Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles The Complete Second Season   Starring: Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker and Summer Glau Warner Home Video RRP: £49.99 DY25342 Certificate: 15 Available 16 November 2008

Sarah Connor continues on her mission to bring down the Skynet Artificial Intelligence Network. Her son John is mankind’s only hope in the war against our own creations but at 16, he is rebelling against the reality of his destiny - Sarah must protect him by taking out Terminators and federal officers every step of the way...

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete Second Season picks up on the events which unfolded in Season One.

Sarah and John once again focus all their efforts on trying to stop the birth of a technological enemy, as they attempt to track down the true source of Skynet’s activation and hopefully change the fate of humanity. This time around they know that the Turk, a sophisticated piece of software designed to play chess, is the most likely origin of the technology that will attempt to wipe out mankind in the future. In their quest they are aided by Cameron, a female cyborg assassin from the future. Also helping them is Derek Reese, a Resistance fighter from the future, as well as Kyle Reese's (John Connor's father) older brother.

Other notable characters include Jesse Flores (who is another resistance fighter from the future who has been sent back in time - she's also an old lover of Derek's); Riley Dawson (John's love interest this season) and Shirley Ann Manson (Garbage's lead singer) also makes an impressive appearance as Catherine Weaver the CEO of a high-tech corporation ZeiraCorp.

This season has a general overall story arc, but also has some pretty impressive standalone episodes. These include Allison from Palmdale (in which Cameron discovers that the reason she is more human-like than other Terminators we've seen is because her appearance and characteristics were taken from a human called Allison); Goodbye to All That (in which John and Derek go to a military academy in order to protect a future member of the resistance who is being hunted by a terminator, while Sarah guards a young boy who shares the target's name); and Self Made Man (we discover where Cameron goes at nights. Apparently she's been hanging about with a guy who works in the local library at night. It's while here that she sees an old photograph which has a picture of a terminator in it. It appears he was sent to the wrong time and Cameron wants to find where he is now).

Extras include a handful of audio commentaries and deleted scenes; The Storyboard Process: Cameron Goes Bad (2 min, 55 sec look at how the storyboard is constructed); Cameron Vs Rosie: Fight Rehearsal (5 min, 28 sec look at the rehearsal for the fight sequence and then a comparison to the finished footage); and Gag Reel (5 min, 50 sec). Then under the umbrella title of The Continuing Chronicles: Terminator we have four more featurettes: Write the Future (12 min, 39 sec look at the writing and ideas process); Conceptualisation (8 min, 18 sec look at the visual effects); Blood and Metal (7 min, 39 sec look at the makeup effects); and Designing Destruction (7 min, 32 sec look at the sets).

This series builds well on the relatively short first season, however the biggest shame is that this is where the series ends - on a pretty impressive cliff-hanger.

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Nick Smithson