TV Review: Terra Nova

logan j. fowler checks out Fox’s new sci-fi series …





In the year 2149, Earth is pretty much on its way out. However, with the Terra Nova program, select individuals go on a pilgrimage via portal back into the past, 88 million years in fact. When the Shannon family get their chance, they find themselves in a brand new world that they have to help build with a better future in mind, despite their personal past has torn them apart.

I went into Terra Nova with extreme excitement. But I also had a lot of questions to go along with it; with a two hour premiere, would it hold my interest? Would the premise work? Despite the fact that it had dinosaurs, would the family dynamic and character exposition work aside from the spectacle?

So my answers to all these questions are … not really. The premiere didn’t exactly wow me enough to really pull me in. I couldn’t gel with any of the characters, although I did like the main guy, Jim (Jason O’ Mara). Jim’s teenage son, Josh (Landon Liboiron) borders on annoying, playing angsty and rebellious, mainly against his father, who Josh last saw two years ago before Jim was arrested for assaulting an officer. Thinking his dad is not a man of his word in being able to change, Josh disobeys the rules in cliché format and becomes involved in some dangerous escapade that began around the one hour mark while in his new home. At that point I was about to shut Terra Nova off, but I stuck to it for the sake of this review.

Post the hour mark, we discover the “bad guys” of the show. The real tension in Terra Nova lives between the renegade group known as “The Sixers” and the regular ground security/citizens of the colony. The Sixers have split off from the rest of the colony and threaten the safe reconstruction of a better planet. I can only assume this will be an underlying storyline in order to create problems for the residents of Terra Nova to further complications for the main characters (aside from the dinosaurs).

With that said, none of these story arcs really caught me by surprise. In fact, the show is very formulaic by nature; family needs to rebuild and they do that through new surroundings. You’ve seen this in a lot of family films probably helmed by Disney. The whole rival group arc just needs to be in place in order to create a rift in the colony, and I can’t really seem to garner much better story arcs past this premiere. Could I be wrong? I’m not sure. I kind of hope I am, but the whole idea seems lost on me at this point.

On a positive note, Terra Nova‘s special effects took me by surprise. While it was noticeable CGI, for a television program it looked pretty good. The city in 2149 looked especially impressive and the dinosaurs looked good enough. The latter was what I was more interested in seeing, so thankfully that part of the program met my expectations.

But aside from that, Terra Nova was not a show I wish I watched. Let me rephrase; I expected more out of it, I was extremely excited for it and with Jurassic Park director Steven Spielberg serving as executive producer, you couldn’t blame me for having some high hopes. However, the one gaping plot hole of this whole show (and something I thought about while watching the program) is Terra Nova takes place in the past where death and destruction are pretty much inevitable. Is it that this show going to be like Lost, where it was written with an ending in sight, knowing when it was going to conclude? Don’t forget: A meteorite hits the Earth that causes the extinction of the dinosaurs, and I’m quite sure the humans will follow suit. Is this how Terra Nova is going to wrap up? I don’t know, but I’m not going to stick around to find out.

All Photos Credit: FOX