Steven Spielberg's ''Terra Nova''

[Superfreak]

Where are your expectations coming from? I don't know of any other show that has been on in the last few years that even remotely resembles this show.

resemblance is irrelevant, what this show is lacking is just quality and effort in storytelling. I feel like we just jumped back in time, back to early TNG. The quality of story-telling on TV has come a long way since the late 80s, but I feel like this show is delivering something from back then. Instead of something that is belongs to 'today's league' of shows.

 

[Cuyan]

Is it possible you expected too much of network television?

 

[DrCosmic]

Dang I lost an epic post.

Anyway, great article, would better with solutions. Emphasize the cop and scientist roles to make it less thinky. Stop writing to fans. Do like LOST, Spider-Man and Batman Begins did, write a great thing for the masses, and fans will come to, and be a lot less entitled while doing so. It's nice to see someone confirm my thoughts about Heroes and why and when it started sucking. And there aren't "tons" of good genre shows on TV. Not even twenty, like the article said.

I like the improvements suggested in repsonse to my quote. I don't think the military needs to be more like our military, but simply explain why/how Taylor got free reign. He obvoiusly doesn't have any relevant oversight, so there's no one to stop him from being ragtag. They had a great line about kids growing up fast on the frontier. Lets see that. Give the teens real jobs, jobs that matter, jobs that bring them into conflict with others and with the world around them. If you go the other way, and just minimize the kids, it becomes a different show, a show about a cop instead of a show about a family. I'd watch a show about a prehistoric cop, but that would take away the strongest source of uniqueness TN has. But agree with the 80s comparison, it needs Nuance, hanging plot threads, and routine advancement of a background serial storyline.

 

[Spider-Who?]

If you hate the show, don't watch, and don't post in here.

I'm trying to give it a chance, myself. I liked the pilot enough, though I'm still seeing if I like it as an ongoing series. And I'm really hoping they figure out some way around the fact that humanity recolonizing Earth in the distance past creates a pretty incredible paradox.

They do. In the pilot episode they mention that it's a "different time stream", and therefor there is no paradox.

 

[bored]

Ah, interesting. I actually missed the first half of the pilot.

 

[marvelman2006]

Im not going to lie, I have quickly lost interest in this show and once an episode is over I quickly forget what it was even about. The stories and characters just arent going anywhere and after a great pilot and intro to the dino world the following episodes just havent been able to live up to the hype. It sucks because this is one of my most anticipated shows this fall. The actors just seem to be going through the motions and the story just doesnt seem that interesting anymore.

 

[Spider-Who?]

Ah, interesting. I actually missed the first half of the pilot.

Yeah, they quickly gloss over it when they reach Terra Nova. To be honest, its a "blink and you miss it" comment. The kids are walking through Terra Nova and spot the probe (now placed on a statue) that scientists sent through the portal when it first appeared. The daughter explains that since the probe is never found in the "future", that scientists came to the conclusion that the portal takes you to an alternate time line.

 

[Donut]

I never took that as fact. For all we know that by the time they got there the probe could have been destroyed by any number of things

 

[Pink Ranger]

I never took that as fact. For all we know that by the time they got there the probe could have been destroyed by any number of things

Or removed. And taken off the planet.

 

[Spider-Who?]

I never took that as fact. For all we know that by the time they got there the probe could have been destroyed by any number of things

Yeah, I saw the "holes" in the explanation as well. But I take their word for it - if it was too be a plot point for later on, I think they would have spent more than two lines of dialogue on it.

 

[Donut]

Yeah, I saw the "holes" in the explanation as well. But I take their word for it - if it was too be a plot point for later on, I think they would have spent more than two lines of dialogue on it.

They could still come back to the probe later on if they wanted to. But that was a ****** explanation

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

They could still come back to the probe later on if they wanted to. But that was a ****** explanation

Not more than finding a rift in time that goes only 85 millions years back in the past.

 

[Donut]

Not more than finding a rift in time that goes only 85 millions years back in the past.

Maybe there are other rifts ? They more then likely stopped searching when they found the one they are using. Like that movie Timeline. They could only go back to a certain time in the past

 

[Spider-Who?]

Well, there's also the matter of there being no fossil record of an advanced human civilization...Scientists from the future would know where to look to confirm whether or not the time stream is the same (again, not an "absolute", i know).

 

[Cuyan]

They do make a comment about it being before the Ice Age. So perhaps something happens then?

 

[Spider-Who?]

If it really is a different time stream then there is no guarantee that an ice age occurs, nor even a meteor and subsequent mass extinction before it.

 

[Donut]

If it really is a different time stream then there is no guarantee that an ice age occurs, nor even a meteor and subsequent mass extinction before it.

