Intriguing Heroes: Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green)

Someone in our family got Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Season 1 and 2 for Christmas.  I can’t remember who (it wasn’t me), but we all ended up watching the show, sucked in like dust bunnies with no escape.  We still can’t believe the show got cancelled.

One of the characters introduced a few episodes into the first season, that made the show required and compulsive viewing for me, was Derek Reese, played by Brian Austin Green.  I don’t think there’s too many people left on the planet that aren’t familiar with the Terminator series, but I’ll be careful with my phrasing anyway, just so I don’t spoil things.  Derek is Kyle’s brother, and also comes back from the future and ends up helping Sarah in her struggle to protect John.

When Derek first arrives back in contemporary L.A., though, he’s ignorant of Sarah’s personal history.  He has a real and passionate hatred of the Terminator machines.  And things get even more complicated when the woman he thinks he loves, who — in the story —  just happens to come from Perth, Western Australia (my home town), arrives back in contemporary L.A. as well.

I vaguely knew of Brian Austin Green from his Beverly Hills 90210 days.  He was a pretty boy then.  But in The Sarah Connor Chronicles, as Derek Reese, he’s lost all the prettiness.  He’s rough, hard and has a dark edge.  And my, he’s delicious!  He’s carrying secrets and he has a past.  He’s also dangerous.  He tends to break out into violence as a first resort, because that was the way he was raised, yet there is a softer side to him that emerges slowly over several episodes.  There’s one scene when he shares a birthday present with John that just melts your knees.

The series has been cancelled, as I mentioned, but you can pick it up on DVD and it’s worth a look-see just to absorb Derek Reese/Green as hero material.  I hope he gets another crack at playing a dark dangerous character like Reese in a show that really takes off because he did it very well indeed.

 

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