Ugh. I was very disappointed. The wife is good, but dad is just too cliche. And do we have to suffer through TWO teenage romances?
The CGI was good, but the plot was just terrible. I agree with Lightray about all those plot rip offs.
Whenever I hear about the Sixers, I figure they’re being led by Julius Erving.
The show made no logical sense. They’re in a different timeline but they’re worried about changing the future. They can’t go back to their time, but they can let people know they need a doctor. With all the security, they approach a doctor who committed a crime. The father escapes from a maximum security prison, but we don’t have any idea how. They live in a world millions of years in the past, in a colony that’s just holding on, yet they have luxurious homes that look like a millionaire’s beach house. The incredible shrinking kid, who fits in the backpack.
They avoided anything like interesting drama. Nothing about how the father escapes, and finds all the things he needs untouched (a bag will a large sum of money laying in the street? I know it was left for him, but he’s damn lucky it was still there).
Then there was the “she doesn’t remember I’m her father” issue which was brought up and solved two minutes later. Why bring it up? I was guessing that it would take most of the episode at least, until finally she would remember him as the one who brought her the oranges – predictable, but with some dramatic force behind it. But no, the incredible shrinking kid just says, “You’re my daddy” and the dramatic arc crashes on Ararat the first day of the flood.
All sorts of levels of bad.
I’m waiting for the Tanu and the Firvulag.
Steven “Old Balls” Lang was hard to watch. He says sentences he memorized. It worked OK in Avatar when he was only a cartoon character - here not so much. He needs less lines or mory pithy ones.
Why aren’t the Shannons shagging? Dystopias include no conjugal visits?
I got a phone call I had to take near the start, just after the stormtroopers drag Kid 3 out of the air vent.
When I got back, Dr. Lady was visiting hubby at a prison (?) and gave him the ventilator with a hidden laser.
So – did they lay out the details of the charges and the outcome? I’m guessing it was a tradeoff: one of the parents goes to prison to atone for having the third child? The other parent goes scott free? Did we see anything about why they had the third child? How about an indication on how long passes between the arrest and them bugging out to TN?
It was really bad. The wife and I were actually picking it apart while we were watching it…something we normally save for the post show run down.
[QUOTE=StarvingButStrong]
So – did they lay out the details of the charges and the outcome? I’m guessing it was a tradeoff: one of the parents goes to prison to atone for having the third child?
[/QUOTE]
The father hit another policeman (I guess in the future this is a no-no).
She didn’t hit anyone. Also, I guess she was some sort of prominent doctor…that’s how they got the nod to go to Terra Nova after all.
I don’t remember any details on this besides some references to ‘it was the right thing to do’ sort of logic. Might have missed it though, since my wife and I were spending quite a bit of time laughing at how bad it was and ripping up the plot.
He was in prison for around 2 years before they went through.
-XT
[QUOTE=StarvingButStrong]
So – did they lay out the details of the charges and the outcome?
[/QUOTE]
When Shannons were arguing, wife raged that husband would have gotten off with just a fine if he hadn’t punched the cop. Perhaps the kid would have been confiscated.
[QUOTE=StarvingButStrong]
Did we see anything about why they had the third child?
[/QUOTE]
Jack LaLanne asked husband directly; he responded with a non-answer.
[QUOTE=StarvingButStrong]
How about an indication on how long passes between the arrest and them bugging out to TN?
[/QUOTE]
Around two years. Part of the “She doesn’t know you” thread was the fact that the last time she saw him she was three and now she’s five.
I’m not sure I can buy a future that has Bic-lighter sized lasers that can cut through metal and glass but which doesn’t have weapons that can take down a dinosaur in less than 45 minutes.
Well, that was ghastly, wasn’t it? I mean, offensively gawdawful. Well, what did I expect from a show whose premise comes from “It’s About Time?”
When they put the kid in the air vent and a) thought the kid would be quiet, and b) thought no one would look there, I knew there was nothing ahead but recycled garbage. Make that recycles of recycled garbage.
Stephen Lang was phoning it in. Jim (that’s the main guy’s name, right?) seems to be trying to channel Sheriff Jack Carter, but manages to completely miss the charm. And those were the best performances.
Thats sounds like too much damn work for me. Besides I barely control what happens 5 minutes from now. Of course I am not particularly capable or ambitious so there you go.
