TV Review: TERRA NOVA Episodes 1.01 - 1.02
I’ve literally been hearing about FOX’s Terra Nova since May of last year, but because of the scope and CGI work involved, it wasn’t until September of 2011 that the show finally premiered.
The concept sounds promising: in the 22nd century Earth is so polluted that humanity has to travel 85 million years into the prehistoric past in order to save their future. The focus is on a struggling family with actor Jason O’Mara (Life On Mars) as the patriarch.
My big concern stepping into this is that high concept sci-fi shows do not fare well on network television. In fact, other than Fringe and maybe Chuck (on its last season), there are next to no sci-fi shows that survive long on the Big 4 networks. Will Terra Nova sink or swim? Here’s my review!
WARNING: Spoilers ahead for those who haven’t watched yet.
Quick ‘n’ Dirty Review:
We meet Jim Shannon and his family in the year 2149, where humanity basically screwed up Earth so badly that people have to wear oxygen masks just to walk around outside. He works as a cop in Chicago with his doctor wife Elisabeth (Indian-British actress Shelley Conn) and their three kids Josh, Maddie and Zoe. Is it just me or has the name Zoe been way overused on TV? Anywho… Apparently it’s illegal to have more than two kids in this future. And a routine checkup to enforce this by local authorities followed by a full-blown brawl to protect their youngest daughter gets Jim thrown in a maximum security for 8 years.
2 years into his sentence, Jim’s wife Elisabeth gets recruited to the Terra Nova Project. Basically, scientists had discovered a fracture in the space-time continuum that goes 85 million years into the Cretaceous Period. For the past several years, countless people have been recruited by an unnamed agency based on skillset to travel back to Earth’s past and start rebuilding humanity from scratch.
Since Elisabeth has all types of crazy degrees as a doctor, she was a shoo-in. is But Jim obviously won’t be joining them. And neither will Zoe, as we do not know what happened with her after she was discovered by the authorities 2 years ago. Another thing of note, going through the time portal is a one way trip.
The Shannon family, which is just Elisabeth, 15-year old Maddie and 17-year old Josh are heading with the masses toward the time portal. Jim is somehow able to break out of a supposedly maximum security prison and smuggles Zoe through the time portal.
Jim and his family are nearly shot as soon as they come through the portal. But as Elisabeth is a valued member of the Terra Nova project and Terra Nova is all about starting anew and whatnot, Jim is spared by the colony’s leader Commander Nathaniel Taylor (played by the always reliable Stephen Lang). At first, Jim is put to work in the colony’s agriculture section. But after saving Taylor’s life from an attempted assassination by a splinter colony of humans known as the Sixers (not evil basketball players mind you), Jim is quickly assigned to the colony’s security detail thanks in part to his background as a cop.
We find out that colonists have been shepherded over to Terra Nova in Pilgrimages. Taylor was part of the First Pilgrimage, Jim and his family were part of the Tenth Pilgrimage while the Sixers were part of the Sixth Pilgrimage (hence their name). Lead by a woman named Mira, they had a different agenda that conflicted with Taylor’s from the start and broke off from Terra Nova soon after they came through the portal. Taylor is hell-bent on finding why the Sixers are actually her as well as who sent them. Also, it comes to light that Taylor’s son has been missing for a few years now, and he are still looking for him.
As for the Shannons, Jim is finding it difficult to reconnect with both his 5-year old daughter Zoe and his oldest son Josh. With Zoe she barely remembers her dad after he was in prison for two years. For Josh, he is angry at his dad for leaving them in typical teenage angsty fashion. Instead of going to Terra Nova orientation, Josh blows it off to hang with Skye (Allison Miller from Kings) and her friends. They make the mistake of sneaking outside of the colony’s perimeters, which you know will lead to peril and trouble. One of their stops leads to a waterfall with rocks covered in mysterious symbols that no one knows the origin of.
But as expected by anyone with a clue, Josh and his new friends get into trouble with this ancient world’s more indigenous species – dinosaurs! The group gets surrounded by a velociraptor-like species known only as slashers, and two of the kids nearly get killed. Thankfully, Jim and Commander Taylor ride into the rescue with the Terra Nova security cavalry to drive the slashers off, which leads to the predictable first step of Jim and Josh rebuilding their damaged relationship.
As the episode closes with the Shannon family starting to acclimate in this brave new world, some lingering plot threads that I’m guessing will be answered during the season are the following:
What is the true reasoning behind the Terra Nova Project?
Who sent the Sixers back?
Where is Commander Taylor’s missing son?
What are the strange symbols at the waterfalls and why is Taylor so intent on hiding them from everyone?
My thoughts:
Honestly, I really liked how they established the world of 2149. The ’2 kids only’ law was very reminiscent of China’s former ‘1 child only law’ many years ago. Not too much time was spent in 2149 because that was just the setup of why Terra Nova was essential to humanity’s survival.
Plus, some of the season-long mysteries that were setup actually sound compelling.
However, I found myself not very engaged by this show. One big question that ran through my mind as a sci-fi fan was, how the hell does their dystopian future of 2149 still exist with people hopping through a time portal? Going back in time should have seriously altered the present timeline. But that issue never got touched on at all.
Another issue for me was how third-rate the CGI looked. I know that Terra Nova is a TV show, but with all the money and effort put into it, I expect A++ computer imagery week after week. Instead, I get laughable CGI and green screens that one would expect in a 90s movie. Not good.
The family drama with the Shannons was all types of ‘meh’. It all felt so forced and stiff, I just couldn’t bring myself to care about any of it. Someone at Hitfix said that Terra Nova’s family drama mirrored what we saw on the duller as a doorknob show ‘Falling Skies’, which is also not a good thing.
The oldest son Josh brought the typical teenage anger and rebellion. I don’t think I’ve seen that EVER in the history of television! Plus, the actor playing Josh looked NOTHING like his mom, while his younger sisters believably looked like they could be an Indian/American mix. I was hoping that got explained that Jim had him before he met Elisabeth, but I guess not. That casting choice bugged me a lot.
But Jason O’Mara was good here as the family lead with what he had to work with, and he’s an actor who deserves a hit show after a number of cancellations.
In closing, I’m hoping Terra Nova gets better in the upcoming episodes and lives up to its potential. It would be really great to see sci-fi make a true comeback on network television.
Til next time.