The same can be said for all of that stuff to happen sooner then it did in their time as well

 

[bored]

What if it turns out that they're not even in the past, just another planet? Which happens to be liveable for humans. And has dinosaurs which at least strongly resemble the ones from our world's past (shut up, it's TV).

 

[carrrnuttt]

What if it turns out that they're not even in the past, just another planet? Which happens to be liveable for humans. And has dinosaurs which at least strongly resemble the ones from our world's past (shut up, it's TV).

Not to mention also matches the star clusters around our planet? It was mentioned in the pilot episode (I think) how the stars were aligned as they should be if we were looking up at the sky 85 million years in the past.

 

[XBRoughneck]

Fringe... TN needs a kick in the balls, that's what it needs. It's got all the right pieces there, but whoever puts the show together is failing badly. Things IMO that would help this show:
1)far less focus on the family aspect, keep it, but as background narrative only.
2)a little more realism as far as the military personel are concerned. Taylor and Wash bother me, him for being ragtag, when everyone of the background/extras is clean and shavenheaded. Wash for being the token hot chick in the tough guy role.
2b) a little more realism from the general population. They all look like they are living in a retirement village, with all the amenities of a 5 star resort. For example: the guy with no legs. It's too much utopia, and too little conflict within the colony.
3)get on with the plot. This is important to me. Nothing in the show has really grabbed me and got me interested in seeing where this show will go. And I zone out on the single serving stuff that won't last the 40 minutes of episode.

and to those spewing the old 'don't like-don't watch' nonsense: take a hike. People who complain are those that like what this show could be. They want it to be better than it is. This show could be good, but right now it is far from that. It's among the weaker genre shows I've watched lately, maybe the weakest I've chosen to watch in a long time, and that's only because of the lack of available choice right now. Listing it with shows like BSG, Lost and Spartacus just doesn't fit, because TN barely compares to any of those shows in storytelling quality.

Agree with this post 100%

I think I'm closer to disliking Terra Nova than I am liking it for the same reasons I kinda don't like Falling Skies. (even though the writing and budget for TN are better)

Both shows come across way too soft for the stories they take place in. Both shows (Falling Skies a bit less so) focus too damn much on family, and how the family deals with each other, or how the family deals in a community...


Someone at another site wrote...

1. Enough of the Manufactured Family Drama: Surprise – our hero has a family, and they spend all of their time talking about their feelings toward one another. The father, played by Jason Mara, was in prison because the family had an extra kid and he only rejoins the family (after the world’s simplest maximum security prison breakout) as they step back in time. So he has issues. With his wife. And his teen son. And his teen daughter. And his other daughter. And they talk about them. All the time. Then they hug. It all makes me want to projectile vomit.

Now, screenwriters, I know they teach you at screenwriting seminars that you have to create a rooting interest for the audience. Okay, here, rooting for them to win the gunfights with the rampaging velociraptors is plenty interesting. Interminable discussions of emotions followed by cuddling, not so much.

Why …. why … does every show seem to have to focus on bizarre daddy issues? I want an exciting, interesting entertainment experience, not to sit there watching you work out your personal psychodrama. Just show me a tyrannosaurus biting a tank.

 

[Golgo-13]

I watched this first two eps OnDemand..and i don't like it. It's seems a little too campy. Do they ever discuss why they went back to the Dinosaur age, and not after the Dinosaurs had died out?

I'd be highly surprised if Fox, of all stations, keeps this around.

 

[carrrnuttt]

Okay.

I'm ONLY on the first five minutes of tonight's episode (on DVR), and I already have a question: They were only supposed to take the best and brightest on these "pilgrimages," right? 'Coz a stupider bunch of dinosaur fodder I have never seen in my life.

Here's hoping that the rest of the show exposes that the dead guy was setup or something. Alleviate his seeming idiocy somewhat.

EDIT: Murder by dinosaur. He was still unbelievably stupid. Saw what happened coming from 85 million years away.

I would like to add: The son is making it really, REALLY hard to watch this show. He makes me want to reach in and strangle him or smack some sense into his pinhead.

 

[Dugath]

I watched this first two eps OnDemand..and i don't like it. It's seems a little too campy. Do they ever discuss why they went back to the Dinosaur age, and not after the Dinosaurs had died out?

I'd be highly surprised if Fox, of all stations, keeps this around.

It still surprises me people still ask this question even after stating they watched the first episodes. Obviously people do not even pay attention to what they are watching these days

 

[Golgo-13]

It still surprises me people still ask this question even after stating they watched the first episodes. Obviously people do not even pay attention to what they are watching these days

I did watch it; i know all about the alternate time line, blah, blah, blah, but going back to the Dinosaur age is like putting a human buffet table out for them.

 

[Snare]

It's been stated numerous times in this thread that the time portal only went back to that specific time. They didn't have a choice where it opened.

It's like you getting on a bus to one town and wondering why it doesn't go to another.