Terminator, "The Good Wound": Reese's pieces

Spoilers for the return of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" coming up just as soon as I examine my joints...

Sigh... they were really on a nice run there for a while in the late fall, starting around the time of "The Tower Is Tall But the Fall Is Short." But between the aimless last few episodes in December, the long hiatus and now a mostly forgettable return episode, I'm having a hard time remembering how excited I briefly felt about this show.

I understand that Sarah's name is in the title, and that the last episode left off with her getting shot, but I really didn't want to spend most of our first hour back in this world watching Lena Headey and the writers continue to struggle to make her interesting, while more compelling figures like Cameron and Derek got relegated to the sidelines. And as the ghostly version of Kyle Reese, Jonathan Jackson was as toothless an approximation of Michael Biehn in the first "Terminator" as Headey is of Linda Hamilton circa "T2."

Now, the subplot with Ellison, John Henry and Shirley Manson was entertaining, if only because Garret Dillahunt and Manson are so good at playing the inhuman sides of their characters. And Shirley's rampage through the warehouse(*) was bad-ass enough that I'll forgive her quoting of Bryan Adams' love theme from "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" ("Everything I doooooo, I do it for yooooooooooou!!!!!").

(*) Once again, a character runs afoul of Weaver after going to the men's room. I smell a trend. Or maybe just a urinal.

But the series either needs to get moving in a specific plot direction or get back to doing those interesting psychological sketches of the stronger characters, or I might lose interest all together.

Also, in case you didn't read any accounts of McG's Comic-Con appearance to discuss the "Terminator: Salvation" film, one of the fans asked whether the new movie would incorporate any mythology from the TV show. He said they decided to keep the events of the film and TV franchises separate going forwards, since (to paraphrase) a TV show is an ever-evolving organism that can't really afford to get locked into decisions that are made in service of a two-hour film script. Of course, unless the ratings pick up (or stay stable) here on Friday nights, this may be a moot point.

What did everybody else think?