I really enjoyed the pilot episode. It exceeded my tempered expectations, and I look forward to watching the 8 remaining episodes that were completed before the strike.
The biggest surprise that I liked was how they were going to explain the timeline of these events where it looked like everything was going to take place in the late 1990s, and so all the cars and vehicles and technology were going to have to look like it was the 1990s. The time jump to the current time was unexpected, and pretty cool, I thought.
I've been a Lena Headey fan since I saw her in that Jungle Book remake in the mid 1990s with Jason Scott Lee, so I've always been eager to see her in more American movies.
Titleist, I'm OK with how she's playing the Sarah Connor role because that is where Linda Hamilton took the character at the end of T2. It seems like you think Headey should be playing the character more like Linda Hamilton did in the middle of T2, when she went on her quest to kill Miles Dyson. To me, she should be playing the character a bit softer and more compassionate because of John's relationship with the Arnold Terminator in T2.
Also, keep in mind that Sarah and John thought they had changed the future and averted the war with the machines. T3 hasn't happened yet, where John learns that the war with the machines is inevitable and it will happen. Of course, this TV series now seems to mess up the events of T3, but I don't mind much.
My main concern is whether future episodes will seem repetitious with the bad guy Terminator chasing them in every episode, or will there be different mixes of stories? I'm not really sure which would be best for the series.
I thoroughly enjoyed the pilot, and look forward to tonight's episode eagerly.