When my brother and I were younger we’d get into some vicious fights. We never caused each other any permanent damage, but not for lack of effort, and our animosity was often reset when our mom was always there to temporarily keep the peace by forcing us to “hug and make up.” I say “often reset” because we would hug and make up, but we didn’t want to, and sometimes forced hugging is not the best solution when people want to hurt one another. It was dangerous to lower your guard in that situation, because we naturally both saw it as the perfect opportunity to deliver a vicious knee to the crotch. And so when we were going in for the make-up hug, we’d sort of scuttle in sideways, taking away the most devastating crotch-shot angles, and the “hug” would be more like a one-handed “hey dude” pat on the back, while the our hand protected our delicate areas from the inevitable sneak attack.

It was with a similar caution that I approached “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.” I wanted to embrace it, but I was wary of having my metaphorical nuts crunched.

“American Idol” is back.

Its ratings are like Jack Nicholson slapping Faye Dunaway in “Chinatown.” The ratings are huge! The ratings are disappointing! The ratings are huge AND disappointing!

They are bigger, bigger than anything else this season. Bigger by a mile. So tall you can’t see the top.

Yet they are also down. Tuesday night’s premiere down 13%. Wednesday’s second episode down 19%. Lowest premiere numbers in four years.

Whatever does this mean?

“Idol” is getting old. Reality shows are like dog years. Seven seasons is old for a reality show.

Fox is defensive about this. Its the fading quarterback who’s still on top, but his bum knee is catching up with him and he no longer gets carded at the bar and he rather just sit around and grill a steak than play in the game against Denver on Saturday. He’s denying he’s losing his touch, convinced he’ll play forever.

His fall may take a long time. Got many more seasons left in him. But fans know he’s past his prime and the standings prove it.

Fox’s glorified karaoke show returns tonight with producers promising fewer annoying mentors and more annoying contestants.

Once again, “Idol” is expected to decimate all competition. But by how much? Reality shows tend to have a ratings pattern that goes – in professional network executive lingo-speak — up, up, up and then down, down, down.

“Idol” went up, up, up and then last year went down for the first time. So will this year the decline continue?

It doesn’t even come close to mattering.

Some ratings softening for “Idol” is like Bill Gates getting a parking ticket. “Idol” has enough ratings to spare, enough to throw a party for its friends and to pass out Nielsen points in a big bowl on the coffee table.

The ratings for the second episode of Fox’s “Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles” dropped 45% in its second airing, but the ratings for the second Monday night episode of NBC’s “American Gladiators” basically held up.

Not a surprise.

The “Terminator” remake is about 10 years too early. Yes, I know the link in the previous sentence goes to a Metacritic rundown of reviews showing “Terminator” scored highly with the critics but I don’t care.. If I want to undermine my own arguments through text links, I’ll do it.

See, the problem is “Terminator” is aimed toward fans of the movies. But the fans of the three movies have already seen this stuff before. The series feels too familiar. Here’s the same premise as the films, but with a lower budget and unknown actors. It’s well executed (thus the reviews), but also tired before it even starts.

Fox should have waited a good 10 years before trying to make the small screen version of “Terminator.” Give storytelling techniques and special effects some more time to evolve so they could do something truly different. As is, this is like going back in time — to 1984, 1991 and 2003.

io9 is running an interview with Lena Headey and producer James Middleton of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, in preparation for the big premiere on January 14^th.

In it they reveal a number of secrets of the highly anticipated series, so if the fanboy in you just can’t wait, check out the spoilers after the jump.