Recently the team at Gamesville had the opportunity to sit down with the creative minds and talent behind FOX's hit drama Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Creator and executive producer, Josh Friedman; and Lena Headey, who plays Sarah Connor, joined us to answer some questions about the upcoming season. Be warned! For those who missed the season two premier, the following interview may contain minor spoilers.

Gamesville: Hello, Josh and Lena.  Thanks for your time today.  

Lena Headey: Hello.
Josh Friedman: Hey there.

GV: In the beginning of the series you talked about having somewhere to go with the character, could you talk about what the gradual progression Sarah is on this year will be?

LH: It’s been an interesting season.  I feel that Sarah has taken a backseat in terms of being proactive and taking care of business.  I think that we’re going to see a lot more of John taking control and making steps towards becoming the man he has to be.  And I think this season for Sarah is kind of her losing slight control over pretty much everything, and my feeling is that there’s a slow madness sort of happening in her because she feels that everything is kind of out of reach right now.

GV: How cool was that for you to play?

LH: It’s calming.  I mean, the stuff is calming, but will be more visceral I think, but it’s been strange coming from such a ferocious side of her to being, feeling very pressured, like all control has gone from her.

GV: I feel like there’s a lot of anger in your portrayal of Sarah Connor, and I was wondering if you could talk about that and whether she’s kind of partly angry at John because he’s the reason she can’t have a normal life.  

LH: Yes, I think there’s some truth in that.  I think that Sarah’s pretty complex. I absolutely think that her anger is partly at her son and her situation, obviously.  And I think that’s what it is, her frustration in dealing with that as she can’t really throw down with her son.  But I think there’s a rooted anger also with everybody that comes to advise her and say she should do this and look at it this way, and I think she would love to say, “… you all,” and she can’t for various reasons.

GV: Josh, in the show you have one character who is supposed to eventually be the salvation of mankind, which makes him obviously pretty central.  That being said, the show is called The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  What’s the balance you have to be walking at all times, sort of remembering what the name of the show is and who the star is, but also looking to the future?

JF: Well, it’s challenging.  I think that it’s very doable.  The Sarah/John relationship is the central, I would say that it’s the central relationship in the show, and I think that, at different times, there can be different shifts in terms of the power dynamic or the proactivity.  Lena talks a little bit about her character taking a back seat to John.  I think that it’s a parent/child struggle, and watching the push and pull of that dynamic, to me, is fascinating.  So I sort of look at them as a pair.  Ultimately, yes, it’s called The Sarah Connor Chronicles and it’s about how does this parent of this special child deal with that, and it’s challenging.

GV: You have some really great action and special effects on the show.  Can you talk about finding the balance between that and keeping the humanity going?

JF: At this point, it’s sort of become an organic thing for us.  I think we sort of have a sense of how much action to have in any given episode.  It does shift sometimes.  Sometimes you, in terms of the realities of production, you don’t have the time or money to do big things all the time in every episode, which I’m happy for. I kind of enjoy writing smaller, more character-driven episodes. To me, it’s a drama.  It’s still a family show, a family drama that is in the science fiction world and has action in it, but it’s still, I think, character first for me.

GV: I’m wondering about addition of Shirley Manson. What was the casting decision behind getting her on board?

JF: I’ve known Shirley for a couple of years now. Whenever I’d see her, I used to joke with her about coming on the show to do one episode or something like that because she never acted.  And we’re like, “You know, you should come, do one thing, come be a scary terminator for an episode or do something like that,” and she always said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re never going to do that.”  And then this year, when we started casting, I actually wasn’t thinking about her for this part.  We’d just started casting this part, and then somewhere about a week into casting, I thought I want to bring Shirley in and see if she’s up for it, see if she wants to do it. I e-mailed her and said, “Do you want to come in and audition?”  She said, “Well, yes, I’m coming back in town on Sunday.”  She came and she did it, and she’s just got an incredible charisma.  She’s always prepared, and her learning curve in terms of the craft part of it has been very high so far.  It sort of just happened organically, but she also had to go through the entire audition process just like any other actor.  She was given no extra points for being Shirley Manson.  I think in some ways, she was given minus points by people who thought maybe she couldn’t do it.

