32-Episode Sci-Fi Masterpiece Resurrected By Apple TV Keeps Getting Better

Published Oct 9, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock. Apple TV has become the go-to place for prestigious, thoughtful, fiercely original sci-fi television. From Severance to Pluribus to the alternate-history antics of For All Mankind, Apple’s sci-fi content has boldly gone where no other streaming service has gone before. But Apple’s streaming library isn’t just confined to its own original content; they’ve started licensing classic movies, and they have a VOD service, too. That VOD service is a great way for hidden gems to get rediscovered, and that’s what’s happened to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles recently. The Sarah Connor Chronicles has been trending on Apple TV VOD for a little while now, and it’s a show that has only gotten better with age, especially considering the Terminator movies we’ve gotten since then. It’s pretty common wisdom that the Terminator franchise should’ve ended with Terminator 2. That movie definitively prevented Judgment Day and ensured a brighter future for humanity, and every attempt to follow it up with a sequel has felt like seriously diminishing returns. From Terminator Genisys to Terminator: Dark Fate, all the post-T2 sequels have been a massive let-down, desperately clinging to something that’s already long gone. James Cameron is working on Terminator 7, but there’s not much hope that that’s the one that’ll finally get it right. Between the crushing disappointment of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and the mind-numbing mediocrity of Terminator Salvation, the Terminator franchise debuted its first TV spinoff. The Sarah Connor Chronicles ignored the events of Terminator 3, which had bafflingly decided to kill her off, and followed Sarah and a teenage John as they tried to stay one step ahead of the Terminators sent back in time to kill them. The series ran for two seasons on Fox before being cancelled — it was prohibitively expensive, despite its cult audience — but now, those two seasons have been reappraised. The Terminator Franchise Has Only Gone Downhill Since The Sarah Connor Chronicles Although its flashy pilot episode was little more than an inexpensive remake of T2, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles quickly came into its own. Linda Hamilton left some pretty huge boots for her successor to fill, but Lena Headey, who would later become iconic as Cersei Lannister on Game of Thrones, deftly carried the torch. Her Sarah is every bit as badass yet vulnerable as Hamilton’s O.G. was. Summer Glau is a standout supporting player, and Thomas Dekker gives an appropriately angsty turn as teen John Connor. After The Sarah Connor Chronicles ended its second season on a tantalizing cliffhanger, teasing a divergent timeline with John fighting the future war, Fox unceremoniously canned the show. That short-lived series was a bright spot in the dire post-T2 Terminator saga, but it’s all been downhill from there. Terminator Salvation seemed like a great twist on the franchise, following John’s military campaigns against the Terminators in a post-apocalyptic future, but it pivoted away from John to a boring original character. Terminator Genisys tried to get away with a shallow greatest-hits montage of the franchise’s most iconic moments, paired with an asinine backstory where Sarah Connor was raised by a Terminator named Pops. Terminator: Dark Fate erased all the previous post-T2 sequels, only to make all the same mistakes (including devaluing the end of T2 by revealing that another robot uprising would simply take Skynet’s place). Netflix’s Terminator-adjacent anime series, Terminator Zero, was a diamond in the rough. That was the best Terminator project in years, and further proof that the franchise has a more sustainable future on the small screen than the big screen. But, in a haunting case of déjà vu, an awesome Terminator TV series was once again cancelled way before its time. Oh, well. Check out Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Apple TV VOD.