Terra Nova: Exactly as Good and as Bad as You Thought It Would Be
Remember when I said I’d be doing more real-life blogging? Apparently lately my real life involves lots of television. Sure, there’s been some other stuff: editing, socializing, reading, crock pot stews, Renaissance Festivals, rainboots. But nothing is nearly as pressing as talking about the fall line-up.
(Oh, autumn television premieres. I love you.)
I tried not to get my hopes up very high for Terra Nova. Not after LOST let me down in a big way. But television has, lately, been gently restoring my faith in small-screen sci-fi. Okay, so Doctor Who has been inconsistent, and I don’t think Fringe maintained quite the same level of quality from the season 2 finale through season 3, but stuff has been unsucky enough that I let myself feel optimistic.
And Terra Nova, heavily hyped in commercials and online, looked damn promising. Dystopia! Dinosaurs! Time travel! A setting as lush as LOST‘s, but with more SFnal potential–despite what the producers and actors have been saying in interviews:
We’re trying to create something that’s a little bit bigger than that. It’s not just for a niche audience; this isn’t Battlestar Galactica; it’s not Star Trek. This is not for, necessarily for sci-fi fans out there even though I think sci-fi fans will get a lot out of it. This kind of has that all-inclusive look and feel of a true Steven Spielberg production where people are going to E.T. for the cinematic experience not because it’s just about a boy’s relationship with his alien who comes down from space. That’s kind of how the feeling is on Terra Nova. This isn’t just about time travel and dinosaurs; it’s about a lot more than that.
Man, I wish TV people would disabuse themselves of the notion that it’s a new idea to use science fiction to explore human relationships. Since, you know, that’s how it’s been used forever.
Anyway, watching the premiere tonight, I can’t exactly say I was pleasantly surprised–but I can’t say I was disappointed, either. Terra Nova is precisely what you think a Spielberg-produced television show about a colony in the land of the lost would be. There’s a macho dad with a temper and a dopey son and lots of long, meaningful looks and angsting and testing of boundaries. Characters seem to be more like archetypes than people for the most part. The special effects were pretty atrocious–one scene featured Jason O’Mara (copdude) and Stephen Lang (militarydude) gazing thoughtfully off a blue screen cliff and talking about how beautiful everything was.
But there were some nice touches, too; the core relationship and family are interracial. The oldest daughter of the central family is a nerd (even if she did spend the whole episode babysitting while her brother went on adventures–come on, television! I’m sick of this crud). And despite Jason O’Mara’s protests, there’s a lot of sci-fi in the sci-fi here. Not only was the initial dystopian society fairly well-developed, but the past-universe colony has been clearly thought-through, too. There’s even a statue of the initial probe used to–supposedly–definitively prove that our colonists are in an all new timeline.
The episode closes with some musing about mysterious equations drawn on cave walls, implying that there’s some other intelligent presence on the planet. The characters then state that these equations are proof that the real purpose of Terra Nova is to control the future, implying, perhaps, that the whole thing about the probe is poppycock. This is all pretty predictable stuff. I can safely say that nothing in Terra Nova surprised me.
But it wasn’t terribly written like, say, V. And if you’re going to do some Spielbergian, schmaltzy stuff, then you might as well make your show about the primacy of family rather than the American revolution or whatever the hell Falling Skies was supposedly about. I have a feeling that Terra Nova won’t break any new ground for sci-fi fans, but I don’t think it will particularly offend us, either.
All in all, I’m happy to have some big budget unabashed science fiction on network TV. Cautiously happy, sure–after LOST, I feel I can’t be too careful about these things. Still, it was a fairly solid debut, and I look forward to watching the rest of the first season.
Phoebe
Phoebe is a 20-something writer who lives in New York State with her husband and cat. She is a dork, not a geek or a nerd.
Her debut novel, Starglass, will be released from Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers in Summer 2013.
11 comments
I agree that this show looks sort of promising. Not really realistic, but I still like the whole time travel fact. However, you can not honestly say LOST was disapointing. Lost was an incredible TV series. I've been looking for a show to replace it since it ended. Im lost for words about how you could not have loved that show.
Sigh.
I can honestly say LOST was disappointing, especially in my own blog. I've been pretty vocal and consistent about my disappointment in the way the series ended; my biggest google hits continue to be variations on the phrase "lost sucks" and "why does lost suck" and "why lost ending sucked," so clearly I'm not alone. You're welcome to your opinion (I have plenty that people disagree with), but if you're really interested in knowing mine, I offer you two blog posts from the last season: Why Lost Sucks and Why I Won't Quit Worrying and Love the Golden-Vagina Stream: The Anti-Science Argument of ABC's LOST.
Oh, and Fringe is pretty solid, if you want a replacement for the SFnal aspects. If you want something as well-acted, Mad Men and Downton Abbey are good, although fundamentally very different shows.
Recorded it but haven't watched it yet. Just wanted to say, though, that we've really enjoyed "Survivors", a British series from 2008 (and remake of a series from the 60s? Maybe?). There are only 12 episodes, but it wraps up pretty well. It's on Netflix, in Canada anyway. It's a near-future post-apocalyptic, where 99% of the world's population are dead from a mutated flu virus. The people who are left must then figure out how to get along and rebuild. Great characters, good ethnic diversity, good female characters. Super good all round.
Ooh, I think the husband started watching this one last year but didn't get far. I'll give it a shot! I find the brits usually know what they're doing pretty well.
I enjoyed watching Terra Nova last night. I do admit that I annoyed my roommate with my running commentary on some of the problems I saw with it, but I can't resist dinosaurs. I really wish the oldest daughter got to do some more stuff too – I mean, come on, clearly she knows a lot of information. I liked watching her the most.
Ha, too bad you can't watch it with my husband and I. We're like the bots from MST3k.
And yeah, I do hope we get to see more of Maddie's character. She's awesome!
I thought the pilot was pretty bad. Predictable cliche and hasty script. Can't stand the son. The writers seemed to rush into the children's obvious romantic life.
And why is the security so bad? Anyone can leave or enter. No cameras, no security on the fences. Dinosaurs can just poke their heads in.
And putting O'Hara on security detail so quickly was ridiculous. The head of security literally said he doesn't trust anyone, and then immediately takes O'Hara in. He could have been working for the sixers.
And the sixers' leader (black lady) is a pretty bad actor.
"Can't blame a girl for trying." Seriously?
my mistake about lack of cameras. still ridiculous how they found out like 3 hours later though.
[...] finally just about caught up on my post-VP television viewing (except for Terra Nova, which I’m considering dropping, because man, that show’s a snooze and I already put in [...]
I tried this show till the 4th episode and it sucks,and it aint getting better,There where some line in 1 episode that somebody stated…. Couldnt they send us to a time after the ice age,well the first thing that shot tru my mind where …Forget about the ice age,what about the bloody big astroid thats gonna whipe out every living thing thats larger then 15 inch…