GV: And would you characterize Shirley’s character as a nemesis?  Are we allowed to call her evil at this point?

JF: Oh, I think evil is a bit strong.  I don’t think of any of these characters as evil, I think that they’re very focused.  They have a plan.  It’s not personal, like there’s some evil back story where there’s revenge necessary.  I think that there’s a plan that she has in place.

GV: So are there any guest spots you can tell us that are coming up for this season?

JF: Busy Philipps from Freaks and Geeks and and Dawson’s Creek is going to come on for a few episodes.  Most of the guest stars die when they come on.  I don’t know, I can’t really say.

GV: Alright, well I guess we'll have to wait and see, thanks for the time.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles airs Mondays at 8:00PM eastern / 7:00PM central on Fox

For all you Gamesvillers who are also Facebookers we have some exciting news on how you can stay connected with your favorite gaming destination, Gamesville has just published a Facebook Fanpage!

Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites nowadays and is a great way to connect with friends, family and companies to keep up with what they are doing. With Facebook people add friends, send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves. We are going to be rolling out more on this page in the future and it will naturally serve as a great way to see what's new here at Gamesville.

We’d love for you to become our friends/fans on the Gamesville Fanpage. So connect with us, post on our wall, send us all your funny videos or stories, and post your fan photos or pictures of your pets to our new Fanpage.

Want to get up close and personal? Friend Gamesville Vegas on Facebook to interact with Gamesville, one on one.

Congratulations, cast568!

Yesterday, cast568 of Granada Hills, CA won $4,999 playing Three-Eyed Bingo: Bingo from outer space.

Useless Fact!

In 1959, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev visited Granada Hills with two requests: to visit Disneyland and to meet John Wayne. At the time Disneyland was ruled out due to security concerns and as a result, he was taken on a visit to a modern American neighborhood to get a view of American consumerism and the American way of life in Granada Hills.

Although the Soviet leader's trip was cut short due to scheduling conflicts, it marked the first time a Soviet leader set foot on U.S. soil. Learn more...

Gamesviller Sandy4ever of Huntley, IL won $100 in our GV Gold Instant Win game on August 1st, and took a few minutes out of her schedule to talk with us about her win.

Gamesville: What was it like when you realized you won?
Sandy4Ever: I was playing games at 2 a.m. because I couldn't sleep, then I remembered that I hadn't done the  [GV Gold] treasure chest. With my eyes half closed I clicked on a chest. Boy, did my eyes open up when I saw that I had won a hundred dollars!

What do you do for a living?
I work part time for Kohl's and love my job.

If you were an animal in the wild, what would you be?
If I could pick an animal it would be a monkey. They seem to have fun swinging through those trees and eating bananas all day long. Plus they have a lot of friends to play with.

What does your Gamesville member name mean?
My first name is Sandra and that will never change so I picked sandy4ever for my sign in. I probably should have used DiZzZy4ever.

Thanks, Sandy4ever - and congratulations again on your win!

We're humbled by the enthusiastic response to our free Gamesville Bumper Stickers campaign. And ectastic that folks are sending us photos of where they're sticking them.

Today's submission comes from Gamesviller Ohryankelley from Boston, Massachusetts, proudly displaying his sticker on the bumper of his car:

Everyone at GV HQ was so impressed with Ohryankelley's enthusiasm that we had him over to the office. As it turned out, his background and skills were a perfect match for us. So we've brought him aboard full-time to help manage our growing GV community.

Welcome aboard, Ohryankelley! Hope you survive the experience.

Want to talk with Ohryankelley, or share photos of your Gamesville bumper sticker "in action"?

Send your correspondence to: members@gamesville.com

To spice things up as the weather grows cooler, we're offering 5,000 GV Rewards to any member who submits a photo of their free GV bumper sticker--and a cool 10,000 GV Rewards to those we feature in the Gamesville Blog.

AND, as an added bonus, if we feature your photo we'll send you another bumper sticker to give to a friend or loved one. No envelope necessary; the second one is on us!

