So I dropped in on the new TV series based on the “Terminator” movie franchise: “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.” And the usual lowest-common-denominator limitations of broadcast TV are certainly present. Everyone is “hot” (even the freaky and geeky kids at John Connor’s high school) — and many of the characters feel trapped in stilted, predictable dialogue.

Despite these shortcomings, however, the ideas that motivate the narrative are so compelling that they more than make up for the sloppy execution — at least for now. Sure, the TV series and movie franchise use well-worn science fiction tropes — from time travel to machines becoming conscious and rebelling against their creators. But they make them fresh in such a way that both the movies and the TV show are more about the instability of modern identity than a more primal fear of technology. They deftly explore what makes us human and what human qualities might become our collective downfall.

It helps, of course, when explorations of identity aren’t afraid to present a realistic portrait of men and women. Unfortunately, as many critics have been pointing out, the waifish actress Lena Headey in the TV series isn’t very believable as Sarah Connor — who, as portrayed by a well-built Linda Hamilton in the movies, has gained a gritty, muscular physique over the years as she has constructed a guerrilla resistance force of sorts aimed at dismantling the machines that will otherwise lead to the apocalypse.

Check out the comparison pictures here. The PR shot of Headey handling a gun, especially when juxtaposed with an action shot of Linda Hamilton in T2, is particularly disturbing — echoing a phallic fetishization of women and guns that makes it look like an ad in Soldier of Fortune.

As members of the Sarah Connor Charm School and other feminists have noted, Linda Hamilton’s portrayal of Sarah Connor was an iconic inspiration for many women who rebel against the dangerous and debilitating standard of beauty in American culture. Unfortunately, when put in the context of images of women in music, magazines, advertising, TV, films and elsewhere that have come to dominate the cultural landscape in the last couple of decades — a virtual body image apocalypse, you might say — she feels like the last real woman we’ve seen.