Ok, I wasted 4 hours total on this series, and after tonight’s episode, I give up. I really, really wanted this to be a good show, but it’s not even mediocre. It’s terrible.
This plot was so stupid, I could see through it from the first sneeze. I can’t see it lasting even the rest of this season. Why the critics praised this thing so much early on is beyond me.
You know, I see what you’re saying, but let’s put it into perspective: Charlies’ Angels 2011. Ten minutes in and I find the show’s already bad dialogue so badly performed it made me feel self-conscious about watching a TV show about hot chicks kicking people in the face. I didn’t ask for much, they just had to make it not actually painful to watch – these days, audiences have a lot of options for watching hot chicks kick people in the face. We don’t have to put up with drek.
Thank you. I cede the rest of my time.
Haven’t seen that one. But even Pan Am, which was supposed to be good, is a flop IMO. I’m a sucker for SciFi, and have a pretty low bar, but Terra Nova doesn’t make the cut. It’s worse than V.
I actually kinda liked the premier and 1st episode. But this episode’s premise seemed bad.
I tried to record it but the baseball game messed it up so I only got the first 8 minutes.
Brian
I clicked on this thread thinking it was going about a bad episode of this show.
I had yesterday’s episode on, but I ended up paying more attention to whatever I had on my computer. Partway through the show, I realized I hadn’t been paying any attention to it for a good fifteen minutes. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
Since this thread doesn’t have a spoiler warning, I’ll tag the rest of my post.
[spoiler]I want to like Terra Nova, but this episode was really bad. I’m usually the last to notice obvious foreshadowing in shows like this, but even I called the “cold” solution from the first hint at it.
Jim continues to act like an idiotic sitcom dad. Elisabeth and Malcolm are trying to find a cure for a disease that could potentially destroy their civilization, and all he can worry about is Malcolm copping a feel. He later punches Malcolm out for no discernible reason, without trying to explain to him what is happening. Elisabeth continued to be useful after losing 20 years of memory, why not Malcolm?
Wait, there actually was a reason that he punched out Malcolm. The writers didn’t want him in the plot anymore at that point, and they couldn’t think of an elegant way of writing him out.
Also, why the hell didn’t Elisabeth send her notes on to Terra Nova, so that someone could continue the research without being exposed to the pathogen? They had video communications, for God’s sake.
Jim immediately disobeys a direct order by going to the outpost. I don’t see much reason why he shouldn’t be fired. Sure he sorta saved the day, but you can’t have a soldier with that little respect for the chain of command.
The only good things in this episode were the continuation of the Sixers plotline and the added characterization of Commander Taylor, who continues to be, by far, the most interesting character on the show. Why isn’t Terra Nova about him, instead of this low-rent Cosby family?[/spoiler]
What lost it for me (and I was really sticking through the nonsense) was when they showed their family their new quarters. It looked like an upscale Malubu beach house. Millions of years from home, having to survive against rampaging dinosaurs, but they have time to make structures with polished hardwood floors and beams. The family should have been lucky to get a lean-to.
I left, but my wife kept watching. I returned about a half hour later. Someone was horribly wounded and the doctor was working to save his or her life.
“Don’t die on me,” I said.
“Don’t die on me,” says the doctor.
That was it.
Made it through about 15 minutes of the first ep. Terrible acting, bad dialog, zero interesting plot. Same for that execrable piece of dreck with Zoe Deschanel.
This show is basically Star Trek plots and technobabble transplanted into a lower-SFX setting, with Family Drama bolted on. They’ve scrambled to find anything bland and overused to dilute down any possibility of enjoying a show advertised as time travel and dinosaurs.
That was one of my qualms exactly. They come from a polluted slum and they’re complaining about having to squeeze into a brand new, fully furnished 3/2 with great views! And the first thing they say when they walk in the door is they want to paint it and put down some rugs because it looks so crappy. Sure, just head down to Home Depot and the Pottery Barn and get whatever you need.
I have never been so let down by a show based on its previews. Sigh… was psyched. Gave up Monday Night Football, had to make many difficult promises to get my wife to skip dancing with the stars for a night and, I believe, a Yankees playoff game (not much to miss at the end of it all) in order to catch the premiere.
Half way through I was wondering if we were missing a Chaz Bono nip slip which would’ve been more entertaining.
What bugs me about it is that the fences are not nearly high enough and the settlement lacks a protective cage ceiling.
It’s just a nitpick, but come on guys. If you decide to settle your characters in a land populated by the equivalent of pit bulls the size of a bus you might want to throw up a fence a T-Rex can’t launch itself over with a fart. Sloppy and lazy.
Same for the vehicles. They should be in Abrams tanks, not Smart cars clad with aluminum siding. Ok, it’s not that bad, but come on.
It does have the feel of a Star Trek episode, with a problem that is solved by made up technobabble. “Here’s a situation that we want to create a story about. It’s caused by a random problem that happens just because! Now we are seeing what happens when all the adults start acting like teenagers, and the kids have to step up and save the day! Now we fixed the problem simply because we are smart enough to fix problems that happen just because!”
The problem needs to be solved through ingenuity of characters doing actual, common sense, observable things. It’s Arnold making himself invisible to the Predator by coating himself in cold mud, versus uploading a computer virus to an alien mothership that apparently runs on Windows and TCPIP.
Terra Nova could have been really interesting. It is like Plymouth Rock or Jamestown. It’s a colony in a dangerous wilderness that is still reliant on support from an industrialized society that can provide communication, supplies, and colonists only every 6 months or so. There are plenty of real challenges that can arise out of that without making up something like a memory loss disease.
The pteranadon swarm was a good example of colonists vs. nature, but they solved it with a gadget and technobabble rather than pioneer ingenuity. Not every dinosaur is out to eat you. How about some domesticated animals, figuring out ways to use the wilderness to solve some of the problems it poses, rather than magical technology.
The Sixers are a good element, similar to competing colonies from different empires. I’m disappointed that the drawings are human and relate to a future based conspiracy and not the mystery of intelligent “natives” (Sleestacks!)
85 million years should be long enough to destroy any trace of a stone age level dinosaur species, it wouldn’t be beyond the pale to speculate on the existence of one. If they show up in this show, however, I’m afraid they would have some kind of shamanistic magic that is somehow real yet beyond the understanding of the humans.
I wish it had been a Ronald Moore show and not Brannon Braga.
Reminds me of the old Earth 2 show, with dinosaurs.
Thank you for the best laugh I’ve had all day.
Exactly…Stephen Lang even looks and sounds like Clancy Brown from Earth 2…
I wonder if they could get some of the actors from Earth 2 to do guest roles…Maybe the kids from Earth 2…or even Rebecca Gayheart (even thought i am a gay man, I have always had a crush on her…way back to when she married Dylan on 90210)
I used to love Earth 2.
Jessica Steen totally needs to guest star as well. She is not in enough!
I took one look at the promos and decided that I wasn’t interested in Jurassic Park: the Series. I just want to know if it’s going to end with the Terra Novans becoming the ancestors of humanity. Bonus Points if there’s only one couple left, to be “Adam” and “Eve.”
With millions of years of seperation? “A&E” would have evolved into something completely different by the time the modern epoc arrives. Anatomically modern Homo Sapiens have only been around for 200,000 years…