Terra Nova- I've Had it With These Monkey Fighting Dinos in This Monday to Friday World

adytum

Follow the touching story of a down-on-his-luck cop,



A salty but good-hearted military commander,



And their plucky troupe of young, attractive and multicultural sidekicks



As they journey through this



To here



Where they must deal with some Others in the rain forest,



Expand their society,



Secure their homes,



And discover the real reason behind why they've been sent to Terra Nova,



All while trying to avoid being eaten alive.



Something something time travel paradox? Screw you nerd, it's an alternate dimension, with blackjack and hookers and dinosaurs with made up names and secrets to be revealed in 8 seasons if it doesn't get cancelled first.

Season 2 Spoilers

You can watch the double-first-episode here for the time being.

Mondays at 8/7c on Fox.

Discuss.

Tiger Burning

This OP exceeds all expectations I have for the show.

L Ron Howard

Written, produced, directed, and acted by the guys who agonizingly killed Star Trek slowly over a 10+ year span.

@Tiger Burning is absolutely correct.

enlightenedbum

The OP is considerably better than the show. If the raptors find the still the kids hid in the jungle and learn to work it, I'll return. Otherwise, no thanks.

MetroidZoid

*slow clap for the OP*

I can't expect much from this show, but I want to give it a try. I mean, honestly, how long before the army guy does-something-bad-but-believes-it's-for-the-greater-good. Or just goes fuckup evil.

Kagera

Does the show make the explanation for why traveling back in time 85 million years is the way to save humanity seem even slightly more plausible than the commercials have?

Invisible

So has anyone actually watched it? Is it in watchable territory? Because the previews for it, did nothing for me.

adytum

It wasn't terrible. It has two strong leads and the special effects weren't atrocious. Unfortunately it really does look like it's going to be "Lost in the future but in the past and with dinosaurs" which was my first reaction to it some weeks ago.

Lost didn't even do Lost well, so I doubt whatever positive attributes it has going for it are going to hold

dlinfiniti

did they borrow the stargate from stargate? cause that would be awesome though that would only bring you back to egypt or atlantis, not quite dinosaurs

Ethereal Illusion

I enjoyed the first episode. They very anxiously set up mysteries to be solved (maybe) in future episodes. Felt very much like Lost, I have to admit. More conspiracy, less magicking.

Does the show make the explanation for why traveling back in time 85 million years is the way to save humanity seem even slightly more plausible than the commercials have?

If anything, what's revealed makes this goal even less plausible. It's a mystery!

Also: The OP is great.

Also Also: Why is the son character in these shows always terrible?

enlightenedbum

Invisible wrote:

So has anyone actually watched it? Is it in watchable territory? Because the previews for it, did nothing for me.

So a not that brief summary of the pilot:

In the very gray (that's how you know it's dystopian!) future, there is a family. Dad is a cop. Mom is a super doctor. They have three children. Their names are Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. But Maggie is an illegal third child because overpopulation has led to over consumption and the air is barely breathable anymore. This third child causes an investigation by the population patrol, who Dad decides to fight with (he's rebellious!) when they discover Maggie. This gets him a six year prison sentence at an inescapable prison. Two years later, Dr. Wife smuggles in a blade that lets him escape (and cut out the implanted tracker on the subway). Using their magic forture he acquires the third child and meets the wife who as a possessor of a valuable skill has gotten to go back 85 million years in the past to build a new world. Hooray! But Bart is sad because he's leaving his girlfriend and daddy did something stupid to leave them alone for two years.

So they go back, but he's not supposed to be there, but whatever. Military guy in charge says he doesn't care, and he can go work in agriculture. Maggie feeds a brachiosaurus, d'aww. Meanwhile, Lisa spouts off random facts about the colony and math and meets the Terra Nova quarterback. And Bart decides to bail on orientation and he meets a cute girl who lives with three other teenagers and goes and has adventures outside the encampment. Dr. Mom treats a thief who pulls a knife on her, demands a gun from the security guard and leaves. Dad uses his cop observance skills to see him and bails on his job to tackle him just before he can assassinate military dude. This gets him a new job. And it turns out the thief wasn't a thief but a member of a rival political faction. We will call them The Others. A pair of heavily armed Othermobiles come to negotiate the thief's release, one of them being eaten by a carnosaur of some kind on the way. Military dude stands and shoots said carnosaur before being heroically driven through the gates by dad. Yay! The Others offer some "meteoric iron" for the prisoner and some medical supplies. Because they control the mine. Whatever.

