First off, a correction. Our fearless showrunner didn’t have the fan-boy flu. My bad. Guess I misinterpreted the sour look on his face while I was pitching episode twelve — which is my next episode and now that is has passed through the Friedman story crucible is going to be absolutely sick! It’s kind of an homage to one of our staff’s all-time fave shows, The X-Files, with Sarah playing the Mulder part. More to come on this one…

Secondly, some answers: No, David, Shirley Manson’s accent hasn’t been a problem. In fact, it makes all the guys on set swoon. Yes, Cory and Allergygal, our staff is determined and ready to do twenty two eps this year; after all, there is no fate but what you make. And yes Rafie, Cromartie will be shirtless this season. Episode three to be exact. I have seen dailies and I hope it isn’t a spoiler to say Cromartie’s isn’t just made of metal, he looks like he’s been pumping some as well. Talk about Terminator sex…

Speaking of fabulous physiques, as promised, I wanted to give you guys the inside scoop on the women of the SCC writers’ room. The other chick co-exec, Toni Graphia, has written an episode so good I’m positively jealous! It’s a Cameron origin story, some of it takes place in the future, and you guys are going to LUUUUURVE IT. It even has a frickin’ tiger! Summer is sooooo amazing in it. Toni rock that script, you’ll see.

Staff Writer Denise “Whippet” The just ran a marathon, hence the nickname. This while working on episode six, which will contain, among many cool moments, a super rad Terminator fight. Denise’s Dad is some kind of kung-fu grandmaster (not making that up), and she definitely got the badass gene. She’s about a hundred years younger than Toni and I, so you’ll definitely be seeing lots more great sci-fi from her in the years to come.

Then there’s Jami O’Brien, our loyal writers’ assistant. She rocks a pair of sex librarian glasses and went to Yale Drama School, though she’s too polite to lord that over us. We’re gonna drag her down into the TV trenches soon enough, you’ll see.

As for me, I’m putting the finishing touches on episode two, which is fantastic if I do say so myself, and starting work on twelve. We break all the stories together in the room. The boys do the action and the girls write the character stuff… NOT. I personally love love love action. Never enough robot fights, imho. Friedman is definitely in touch with his feminine side — creatively, I mean — but the women on staff do contribute greatly to Sarah’s character. After all, when it comes down to it, Sarah Connor is just a hard-working single mom — albeit one whose job is saving humanity from killer cyborgs.

Well I’m off to slay a cyborg myself — on paper of course — so until next time…

Wired gets excited about the leading ladies and body count coming up this season, while E!Online blogs about one missing robot…

Have you seen FOX’s newest promo? She’s coming…

Writer/Producer Toni Graphia hard at work in the writers room earlier today. Recognize that poster from the first season? Yeah, we grabbed it for the writers room. And Toni promised to blog soon.

While we’re sure you didn’t miss an episode of Terminator last season, this coming week is your chance to fall in love with the first season all over again (and get your friends hooked!). Airing only on FOX.

Sunday, August 10 - “Pilot”
Monday, August 11 - “Gnothi Seauton”
Tuesday, August 12 - “The Turk”
Wednesday, August 13 - “Heavy Metal”
Sunday, August 17 - “Queen’s Gambit”
Monday August 18 - “Dungeons and Dragons”
Tuesday, August 19 - “The Demon Hand”
Wednesday, August 20 - “Vick’s Chip”
Sunday, August 24 - “What He Beheld”

Like last season, FOX put together a music video/promo with new footage. Even better, check it out in high-res here. (Thanks to some fan pages for the tip!)

Oh, and XKCD webcomic are T:SCC fans (and it seems, Summer).

What is Babylon?

Lena talks Sarah Connor and romance over at TVGuide, while our friends at the Sarah Connor Society treat us to photos of the gang at Teen Choice last night.

Have you heard about Rob Hall, our amazing Special FX Makeup guru, and his new film Laid to Rest? You can catch both Lena and Thomas in it, but be forewarned: it’s an R-rated horror film, enter only if you dare…

There was plenty of T:SCC action at last night’s Teen Choice Awards. Our own nominees Thomas and Summer also presented alongside Brian Green, which you can catch tonight at 8PM on FOX. Make sure to check them out!

Writing and producing a network television show, especially one with big action and design elements like Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, is mostly a lot of fun but sometimes a long, tedious slog Everything you see and hear on screen involves work for one or more people and creative decisions, from the things we all notice (what is everyone wearing? what guns are they using?) to the most banal bits of background. If a character picks up a phone, someone needs to choose a particular phone, then buy it or get it from the prop or set dec department and bring it to set. If a TV set is giving a bit of expository dialogue in the background, someone needs to hire the actor to read it, arrange the recording session or filming, burn it into the monitor, etc. etc.

These decisions get hashed out in an endless series of concept meetings, pre-tone, tone, and production
meetings which often stretch on for hours and involve every major department heads, arguments, digressions, and lukewarm Chinese food. These meetings are a deeply necessary part of the television making process, but I doubt that anyone actually enjoys them.

But then there are the truly fun production days, and no, they’re usually not the ones on set. The truth is, unless you really, really like to watch dudes in cargo shorts wheeling heavy carts, setting up lights, and laying down dolly tracks and the like, the set gets boring pretty quickly.

No, the really fun occasions are where we get to glom onto the show’s brilliant department heads and watch them bring different aspects of the show to life. Sometimes that involves a trip to Hollywood’s biggest armory with our prop master to pick out guns for good guys and bad guys. If you’re very lucky, they even take you to a demonstration room to fire them off– an experience that turns even a wimpy tree hugger like me into a fourteen year old playing war in the backyard.

But my favorite production day is still one that I had during the first season, when we were prepping our
episode, “Dungeons and Dragons.” As some of you may remember, that episode contained extensive flashbacks to the post apocalyptic future war against the machines (what do you call a flashback that takes place in the future? we still haven’t come up with a satisfactory answer). Every single bit of that future of terrified refugees and plucky freedom fighters hiding in underground bunkers had to be designed and creative.

And since I almost love cool costumes as much as I do automatic weapons, it was a delight to be able to spend time with our brilliant costume designer, Amanda Friedland, a lovely and petite South African with more energy than a sackful of ferrets on crystal meth, as she rushed to design and assemble the wardrobe for our future war. One day, Amanda was kind enough to take me into the basement of the Warner Brothers costume department and into the main room, where over 70 years worth of costumes are stored in a titanic climate controlled space that resembles nothing so much as the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

We walked past row after row of dresses, police and military uniforms, suits and leisure wear from every era in human history, and recognizable pieces from dozens of favorite movies and shows, until we finally found what we were looking for– piles of discarded sports equipment!

A little electrical tape and black spray paint, and the shin guards and elbow pads we found became body armor for the Reese brothers and their brave squad of warriors, the Four Horsemen. Should I probably spent that hour and a half in the writers’ room or marking up someone’s script instead? Probably. But I have to admit, seeing Brian Austin Green run across screen wearing an old baseball shin guard I had helped dig out of a box in a basement gave me a weird thrill of accomplishment…or at least makes me feel a little less guilty the next time I’m on set snarfing food while other people rush around busting their butts to set up the next shot.