TV Review: Terra Nova Episode 1.08
Welcome back to your weekly dose of Terra Nova. What have we got this week? Betrayal. Murder. Fishing? Let’s take a look!
The Quick ‘n’ Dirty:
It seems that Taylor and Jim are cementing their bromance with a fishing trip. Not for sockeye salmon, mind you. But a ginormous prehistoric swordfish, of course!
Later on in the day, Taylor and Jim come upon a recently abandon campfire. Taylor tells Jim to head back to Terra Nova while he investigates. What Taylor comes up on is disgraced solider Curran, who had been exiled from Terra Nova a few episodes ago for killing a fellow officer. He’s been wounded in the leg by a dinosaur that has a poisonous bite and waits for their prey to weaken before eating them.
Taylor takes care of the dinosaur with a well-placed torch and gives Curran an antidote to the poison. But what’s the catch? Curran has to infiltrate the Sixers so Taylor can find out who’s the mole inside Terra Nova. Strategery!
Maddie meets up with her idol Dr. Ken Horton, a legendary doctor of sorts who’s written books and everything about the prehistoric fauna and flora of the past. But little by little, Maddie starts to see inconsistencies with the Dr. Horton she grew up idolizing and the man she met in Terra Nova. Her mother says its because of the stroke Horton suffered a few years back. But soon Maddie sees that Horton’s signature is completely different.
After some help from Malcolm, Maddie finds out that while this man looks like Dr. Horton, he’s actually an impostor who’s been altered at the cellular level by a Facer (a more advanced form of plastic surgeon. In fact, this impostor was his former research assistant who killed Horton and took his place.
But ‘Dr. Horton’ also finds out that Maddie is on to her, which puts her younger sister Zoe in jeopardy. In Maddie meets with Horton in a far-off orchard and trades herself for Zoe, telling her younger sister to run home. But not before she tells Zoe a code word that would tell Jim she’s in danger.
But as fake Dr. Horton is about to kill Maddie to protect his secret, Jim saves the day and knocks him out.
Around the same time, Boylan tells Josh that Mira is calling in her favor in exchange for getting Josh’s girlfriend on the incoming 11th pilgrimage. Basically, she’s asking Josh to steal a whole cache of the medicine called Asimeth—from his mother’s lab. When Skye here’s about this, she finally tells Josh what we all already knew about him being an idiot for trusting Mira and storms off.
So Josh asks Boylan to meet with Mira so he can get proof that she can communicate with the future. Mira allows Josh to speak with Kara, which is all the convincing he needs. Josh steals the Asimeth, but hurts himself when having to use a sonic blaster to break open a safe with the Asimeth.
But after Josh expressed concern about the potential blowback, Boylan frames a lowlife who owes him money as the culprit. The only problem is that the lowlife is a bad liar and sucks under pressure, giving up Boylan after a little pressure from Jim. Jim roughs Boylan up, but by then the Asimeth has been delivered to Mira. And Boylan surprisingly keeps Josh out of the equation.
But after hearing the repercussions of his theft, Josh breaks down and tells his own parents that he stole the Asimeth. Obviously the Shannons are pissed at their little boy genius.
Jim immediately tells Taylor, who now understands that his son is involved after hearing how Mira and the Sixers do not need an open time portal to communicate with 2149. Taylor tells Jim that he should be grateful the worst thing Josh did was something stupid over a girl.
My thoughts:
An okay episode. Was curious where Maddie’s militia boyfriend was the whole episode. I do like the continued build up around Taylor’s son. It should be interesting to see what he’s after exactly.
However, more dino-action. This episode had some more, as well as a montage in the beginning of the episode. But let’s see more. Will that save the show, who knows. But I'll enjoy it more. Until next time.