Although almost all the Sarah Connor’s changing fate across Terminator timelines is a testament to how much the movies rewrote their own history to provide viewers with new experiences, only for these novel stories to fail repeatedly.

2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines suffered thanks to Sarah Connor’s absence and sudden off-screen death, but it was the bizarre juxtaposition of the sequel’s light-hearted comic relief and its brutally bleak ending that truly doomed the sequel. 2009’s Terminator: Salvation was a grim, humorless post-apocalyptic action movie that barely felt linked to the original trilogy, while 2015’s Terminator: Genisys invented an entirely new timeline to justify recasting Sarah Connor while still keeping Arnold Schwarzenegger’s original T-800. Terminator: Dark Fate brought back Linda Hamilton’s Sarah, but inexplicably killed off John Connor instead.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles Is A Direct Sequel To Terminator 2

The TV Show Spinoff Follows On From The Sequel’s Iconic Ending

Ironically, it was the first Terminator project to recast Sarah Connor that ended up becoming the best follow-up to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and this underrated effort was also the first franchise outing not to feature Schwarzenegger’s iconic T-800. As important as the Terminator itself is to the franchise, TV’s The Sarah Connor Chronicles was the strongest Terminator 2: Judgement Day sequel even without Schwarzenegger’s presence. Taking place after Terminator 2: Judgment Day’s ending, the show followed Lena Headey’s version of Sarah as she and John scrambled to stop Skynet’s invention.

Without the means to pull off ambitious set-pieces full of constant vehicular mayhem, The Sarah Connor Chronicles was forced to spend time with Sarah and John Connor.

As a TV show, The Sarah Connor Chronicles inevitably lacked the blockbuster budget of the franchise’s big-screen offerings. However, this was arguably a good thing for the show. Without the means to pull off ambitious set-pieces full of constant vehicular mayhem, The Sarah Connor Chronicles was forced to spend time with Sarah and John Connor as they worked tirelessly to save the world from its dark future. Headey’s recast version of Sarah Connor seems like a risky addition at first, but the star makes the role her own and revels in the darker edge she soon showcased again in Game of Thrones.

By the time The Sarah Connor Chronicles takes place, the title character is even more of a hardened survivor than she was in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The hopelessly confused, but undeniably resilient heroine of the original movie has been replaced by a cold-blooded action heroine who will do anything to ensure her son’s survival. However, this doesn’t mean The Sarah Connor Chronicles is devoid of heart or humor. Thomas Dekker’s John Connor humanizes Headey’s Sarah, while Summer Glad’s reprogrammed Terminator Cameron effectively reinvents the franchise’s android assassins.

How The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ Timeline Works (And Is It Canon?)

The Sarah Connor Chronicles Reworks The Franchise Timeline But Remains Consistent

The Sarah Connor Chronicle ignores Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines by beginning after the ending of Terminator 2: Judgment Day but then immediately jumping ahead to the 2000s. This justifies the show recasting Sarah and John, but the second season’s references to Sarah’s cancer mean that the series could still align with the timeline laid out by Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. ittedly, this is made more problematic when The Sarah Connor Chronicles envisions a world without John Connor in its ambitious finale.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles ended on a cliffhanger since its prohibitively high budget and dwindling ratings made the show an unsustainable investment.

At the end of season 2, John is sent to a future where no one recognizes him as the leader of the human resistance. It seems possible that he doesn’t exist in this timeline at all, although he may just have never become the human resistance leader in this version of reality. Whatever the case, this unfamiliar timeline is a worrying place for John to end up, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles ended on a cliffhanger since its prohibitively high budget and dwindling ratings made the show an unsustainable investment.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles Was So Much Better Than The Movies We Got After T2

The Terminator Series Never Recaptured Its Early Success After Judgment Day

It is hard to tell if The Sarah Connor Chronicles is part of the franchise’s canon thanks to its unresolved cliffhanger ending. If John had returned from his sojourn into a strange alternate timeline, the show could technically still have ended up leading into the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. However, this became somewhat irrelevant when Terminator: Genisys recast Sarah Connor again and rewrote the entire timeline of the series as a result.

This reboot offered viewers a new version of Sarah who befriended the T-800 that was sent to protect her as a child, eventually referring to Schwarzenegger’s killer robot as “Pops.” While Terminator: Genisys was a critical failure, Terminator: Dark Fate was a bigger financial flop despite its attempts to inject some gravity and brutality back into the series. Neither Terminator: Genisys, Terminator: Dark Fate, nor even Terminator: Salvation succeeded in rebooting the movie series, making The Sarah Connor Chronicles the last truly great Terminator project for a long time.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles Is Not The Only Great Terminator TV Show

Netflix’s Anime Terminator Zero Was A Similarly Successful Spinoff

Fortunately, 2024 saw the Terminator franchise once again find its feet. Sadly, this once again only occurred on the small screen instead of in the multiplex. Netflix’s anime series Terminator Zero reinvigorated the series with an entirely original story that mercifully steered clear of the Connor family. Instead of recasting Sarah and John to revisit their plot for the umpteenth time, Terminator Zero focused on Malcolm Lee, an engineer working on Skynet’s competitor, and his family. As Lee attempted to escape Timothy Olyphant’s cold-eyed Terminator, a Skyent soldier from the future tried to ensure Skynet could never reach its disastrous launch date.

Terminator Zero featured compelling characters and a new take on the franchise’s mythology that didn’t get bogged down in alternate timelines and confusing lore.

Terminator Zero may have been animated and the first Terminator project to drop the Connor family’s story entirely but, in many ways, the Netflix show was still a fitting successor to The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Like the underrated live-action TV series, Terminator Zero featured compelling characters and a new take on the franchise’s mythology that didn’t get bogged down in alternate timelines and confusing lore. Terminator Zero also seemed more concerned with telling a fresh, original story than bringing back Terminator fan favorites, something that elevated The Sarah Connor Chronicles above most of the franchise’s movies.