The Terminator Saga Continues

I have always loved The Terminator saga - one of the great sci fi story lines in science fiction movie history. And like the Terminator itself, it just won't die. More than 20 years after the original Terminator film, there have been two sequels and prime time television series. And now there is a new film ramping up, TERMINATOR SALVATION: THE FUTURE BEGINS. I don't know about you guys, but with all these Terminator story lines being released, the continuity is really starting to get messed up. Consider it:

In T1, Kyle Reese travels back from the year 2029 to stop a machine war that destroys humanity in 1997, which is the year Skynet goes live. In T2, John and Sarah Connor team with Ahnold to prevent the creation of Skynet in the year 1991. Their efforts seem successful, as they blow up Miles Dyson's lab and the last Terminator destroys himself (before his vacation).

Now comes a split in the timeline.

T3 says that John Connor goes "off-the-grid" by 2004, refusing to believe that Judgement Day has been prevented. A new Terminator is sent back in time by Connor's future wife to prevent Connor's murder in the year 2032. Obviously, the events in T2 has moved back the Skynet war at least 3 years, but not prevented it completely. By the end of that film, it is determined that Skynet is a network of thousands of computers, missiles are launched, and Judgement Day begins.

So the split occurs in the new Sarah Connor Chronicles TV series on FOX television (great show, by the way). The pilot episode begins in the year 1999, and the Connors are rescued from death by yet another Terminator (man, can they do anything right in the future? I hope I can one day send a robot back in time to get me out of trouble for setting my parent's rug on fire when I was eight!) and transported to the year 2007 - essentially wiping out the entire T3 timeline.

Writer Josh Friedman has stated that "T3" follows an alternate timeline than that of the TV series.

I call "shenanigans." All us hard working, hard thinking Terminator fans put a lot of effort into figuring out the original event timeline, then they get rid of half of it. At least throw us a bone and say "Uhh...in 1995 John Connor steps on a butterfly and the entire history of Skynet is rewritten. An alternate history where [insert T3 timeline here] and a Terminator becomes governor of California becomes disconnected from the critical path timeline." That's not too much to ask, is it? Or am I being one of "those" geeks, again?

I don't care. I'm a taxpayer. I'm allowed to make a certain quota of unreasonable demands. So there, SARAH CONNOR staff - fix it.

Or I will send a robot back in time to extend the writer's strike.