The “O.C.”

In 2003 it spilled from our TVs a combination of gorgeous 20-somethings, fresh teenager slang and hip west-coast environs. Within four seasons, it flew too close to the sun on soap-opera levels of drama (shootings, baby-daddies, tax-evasion and Tijuana), and finally burned out with the drastic death of its lean, leading lady, Marissa.

Love it or hate it, the series was immensely popular, and a name-maker for its mysteriously monikered producer, McG. McG went on to helm the ultra-flashy “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle,” which featured explosions and girls in their underwear.

McG is now tackling the next logical step in his artistic pattern: the third installment of the nihilistic apocalypse “Terminator” franchise, “Terminator Salvation.”

Now, I can’t speak for everyone, but “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” was the first time I saw someone get impaled by a liquid-metal cyborg. I can remember thinking to my early-’90s self, “If this is what R-rated movies are like, being a grown-up is going to kick ass.”

So I feel safe in saying that, for many of our generation, the “Terminator” movies are something of hallowed ground, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with McG getting his trite trendiness all over them.

In a recent issue of “Entertainment Weekly,” McG is quoted as saying, “We aspire to do to Terminator what Christopher Nolan did with the Batman franchise.” Try as I might, I can’t find the relation between the Batman and Terminator franchises: one started with visually comic-inspired, Prince-scored masterpieces and decayed into toy commercials, and the other spewed relentless pessimism and graphic violence.

If McG is trying to say that he wants to rescue the “Terminator” films from the disappointing “T3: Rise of the Machines” like Nolan revived the caped crusader from the “Batman Forever” funk, well, I can get behind that.

But it seems more likely that McG is trying to say, “WE’VE GOT BATMAN TO PLAY JOHN CONNOR! COME WATCH!” That’s right: Christian Bale is taking on the role of resistance leader John Connor, all grown up and bringing the fight to Skynet’s stoop. And the casting isn’t what worries me.

The fact that McG appears to be riding Nolan’s coattails to box-office success, however, does. Nolan was a prime candidate to put the dark in “The Dark Knight.” With the noir hit “Memento” and almost-as-bleak “The Prestige” on his resume, he was the perfect choice to give Bruce Wayne the painful humanity he experiences in “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight.”

Giving McG control of the next Terminator movie is the opposite of that: his silly, slap-dash visual style could take what is already a fatalistic series and turn it into “National Lampoon’s Robot Apocalypse.” It doesn’t help that he also told EW, “Our idea is to give the film the look of ‘Children of Men,’ but with the velocity of ‘Transformers.'”

There’s a chance McG’s Terminator will rise to the occasion. The teaser trailer (which runs before, surprise, “The Dark Knight”) has some impressive footage, and McG’s posts on the movie’s Web site show that the director is appropriately respectful of the challenge he’s taken on. He discusses James Cameron’s work, and seems to be reverent of the series’ cannon. He even admits, “also, I realize my name is ridiculous. . .”

Hopefully, McG will prove me wrong, and my pessimism will be for naught. When I think of the gaudy precedent he’s set, I get all itchy. But if he’s as true to the past films as he appears on his site, everyone’s favorite apocalypse could be as impressive as I imagine.

That’s a weird thing to hope for, isn’t it?