Bart and the girl he met go cliff diving/whining (seriously, he's obnoxious in that way teenage boys in sci-fi shows have been forever; think Wesley Crusher but incompetent) and see some weird symbols that are obviously man made. It's in a forbidden area. Scary. There these kids have hidden a still where they get not very drunk on some cheap fruit juice. Because they're dumb teenagers and we have to drive the plot forward. On their way home, The Others spot their car. And decide to steal their supplies. Now they're stranded! And in "slasher" (raptors with giant serrated death knives on their tails) territory! Yikes! The raptors attack one of the black (naturally) Others and then disappear. But then when the kids discover their missing supplies they come back. Uh oh! So they hide in the Othermobile that got left behind and is heavily armed. Shaky cam in the dark with quick cuts time. The base realizes the kids are missing and out and so a search party is sent. A relative generic action scene where we learn that raptors are immune to bullets occurs. The black girl of the teens bails and is nearly eaten but discovered by the search team. Then in the fight the black guy of the teens is nearly killed (raptors: eating black people since Sam Jackson). But Dr. Mom has come with and saves everyone from dying. Yay. And Bart/etc. are rescued. Double yay! Back at the base, the quarterback comes to see Lisa and she begs him to hold "Maggie."

Then the Simpsons look at the giant moon and get all excited about their new life with carnivorous dinosaurs, giant bugs, really giant leeches, and political intrigue. I do not.

The only character who *might* be interesting is Bart's soon to be girlfriend, but he's so insufferable that when she inevitably falls for him it will make me hate her. And her name is "Sky." So that sucks.

Nova_C

It's not a bad show, but the characters feel awfully generic. I guess we'll see. I'm willing to keep watching after that pilot.

RocketSauce

It felt like they were trying to hit the same Lost beats to remind you that "this is a show kind of like Lost and if you liked that, you might like this"! Kind of like every science fiction show does now.

I thought the dinosaurs looked kinda bad, and the action scenes were goofy, especially the dino attack scene at the end where they would cut to a close up of a puppet in low light, shake the camera and move some branches.

Kipling

There are some cringe worthy moments. It didn't hold my interest through those points.

That spoiler summary is fairly spot on.

They crammed way to much into the show, but spent minutes having Mr. Dad chop vines. Then a rapid fire succession of Others, future distrust, Mr. Avatar's son, etc. Then the A plot resolves and they fill the rest of the time with teenagers battling ineffective dinosaurs. That girl really needed to be eaten by a dinosaur. If you want to make it seem like the frontier, have somebody die.

I will watch the little girl be attacked by the baby pterodactyl though - that better not be a tease.

zilo

I like it. It's inverse Jurassic Park. Maybe it's because i had such low expectations but I had fun watching it and have it set to record the season.

Tomanta

For $20 million they could have afforded a writer. I found the pilot a boring, trope-filled endeavor with lackluster acting and uninteresting mysteries.

It's also a highly over-produced pilot, so I'll stick with it for another episode or two on the hopes that it improves. And for the dinosaurs.

Kagera

Someone should have told the guy from Avatar that he wasn't why Avatar was a big hit.

Also that logo is SO trying to be like 'look, it's like a TV version of Avatar! It even has the grizzled guy from that movie in it!"

Nought

Kipling wrote:

There are some cringe worthy moments. It didn't hold my interest through those points.

That spoiler summary is fairly spot on.

They crammed way to much into the show, but spent minutes having Mr. Dad chop vines. Then a rapid fire succession of Others, future distrust, Mr. Avatar's son, etc. Then the A plot resolves and they fill the rest of the time with teenagers battling ineffective dinosaurs. That girl really needed to be eaten by a dinosaur. If you want to make it seem like the frontier, have somebody die.

I will watch the little girl be attacked by the baby pterodactyl though - that better not be a tease.

Mr. Dad clearing brush is obviously a precursor for his presidential bid.

Kagera wrote:

Someone should have told the guy from Avatar that he wasn't why Avatar was a big hit.

Well, it might not be why you liked it.

enlightenedbum

Kipling wrote:

There are some cringe worthy moments. It didn't hold my interest through those points.

That spoiler summary is fairly spot on.

They crammed way to much into the show, but spent minutes having Mr. Dad chop vines. Then a rapid fire succession of Others, future distrust, Mr. Avatar's son, etc. Then the A plot resolves and they fill the rest of the time with teenagers battling ineffective dinosaurs. That girl really needed to be eaten by a dinosaur. If you want to make it seem like the frontier, have somebody die.

