since his first flight with his son John Connor (Thomas Dekker). Teenager, John is aware of the role he is supposed to play in the future to save the world from mechanized dystopia. But he begins to be tired of seeing his mother move them from city to city and identity-based identities to avoid relentless robotic killing machines that continue to be sent back in the past to kill him. In the first episode, directed by Game of thrones Veteran David Nutter, the Connors survive their last fight with a friendly android named Cameron (Summer Glau) who warns them against the ever-changing dangers of the world to come.

Why look now?

Because Nutter also directed Headey in the last week Game of thrones season, and he's doing it again in this Sunday's episode.

Due to the logistical complexity of filming Game of thrones, producers David Benioff and DB Weiss s' relies on a small group of directors, most of whom are veterans of high-end television action-adventure and fantasy television and are known for working on projects like The X-Files, breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, and Fringe. David Nutter is one of two directors (along with Miguel Sapochnik) to have won an Emmy for The Thrones. He has been a craftsman of the genre since the early 90s, with the reputation of being able to deliver flawless actions without distracting from history. For a while, Nutter was also considered a lucky charm for TV fiction pilots, helping Roswell, Smallville, Supernaturaland a dozen others are picked up.

As the Harry Potter movies, Game of thrones has also become an employment service for accomplished and aspiring British actors, creating such strong badociations between these performers and their roles that, for the rest of their careers, they can be defined by the work they do realized in the series. In the case of Headey, his performance as a cruel and cursed Cersei Lannister has supplanted the two characters for whom she was best known before, also of genre pieces: the Spartan Queen Gorgo in Zic Snyder, sword and sandal of 2007 300 and Sarah Connor.

Headey drew a difficult task when she agreed to play Sarah. This character was already well defined by Linda Hamilton, who described her as an ordinary girl, Los Angeleno, in 1984. The terminator and then as a well-inspired, manic action hero, in 1991 Terminator 2: the day of judgment. In the Sarah Connor Chronicles As a pilot, Headey picks up where Hamilton stopped in the second film, portraying the heroine as a very capable and crazy person. In one of the first scenes of the episode, Sarah breaks up with a loving man (played by Dean Winters) who wants to marry her because she does not want to be tied to a place where Terminators can find her and John. She ignores her son's complaints about their roots, insisting that she must protect this boy who is destined to be the greatest champion of humanity in the war against sensitive machines.

As for Nutter, it's easy to see from the beginning Sarah Connor Chronicles episode why so many producers have wanted behind the camera for action packed shows and geeks. He was not working here with the kind of mega-budget that James Cameron had for T2but he had access to roughly the same level of resources that Cameron had for the first terminatoras well as more advanced digital effects. With that, he spent an exciting hour on television, with multiple shootings and chases. More importantly, he and his creator-creator, Josh Friedman, keep all the madness by showing it through the eyes of their main character, a woman who has already experienced many battles and knows what is at stake.

Photo: Television Warner Bros.

For whom is this?

Sci-fi fans who dig explosive action and bold women

Although the terminator the movies involve temporal paradoxes and anxious warnings regarding the rise of artificial intelligence, few are accusing them of being clever. Cameron established very early the intellectual level of the series. These stories contain humanist messages, but their main purpose is to thrill the audience. Following this advance, The Sarah Connor chronicles Fly rockets from one narrow escape to another, until a surprise ending that allows Sarah and John to keep abad of what will happen in the future – and the efforts they make. will still have to deploy if they want to prevent the eventuality of humanity extinction.

They are helped in this mission by Cameron (not the director, but the character of Summer Glau), who absorbs bullets, drives a semitrailer truck and even commits a bank robbery to keep the Connors alive. Fans of Glau's work on shows like Firefly, Doll house, alphas, and Arrow should appreciate the brilliant personality and fierce physics that she brings to Cameron, a machine with a soul. (She won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress on TV for her performance.)

Headey is the star of the series. Her performance as Sarah Connor sometimes sounds like a warm up for Cersei Lannister: a woman who gives up social kindness because she has a child to raise and a world to save.

Where to see it

Until the beginning of the month, the show was on Crackle, but it seems to have been removed. It is still widely available for digital rental or purchase for just $ 2 per episode in all mainstream digital stores. For moreThe Thrones Lena Headey, the comedy of travel in 2000 Aberdeen (with one of his first major roles) is available on Vudu and Tubi, and 300 is available to DirecTV subscribers.