TV Review: Terra Nova Episode 1.05

Another week, another Terra Nova review! Apologies for last week’s delay. I’ll make sure to try and have these on Tuesday from now on.

Quick ‘n’ Dirty Review

This week, Terra Nova patrols find an orphan girl who fled from the Sixers camp.  The girl, named Leah Marcos, is rather scared and distrustful at first when getting checked out in the medical center, but of course the Shannons with their kindness overcome all manners of distrust.

Commander Taylor wants to gently interrogate Leah to find out what she knows of Sixer operations, but Jim cautioned to give her a few days to adjust. She ends up staying with the Shannons, taking Josh’s room temporarily. Another interesting note, is when they tell Leah, who has a living grandmother in 2149, how coming to Terra Nova is a one way trip. Glad they hammered that home.  

It turns out that the Sixers are looking for Leah, taking Lt. Washington and another security person captive wen searching for Leah’s lost backpack. Mira shows up at Terra Nova’s doorstep again, demanding Leah in exchange for Washington and the other security dude. Kinda lopsided exchange, no? Anyway.

Taylor, ever defiant, says he will Leah decide where she wants to go, but only after Mira hands back over his soldiers. Which she surprisingly does. Leah then says she wants to stay at Terra Nova, which is when Mira then gets angry and declares that Leah means nothing to her. Odd. Taylor parts by warning Mira that the next time she comes by, its war!

Taylor and Jim immediately discuss how Mira even knew the girl was at Terra Nova, leading back to Taylor’s suspicion about a traitor feeding info to the Sixers. While they start interrogating people from the Sixth Pilgrimage who didn’t become Sixers, Leah plays hooky from school after Jim’s wife drops her off to determine what grade she’d be in.

Apparently Leah is a liar and secret agent for the Sixers. Who’s shocked. Seriously, who? She breaks into an occupied apartment that used to be Mira’s and steals some odd device from under the floor. But Jim and Washington catch Leah before she can escape.

Taylor and Jim interrogate Leah, who reveals that Mira has her brother. The object that Leah stole for Mira has no openings or creases on the surface, but Taylor and Jim doubt Leah even knows what the use is for. Jim then defies Taylor’s orders to find Leah’s brother and not only nearly becomes dino food, but gets captured by the Sixers.

It turns out that the Sixers occupy upper forest canopies, which is why Taylor has not been able to find them. Plus, the Sixers camp is mobile as they never stay in the same place for very long. Mira reveals to Jim that the threat of harming Leah’s brother was only to motivate her, never to harm the boy. Mira also talks about some very powerful people in the future hate Taylor and want to destroy him, along with the fact that Taylor is not so great a guy. After which, she releases Jim and Leah’s brother from the Sixers's camp. Blindfolded, of course.

Leah and her brother get to stay on Terra Nova, and will possibly get adopted by another family.
Taylor wants to know if Mira told Jim anything he should know, and Jim wisely stays silent. Also, the traitor still hasn’t been found. Could this be the beginning of the end for the Jim/Taylor bromance?

My thoughts:

Meh. Not bad, but not that interesting.  The dialogue felt stilted at times.  At least the family time was not shoved down our throats this week. Plus, more of the bigger story arcs were advanced with the Sixers. I liked that Jim and Mira finally got face time with each other away from Taylor. It should be interesting to see if Jim starts to doubt Taylor’s intentions now. And also, who is that pesky traitor? We’ll see what next week holds  for story plots