3.5 HELL YEAHS out of 5
What many thought was going to be a LOST crossed with Jurassic Park...was more like Lost in Space crossed with Avatar, crossed with No Ordinary Family (without the super powers)
Terra Nova, is a brave attempt to bring high quality FX to the small screen. For the most part Terra Nova succeeds - so far. It's easy to say that the pilot episode could be the proverbial "wad". Worrying about the visuals on the show is by far not the biggest thing producers and directors and WRITERS should worry about. Instead they really need a stronger writing team. I liked Terra Nova (so far) but I did have a few BIG problems with it as well. The writing and direction, the tone and the schizophrenic "personality" of the show.
The Acting - is ok, I can't really blame the actors for poor writing and direction. From the first scenes you think cool futuristic hardship offset by family. Then the population police storm in and the ex cop (father) puts up a fight ultimately to be arrested and sentenced to prison. Two years later his wife sneaks in some sort of cutting device. so that he can escape, and go to Terra Nova with the family (more on that in a second) I guess the attempt here is to establish that this guy is a bad ass. Ex Cop...Able to bust out of Maximum security prison....Bad Ass right? Well flash forward 20 mins or so and now the guy is basically a whipped whatever you want me to do...family man who agrees to be a gardener. Plus there is a major disconnect between the husband and wife relationship. They say they love each other...and yeah they have been away from each other for 2 yrs...but why do they have a hard time being affectionate, or holding hands or ANYTHING remotely family like? So for me the whole family dynamic was REALLY hard to like.
So what is Terra Nova? Well so far we think it's Earth 85 Million years in the past. BUT it's supposedly NOT within the same time stream as the future from which the "pilgrims" came. This is supposedly how the show gets around the "butterfly effect" which of course they refer to. Terra Nova is the actual settlement that these pilgrims come to live in. Fortified, furbished, and farmed...one big happy settlement. When new arrivals first come through the event horizon they are confused and are forced to drink green/blue milk. Other than that there are no ill effects to the clean air, sun, surrounding, nothing...I would have liked a little more bewilderment, Awe, there was no wow factor. Instead everyone and everything falls into place as if they lived there the whole time.
Terra Nova and the ancient earth also look all too comfortable. YES it's Earth and there shouldn't be a whole lot of crazy plants and funky looking things like in Avatar, but what I was really looking and waiting to see was a car right out of the Flintstones. The whole city has a Flintstones feel to it. Perhaps that was the hidden intent. If so it worked, on me at least. It felt too cartoony.
The authoritarian leader of Terra Nova is Stephen Lang from Avatar fame. You can basically transplant his Avatar Character for this one. Standing on the porch of his hut 15ft above the newly arrived crowd I just knew he was going to say "welcome to Pandora". Instead...."welcome to Terra Nova".
Terra Nova wants to be family friendly which is good, but it also wants to be a action drama, which is also good, and it feels like it's going to be an episodic "fix the problem" series. - all 3 are good but together...they are not. An action drama that really wants to sell family values and feel goodness can work BUT the sappiness has to go. Right now I see this show lasting about a season if they are lucky if they the don't find a niche and stick with it. Other wise like No Ordinary Family a great idea will have been wasted due to poor writing.
I like the look of Pandora...I mean Terra Nova...I like the scifi element with time travel and repercussions...I just hope they can keep it together and strengthen it's weaknesses.
