Terminator, "The Mousetrap": Smarter than the average robot

Quick spoilers for last night's episode of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" coming up just as soon as I peruse the celebrity tabs...

That's three episodes in a row of "not bad." I don't know that the show has a higher gear than these B-movie self-contained thriller stories, and I'm not sure I'd want to see that higher gear. (What is the original "Terminator," after all, but one of the best B-movies of all time?) I'm much more engaged when the danger is clear and present than when the show deals with larger, more complicated story arcs like whatever Shirley Manson's doing. On the other hand, if I don't care about the arcs, I'm not sure the episodic stories are good enough to keep me watching once the timeslot crunch gets worse. (Again, I have a three-week head start on "Chuck," which helps.)

A few random thoughts:

• I hope the "Lost" producers have big plans for Penny in the final two seasons, because with Michelle's death here and HBO's decision not to go forward with "Tell Me You Love Me" season two, Sonya Walger's running out of semi-regular gigs.

• You would never have thought it from watching "Deadwood" that Garret Dillahunt is such a gym rat. Guy looked pumped in those swords-and-sandals clips.

• There are certain actors who should never, ever, be asked to run on film, because their running style immediately undercuts any attempt to make them seem like a bad-ass. David Caruso immediately comes to mind (there's about a five-minute sequence in "Elmore Leonard's Gold Coast" that's nothing but Caruso running, and it is among the unintentionally funniest things I've ever seen), and to that list I think we can add Thomas Dekker, who looked beyond goofy sprinting around the Santa Monica Pier. As the "Terminator" franchise is one big chase story, this could be an ongoing problem. Maybe lots of car chases?

• I liked the solution to the chase, by the way: while Terminators look like us, they weigh a whole lot more, and likely wouldn't be able to avoid sinking in water. On the other hand, how does Cameron avoid constantly breaking every chair she sits in?

What did everybody else think?