Fox has reportedly greenlit production on a new TV series based on The Terminator franchise. The show will be called The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and will focus on Sarah Connor and her son John, and what happened to them following the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. David Nutter (Smallville, The X-Files, Supernatural) has been hired to direct the pilot episode.

On the one hand, I think these kinds of spin-off shows do seem to devalue the original films in some way; with lower production values and different actors it always ends up looking like a second-rate knockoff. But then I think Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was in some ways a second-rate knockoff of the first two Terminator films, and I still enjoyed it. Of course, the big difference is that it did still have Arnold in it. Does anyone really care about stories told from the Terminator universe that don’t involve the good ol’ T800? Hey, maybe they can get Robert Patrick back as the T-1000 since he seems to be doing a lot of TV lately. Filming is expected to start early next year. No word on what this might mean for a 4th Terminator movie, although if the show is a success, another movie would probably be inevitable.