Last night Star Wars: The Clone Wars premiered on Cartoon Network with two episodes. I saw the movie that was out in theaters in August, so I already had a good idea of what to expect. The series uses a unique style of animation that seems to be about halfway between realism and cartoon. The style seems to work pretty well in combination with the style of action, dialog, and plot that are targeted more or less at children.

For me, watching a children’s animated series as an adult is kind of a strange experience. I find myself thinking how much I would have loved this series when I was eleven and just discovering Star Wars. But now, it can be a bit of a struggle to get past the heavily cliched and cheesy dialog.

Nonetheless, the two episodes were somewhat enjoyable. The first episode followed Yoda as he and three Clone Troopers battled legions of the Seperatist’s Droid Army in order to prove the worth of siding with the Republic to the Toydarian king. The plot made little sense and the attempts at comic relief with the Battle Droid dialog were pathetic. However, Yoda kicked some serious butt and the action scenes were pretty cool.

The second episode followed Anakin Skywalker and his new apprentice, Ahsoka, as they searched for survivors of recent space battle. The episode also featured Jedi Master Plo Koon who was in command of a  small Republic fleet when it came up against the Seperatist’s new weapon, a huge battle cruiser armed with a gigantic ion cannon (reminiscent of the one on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back). When the ion cannon hit the Republic ships, they all lost power and the Seperatist cruiser blasted them to pieces. Plo Koon and three Clone Troopers managed to escape in a life pod and were eventually found by Anakin and Ahsoka.

Though the second episode didn’t contain the same level of action as the first, I found that I enjoyed it more. The plot was a lot more believable and compelling. It was also interesting to follow Plo Koon for much of episode, who proved to be a fairly interesting character. Luckily, it also had less cheesiness than the first episode, so that helped too.

Overall, I think the series will probably end up being something that children may enjoy quite a lot. Fortunately, I think there is also enough positive factors that adults can also enjoy the show as well, but probably to a lesser extent.

The fourth episode of Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles was entitled “Allison from Palmdale” and was centered around Cameron. In this episode, Cameron randomly forgot her identity and began to remember her life before she was a Terminator, or maybe it’s more accurate to say, the life of the woman that was used to create her model. This was a really powerful and dramatic episode and I thought it was great.

As Cameron began to relive these memories, she also began to take on the personality and emotions of Allison, the girl who was captured by the machines in the future and was used to create Cameron’s model. I found it very compelling to see Cameron convey these powerful emotions.

On the other hand, it was also somewhat confusing, because it was difficult to comprehend how Cameron was able to have these memories that belonged to Allison. It became even more strange, but no less dramatic, when Cameron’s memories of Allison crossed paths with her own memories and switched back. At some point she stop reliving these memories of Allison’s imprisonment through the eyes of Allison and, instead, began reliving them through her own.

Meanwhile, Sarah has had to take the pregnant neighbor girl to the hospital and we are subjected with a number of symbolic, yet typical, allegories between her hopes and fears as a mother and Sarah’s. The scenes helped reinforce Sarah’s character, but didn’t bring much else to the table.

By the end of the episode, Cameron has become fully engulfed in the memory and nearly kills an innocent girl as she relives killing Allison. John storms in just too late to stop Cameron, but luckily the girl survived. At that moment, Cameron seems to come back into her own and flees the scene with John.

To sum up my thoughts, this episode was awesome. I really liked how the story alternated between the present day and the future. It created a really cohesive parallel story arch that I thought worked perfectly. I’ve been intrigued by Cameron’s character since the start of the show and I really like when the plot allows for her to show emotion. It makes her character more than just a Terminator, more than a killing machine, and think that is a crucial piece in the evolution of the series.

The third episode of Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles, “Mousetrap,” was not only exciting, but it also had great acting and an interesting plot. I’ve been very impressed with Terminator this season. It has really begun to evolve and mature with time, expanding the overarching storyline and the emotional ranges of the characters.

One thing that I really like in this season is how the show’s villainry has been expanded upon. Not only do we still have Cromartie chasing down John Conner, but now we also have a new villain, Catherine Weaver, another Terminator. Weaver is the CEO of ZeiraCorp, a technology company that has been attempting to reverse engineer Terminator technology. In this episode, Weaver even attempts to enlist Agent Ellison to her campaign. I have to assume that she is really just attempting to use Ellison as a pawn to get closer to John Conner or in some other way. Either way, it will be a bad deal for Ellison.

Speaking of bad deals, Charley’s wife got one hell of a bad deal. In this episode, Cromartie catches up with Charley and his wife, Michelle, as they flee and kidnaps Michelle to use her as bait to draw Sarah away from John. Sarah proved her resiliance once again as she, Derek, Charley, and Michelle escape from his trap, but Michelle is wounded and dies before they can get her to a hospital. Michelle’s death felt a little forced. I didn’t like the timing of it, but at the same time she had quickly become a useless character. With her out of the picture, it frees up Charley to take on a larger role in the series. I believe he will become something of a father figure for John.

Despite a pretty well laid plan, Cromartie is also eluded by John. He lures John to the Pier, pretending to be Sarah, to kill him. John’s Spidey sense went off though and he ran off, making a desperate plunge into the water. It worked out well because Terminators don’t float. My only question is, why didn’t Cromartie just tell John to meet him at home? Wouldn’t that have been a lot easier?

Nonetheless, week three produced another stellar episode. For me, this show is a bit of surprise. Given, it doesn’t always take a rocket scientist to follow, the plot has progressed and developed better than I had expected. I’ve really grown to like the show quite a lot. And after Heroes‘ shakey premiere, Terminator may end up being my favorite show of the year.