AirLockAlpha.com

What is a show about Sarah Connor without Terminators?

Lena Headey, who will play the character in the pilot for "The Sarah Connor Chronicles," told SciFi Wire that there will be two new Terminators: a female model, played by "Serenity's" Summer Glau, and a male model named Cromartie, played by Owain Yeoman. One of them will be good, and the other bad. Headey did didn't say which is which.

According to Headey, the show will begin with a confrontation between her title character; her son, John Connor ("Heroes'" Thomas Dekker); and the two Terminators. The pilot, which picks up the story from the end of the feature film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, begins in the desert, and "it ends with them landing in L.A., having run and escaped. Or maybe not," Headey said in a March 3 interview at WonderCon in San Francisco.

The pilot "begins, and it's them basically running, hiding, trying to live," Headey said. "Trying to carve out a normal life for themselves, but always being watched and trying to locate SkyNet, trying to stop [it]. But there are many, many issues in their way.

"We just finished [shooting]," Headey said. "We were in Albuquerque [N.M.] for a month. And it was very intense, because TV is crazy. I mean, it's long days. It's like boom, boom, boom. You don't get any respite. But ... I think it's going to be great. I don't know if its going to be picked up, because it's only in pilot stage right now. But I learned to shoot many weapons and how to recognize a Terminator. So it was a good experience."

Glau, originally a prima ballerina, is fast becoming an archetype for unseemingly powerful women. For the past few weeks, since the announcement that she had been cast in the pilot, speculation has been that she might play a Terminator, especially given her role as the childlike sleeper agent turned deadly Reaver-slayer in “Serenity,” the big screen sequel to the Joss Whedon TV series, “Firefly.” She has also played Tess Doerner, a woman who can get people to do whatever she wants just by thinking about it, in “The 4400.” Glau's character in the new Terminator series is named Cameron, an apparent nod to "Terminator" creator James Cameron.

"The Sarah Connor Chronicles" is set to premiere on Fox this fall if the network picks up the pilot.