# Terra Nova premiere 9/26 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 26, 2011, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666 "2011-09-26T16:34:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2011, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/101 "2011-09-27T22:20:08Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > Guys, you HAVE to keep watching. > > Remember when teen girl showed teen “fresh” those writings on the wall? > > You know what that means? > We get Sleestaks!! Someone didn’t watch the show closely. We get general feel-good’s whak-a-doo son running around out there carving them. Or sleestaks. I like sleestaks better. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2011, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/102 "2011-09-27T22:52:37Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > Someone didn’t watch the show closely. We get general feel-good’s whak-a-doo son running around out there carving them. Or sleestaks. I like sleestaks better. Awe man, I didn’t think about that. Darn! ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/103 "2011-09-28T00:23:22Z")
Maybe he was copying things he had seen in the sleestak’s crystal caverns. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/104 "2011-09-28T00:26:12Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Yeah, it was. They discussed this at one point in the show. As I said, I didn’t have a specific problem with this part…it’s magical, and leads to an alternative universe that just happens to be 85 million years in the past. No worries…I can buy that, since this IS a SciFi show and it’s at least marginally plausible (if there are infinite alternative universes then at least one of them could be set 85 million years ago with dinosaurs from over a 100 million years and less than 70 million years…and it COULD be accessible by some sort of natural frozen wormhole thingy). > > -XT We can only hope that we get any handwaving rationales on this and other plot points, and that it will be nearly this good. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/105 "2011-09-28T00:57:45Z")
Did anyone else notice Obama was on the money they used to bribe the guard? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/106 "2011-09-28T02:13:31Z")
I want to point out that if the atmosphere is such that giant insects can thrive, us human could not. Too much 02. Buzzkill?😛 ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/107 "2011-09-28T02:32:41Z")
If the Sleestaks have fricking lasers on thier heads I’m in! ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/108 "2011-09-28T03:15:39Z")
I just got around to watching it. Couldn’t care less about the family drama stuff. As for critters: _Brachiosaurus_ was too late, _Carnotaurus_ was too early, the “slashers” were too silly (theropod tails tended to be rather stiff and/or rigid, so I have a hard time believing that one of them would evolve a blade-tipped whippy tail), the dinosaurs were too bulletproof, and there was definitely something wrong with that pterosaur’s wings. And giant millipedes and leeches belong more in the Carboniferous / Permian than the upper Cretaceous. I suppose an alternate universe could handwave all that away, but why bother with the whole “85 million years in the past” thing, then? They could have just as easily went with a wormhole to a dinosaur planet or something, _à la_ Stargate. Then they could incorporate [these ideas](http://www.flickr.com/photos/babbletrish/6188862899/sizes/l/in/photostream/) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/109 "2011-09-28T03:39:03Z")
Or they could just put the T-Rexes in F-14s. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/110 "2011-09-28T03:58:56Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Or they could just put the T-Rexes in F-14s. Don’t be ridiculous! Their hands would _never_ be able to reach the controls. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/111 "2011-09-28T04:43:03Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Or they could just put the T-Rexes in F-14s. Calvin would be so proud. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a9a28c/32.png) [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oslo_Ostragoth)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/112 "2011-09-28T05:11:25Z")
Watched it; better than I expected, but I won’t get invested because I don’t expect it to last. Remind me - has any big sci-fi show made it lately? V only got one season… ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Nader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Darth\_Nader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Nader)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/113 "2011-09-28T05:47:27Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > Did anyone else notice Obama was on the money they used to bribe the guard? Yes. I actually yelled “look!” I was the only one in the room who collected stamps as a kid, so I forgive them for missing it. But that was a nice touch. The first 20 minutes could have set up a great story where environmental collapse victims have to choose between attempting to rebuild, or sending their loved ones into the complete unknown… What a waste. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/114 "2011-09-28T06:19:43Z")
> [@The\_Controvert](#): > > Why did the Earth look yellow instead of blue in the opening shot? Future Earth’s sewer systems had all failed. The Earth now looks (and smells) like pee. (Note: facetious answer for intentionally facetious question. 😃 ) ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/115 "2011-09-28T07:29:07Z")
Just got around to watching it on the dee vee arr. Yeh, that was bad. But I’m in it for the long haul. I’ve been blessed with a brain that can be entertained by the good or amused by the bad on many levels that can switch on the fly. I scared my wife at the very beginning when there was a loud knock on the door, and the family started panicking. I said “Population control.” The very next line said was “Population Control” by the population control guy. And like **Shakes** , I thought the same thing when I saw the strange markings… Sleestacks! And immediately started to sing _“in the The Laaaaand of the Looooost!”_ Also, every time Avatar guy said anything, I couldn’t help but to mutter “And they’ll eat yer eyes fer Ju Ju Bees.” Drove my wife to the point of delirium. Yeh… I’m down with this show. CG was bad and looked rushed, and the “slashers” looked like they got into the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew’s moonshine; acting all twitchy and jerky like that. ---
**Author:** ![gonzoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a6a055/32.png) [@gonzoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzoron)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/116 "2011-09-28T12:23:35Z")
> [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](#): > > Remind me - has any big sci-fi show made it lately? V only got one season… Two actually. Heroes got four, I think. Fringe is on 4 and still going. Smallville had about 43. Depends on your cutoff for “making it” and your cutoff for scifi, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/117 "2011-09-28T12:59:39Z")
Also depends on the definition of “big”. How many _Stargate_ franchises have there been? How many are still going? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/118 "2011-09-28T13:09:27Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > But the postcards Aunt Martha sent back say its so nice and the weather is beautiful 🙂 Love them Marching Morons. 😉 As others pointed out, the entire population control thing made no sense at all. I seem to have read that the show went through all sorts of development and production changes. That may be why the script was so self-contradictory. One version may even have killed off the baby, but someone said, “we can’t do that” and changed it so that there was a fine (which makes no sense – why worry about hiding the kid if a few thousand bucks would solve the issue?). That same with the time travel – it first was going into our past, but then they added the “different timeline” thing (the “stepping on a butterfly” paradox was dealt with quite nicely by Fritz Lieber in “Try and Change the Past”), forgetting that any reference to changing the future had to be then scrubbed. It was SF by committee, and most of the people on the committee didn’t know shit about SF. ---
**Author:** ![Death\_of\_Rats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/119 "2011-09-28T13:44:11Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Ship through a few USN nuclear reactors if you want clean power…why rely on solar that obviously still isn’t providing for all their needs?? Nuclear power isn’t “clean”. It leaves behind dangerously toxic waste materials that still need to be handled and stored for generations. These are people who are escaping a world that was devastated by unchecked industrial waste. The last thing these people want to do is start out by making the same mistakes all over again. They are not just depending on solar, they also have a wind turbine farm that is shown in the long shots of the colony. The problem that the leader and his second briefly talk about is that the people on the other end keep wanting to send through groups faster then the colony can expand to support them. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666/120 "2011-09-28T14:04:25Z")
Something else I just remembered: brachiosaurs didn’t have incisors! That’s a mammalian invention! Were there _any_ facts the allegedly smart, fact-spewing kid actually got right?! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terra-nova-premiere-9-26/597666.md?page=7)