It is official. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was officially added to the FOX Sci fi show body count. A body count which includes shows like Firefly, Space Above and Beyond, Sliders and Alien Nation yet shows like Dollhouse live on.
In fairness, Sliders had three seasons on FOX before going to Sci-Fi. But yeah, I do agree that Firefly and Space Above and Beyond definitely went before they should have.
As for Dollhouse being renewed and TTSCC not, it came down to money. After airing the 12 episodes of Dollhouse, Joss brought the filmed, but not aired, 13th episode to the network. The 13th episode was filmed when they had almost no money to work with and turned out a quality episode, something that made the network happy. What made FOX even happier, was that 20th Century Television said they would be willing to take on a higher amount of the overall production cost themselves, meaning that FOX could spend even less themselves. Add to that the DVR numbers and views on Hulu and Fox.com and they found that they would actually be able to make a little money off of Dollhouse. TTSCC on the other hand, requires more effects per episode, which makes it harder to produce a 13 episode season for the same amount they could get Dollhouse for. Dollhouse has some effects, but they can write story that requires a minimal amount of anything more than flashy lights and a couple of blanks for a gun. If all you got was that on Terminator, then the average Terminator fan would probably complain and stop watching. So you need enough of a budget to have a decent amount of effects, especially on future flashes with terminators, HKs and the like running, rolling and flying around.
I'm sorry to see Terminator go, unfortunately I didn't get the chance to really follow it this season. Since I can only watch stuff in the mornings when I have breakfast before getting ready for work, or in the evenings when I might not have the time to, I had to limit my viewing of things and missed out on a couple of shows. I would have used the end of things like 24, Chuck, Heroes and Castle to finally catch up a bit, but now I'm not sure I want to do that unless someone else picks up Terminator. I don't want to get invested in the characters further and then get the rug pulled out.
I watched every episode and enjoyed it very much. Maybe we'll get lucky and Sci-Fi will pick it up...
