Summer Glau

US, July 29, 2007 - Like the Chuck screening (featuring Adam Baldwin) on Friday, the debut of the pilot to The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Saturday at Comic-Con was a reminder that Firefly adoration still runs deep with this crowd. While the audience seemed to love the entire pilot - which had a special extended cut made just for the convention - it was obviously Summer Glau who was the biggest draw for many. As the pilot screened, Glau garnered applause not just from her first appearance, but from several other crowd-pleasing moments that followed in the Terminator spinoff series, in which she plays a protective Terminator sent to help John and Sarah Connor.

Afterwards, the producers and cast from the series took to the stage to field questions. Glau’s costar Richard T. Jones humorously said how it was his sad fate to be the person sitting next to Glau who always had to follow her when answers were being given, and thus follow some frequent big cheers from the crowd, such as when she was asked what the appeal of the show was for her and she said "I get to be a Terminator!". The cast seemed to get along very well, and Glau referenced a scene in the pilot at one point, saying "When you’re standing on a freeway in Albuquerque, naked, all you have is each other."

Producer James Middleton noted he’d worked on Terminator 3, and when that project was over, he thought about how intrigued he was by the character Sarah, and wanted to do something more with her, since she wasn’t in T3. He said they picked up the Terminator 2 saying "no fate but what we make" and ran with it, plotting this alternate take on Sarah’s life after T2, that would not be in continuity with Terminator 3, which the audience applauded. Actor Thomas Dekker ("John Connor") praised the director of the pilot, David Nutter, noting that the first time they met Nutter "he talked about Comic-Con" and wanting to please that audience of big fans.

300’s Lena Heady plays Sarah Connor, and said she had been afraid of facing the fans, knowing she was stepping into some big shoes with this character. She joked that her plans to get through the action-packed series involve "napping and steroids."

Glau laughed as an audience member asked about all the "ass-kicking" roles she plays, such as River and now Sarah Connor’s Cameron. She said "I came to L.A. thinking I would do Jane Eyre!" and said her dance background had served her well when it came to fight scenes. Answering another question from the same audience member about how much she was influenced by a certain famous bodybuilder turned movie star turned California governor, she deadpanned "I definitely patterned my performance after Arnold." As for where she’d like her character to go, she said "I want to fall in love!" and Dekker began pointing at himself.

Executive Producer Josh Friedman told the audience that "We are always thinking of new versions of the Terminator," and when asked if we could see the T-1000 from T2 again, he replied "Anything is possible."

Friedman noted that he had the entire story arc for Season 1 of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which premieres in early 2008, mapped out. The audience clearly were excited to see more of the show, applauding again as Friedman added that he also "had ideas for Seasons 2, 3 and 4."