I thinkg they should have gone back to when trilobites ruled the world. Shooting up what probably looked giant cockroachs has a certain satisfaction factor to me.
I kept thinking 'If you wish to survive, you need to cultivate a strong, mental aptitude. You got to obey the rules: Pandora rules. Rule number one… ’
-XT
The reason that the guns weren’t taking down the dinosaurs was mentioned by Pseudo-Quaritch in the not-jeep ride to save the kids in peril: they’re shooting tranqs. That’s why they had to aim for the belly, since the tranq wouldn’t penetrate the hide elsewhere.
Why are they only tranquing the ungodly deadly dinosaurs instead of just killing them? Why didn’t they realize that what might tranquilize a larger ungodly deadly dinosaur is likely to kill a smaller ungodly deadly dinosaur anyway? What the heck were those energy/whatever guns mounted on the compound walls?
Eh. It’s a Braga production. It’ll all be a muddle, just like Enterprise was, but likely to be canceled before someone can be brought in to turn it around.
Well, the thing is, the dinosaurs aren’t all that deadly. I mean, one teen girl runs out into a whole pack of the things using yet another worthless gun and lives. Then the crafty and super strong dinos pull apart an armored car, yank out a screaming teen and are seen munching on his leg with big, sharp, nasty teeth…yet later said teen is really ok, just shaken up a bit.
The only guy who was actually killed was the unfortunate black guy, and he might as well have been wearing a red shirt…
-XT
Allright, already! Ease up on the hating. It’s a pilot. You KNOW it’s going to have all sorts of problems.
Time travel paradox was resolved by stating that it’s an alternate timeline. That’s good enough for me, and probably everyone else but the hardest of sci-fi fans. Nobody is going to spend loads of time lecturing about time travel when there are dinosaurs to shoot.
Travel is one way because that center that produces the singularity is freaking HUGE. It will take a while to build the infrastructure on the other side. In that time people need to eat and stuff. You can’t build something like that without a hell of lot of support staff. It currently looks like mining ore is a big thing, and they don’t even have basic industrial forges operating yet so it will be a while. I don’t know how they communicate but I’m willing to hand wave it for now.
Dinos and weapons: Apparently dinos are tough critters. Shoot a gator in the wrong spot and it’ll bounce off or just produce an easily healed flesh wound. I will assume better weapons are on their way or in development. If you look at the security, it seems they want to try to have as little impact as possible, rather than shooting carnivores with rpgs for no good reason. (that would be pretty cool though)
Ugh teen angst. Really? sigh.
Sonic cannon.
I really do love that criticism!
I agree that the show was painfully cliched to watch, but it’s still several levels above “Science fiction at its absolute worst”.
What bothered me most was the lack of the feeling that these people are living in an outpost that’s still just starting up. There’s too damned much space (especially in everyone’s homes), and they complain about electrical power limits when they’re being profligate with zippy-wow medical technology. In a situation like theirs, I’d expect the settlement to look more like Plymouth Planattion and less like Miami Beach. People ought to be living practically on top of each other. And there ought to be a lot more DIRT! Everything looks brand spanking new and freshly washed. I realize that they’re trying to make it palatable to first time viewers (that’s all of us, right now), but you can give us a bit more grit to convince us that this is a Real enterprise, and resources are limited.
Goddam hedgehog guns…
They forgot cuddly indigenous creatures that can be made into plush toys.
I only watched about five minutes before giving up. We were flipping back and forth with another show, so we sampled a bit here and there. There was a poorly animated giant centipede that caused a guy to fall 20 feet onto a pile of branches and just bounce back up. then some horrible acting with Generic Hero tackling the renagade “sixer” to save Grizzled General. Then Rebellious Boy went “OTG” with Bikini Babe and frolicked in waterfalls full of cryptic scratchings. (When feral Amy Acker failed to show up, we bailed for good)
Didn’t even get to see the dinosaurs, but I couldn’t put up with the terrible writing and acting any longer. 
Did they really say “control the past, control the future?” Anything about saving a cheerleader to save the world?
My kids (5 and 3) would watch *Land Before Time * all day if we let them and are now pumped about a new dinosaur show. I can’t in good conscience let them watch, though, for the potential psychological damage of gazing into Steven Lang’s eyes. Cold dead dollseyes.