(Don't have a free Gamesville bumper sticker yet? Get your free Gamesville bumper sticker today.)

From your house to the White House! We're the only first-party game publisher running as a third-party candidate, and our platform is simple: "Free games for cash prizes for all!" Our name is Gamesville.com, and we approve this message.

Announcing... the winners of the "Sing The Bingo Zone Theme Song" competition!

Third place goes to, frankly, the oddest rendition of the song, courtesy of Frontofline:

Second place in the competition goes to Schalza for his Vegas-inspired version of the song:

And, the moment you've all be waiting for...

The winner of the "Sing The Bingo Zone Theme Song" competition is musictherapyashley of Richmonda, Va., who performed this awesome, acoustic rendition of the song:

We have been listening to musictherapyashley sing about the Bingo Zone for weeks now--literally; it's even on my iPod--so, job well done and enjoy your 500,000 GV Rewards!

Thank you to everyone who entered. We were overwhelmed by the response, and hope you like the musical stylings of this trio as much as we do!

When GV team members bring their pets into work, it can mean only one thing...

FERRET FRIDAY!!!

Useless Ferret Fact:  Ferrets are born deaf, and begin to hear at around 34 days--around the same time that their eyes begin to open for the first time. Source: weaselwords.com

Bonus Ferret Fact: All ferrets are born white, and take on their approximate adult color at three weeks of age.

Every few weeks, the team at GV HQ dedicates an afternoon to playing and critiquing games. It's fun, educational, and helps generate new ideas that will continue to make Gamesville the best place to play free online game shows for real cash prizes. 

At one of our recent meetings, we started looking at games that were really innovative or special in some way. Braid topped my personal list--not just because of its unique play mechanic of manipulating time, its unique visual style and musical score, but also because of how the developers structured The Wall.

The Wall is the point where need to pay to continue playing. In most casual games, that's an automatic 60 minutes into the game. Braid was more refined. The Wall concept was actually woven into the story, at just the right point, in just the right manner, to make me reach into my wallet and pull out my credit card without hestitation. That is no small feat.

I mentioned the story. A large part of why I bought the game was because of the story, because of the unique aura of loss and longing threaded so skillfully into the game. Braid is not a depressing experience--but it is definitely a moving experience.

Will we see a lot of Braid wannabes soon? Probably. Any time a casual game is popular, the market floods with tons of clones. But does it have to be that way? Don't we deserve better? I think we do.

Today, in an editorial for DailyGame.net, I put forth the idea that casual gamers deserve a Bill Of Rights, just like their PC-gaming cousins.

Think of it as a series of guiding principles that will hopefully encourage innovation and continue to grow the casual games industry. These are also the kinds of qualities you should expect from Gamesville as we move ahead into a bold, new age of online game shows.

Casual Gamer's Bill of Rights:

1. The right to games that keep things clear without being condescending or pandering.
2. The right to appropriate feedback, to understand whether or not I'm succeeding.
3. The right to games whose price points equate logically to the games themselves, not the genre to which the games belong.
4. The right to customer service that is both prompt and courteous.
5. The right to games that innovate more than imitate, and push my boundaries without breaking my spirit.
6. The right to games that help me understand the world and my place in it.

This six-point Casual Gamers' Bill of Rights is by no means complete, and questions, comments and suggestions are definitely welcome. I'm really interested to know what you think. Because this is really just the start of the conversation. Where it goes next is, in large part, up to you.

Sincerely,
Chris Cummings
Manager, Gamesville.com
GV: chriscummings101

During tonight's waxing crescent, relax with the melodic sounds of the true music of the spheres. Well, not spheres, really. Wine glasses. But still:

If you dig this beat, be sure to catch up on your glass music history at: http://www.glasharfe.de/glasharfe/texte/history.htm

Do you make wine glasses sing, or have some other talent of note? Tell us!

Email your story to: members@gamesville.com

Be sure to include your Gamesville member name with your entry. If we run your story on Gamesville.com, we'll send you 5,000 GV Rewards as a "thank-you"!