I will watch the little girl be attacked by the baby pterodactyl though - that better not be a tease.

The girl? The boy teenager needs to go. At least she was useful and sarcastic.

Schrodinger

I only skimmed the episode, but let's see...

1) Opening scene was the orange was basically every scifi dystopian movie ever.

2) Did they explain why they tried to have three kids? Did they explain how they thought it would be a good idea to keep the girl in hiding her entire life? And if they're having population limits, wouldn't 1 child make more sense?

3) Wait, he has a pen laser? How the hell does technology like that get smuggled into a prison? And if they have lasers, then why don't they use them on the dinosaurs instead of wasting ammo?

4) What was the point of the watch battery?

5) It's amazing how the older son is completely oblivious to the world.

6) There's a lottery?

7) Boy neighbor is totally evil.

L Ron Howard

Kagera wrote:

Someone should have told the guy from Avatar that he wasn't why Avatar was a big hit.

Don't you be knocking Colonel McBadass...

Nought

Since most here are poopooing this I'll try and defend a few of the things that did make sense.

They do have electric guns. The ones on the gate and possibly the whole fence seem to be sonic in some way. And the rifles/guns used when rescuing the kids are stun guns and seem to not use ammo other then electricity, and it is mentioned that they are stun guns hence why they can't penetrate the armour of the dinos.

The "watch battery" seems to be some kind of tracking device.

Of cause I'm not saying that everything was perfect. In fact the Simpsons summery is depressingly accurate, but at least they haven't introduced magic yet.

There's some really amazingly bad stuff that I'm trying to ignore since I want a mediocre to good sci-fi series to watch.

As said, how retarded do writers thing teenage boys are. Yes, why would you need to go to orientation when you go from living in a glass bubble to the jungle with dinosaurs. Totally believable.

Any kind of motivation on getting a third kid would be nice, as well as some plausible way to actually hide it.

Why wait to remove a, most likely, tracking device until you have escaped. And how incompetent are the guys that build that prison?

Why send so small a group of people? If it was a constraint on the time the gate can be open, why not put them in motorised transport?

Why make it public knowledge that the portal exists when they can only send a smattering of people there?

I'm just tiered of movies/series having monsters hosed with bullets having no effect until they suddenly fall over.

Science Girl saying at the end that the moon gets further away because of galactic expansion. Just wtf.

Nought

L Ron Howard wrote:

Kagera wrote:

Someone should have told the guy from Avatar that he wasn't why Avatar was a big hit.

Don't you be knocking Colonel McBadass...

It's been a while since I saw Avatar, and I generally liked it, but when I think back his quotes are the ones I remember.

enlightenedbum

Nought wrote:

Science Girl saying at the end that the moon gets further away because of galactic expansion. Just wtf.

Not to overly defend the show since I didn't like it, but!

She said the moon gets further away because the orbit isn't quite stable. The alignment of the stars was what she said was different because of galactic expansion. Which is not quite right, but it's not quite wrong either.

Nought

enlightenedbum wrote:

Nought wrote:

Science Girl saying at the end that the moon gets further away because of galactic expansion. Just wtf.

Not to overly defend the show since I didn't like it, but!

She said the moon gets further away because the orbit isn't quite stable. The alignment of the stars was what she said was different because of galactic expansion. Which is not quite right, but it's not quite wrong either.

Sorry, you're right, it was the stars. And I'm pretty sure galactic expansion means galaxies get further apart, not the stars inside galaxies.

It's also a minor point in all the silliness, but something that really annoyed me

TheBigEasy

That pilot was a resounding meh ... nice special effects, but the Simpsons summary above is acurate. I'll give it a few more episodes, because ... dinosaurs. But so far I am underwhelmed.

Schrodinger

Series confuses expansion with stellar drift.

Oddly enough, Stargate pilot made the same error explaining why old addresses don't work.

zeeny

Fuck, I couldn't stomach the entire pilot and I doubt I'll give this another chance, but the OP is amazing so I'm going to keep posting in here.

Schrodinger

So I just realized.

They're going to destroy the probe and reveal that it's the same time stream all along, right?

zilo

Re: the obnoxious teenage son / gang of teenagers... I think some of you might be underestimating how terribly stupid and insufferable most teenagers are. Apologies (not really) if any of you are teenagers. If anything, I deduct points for hitting too close to reality with that pack of dumbasses.

And yes, do not badmouth Colonel McBadass. He will creep into your room at night and scar you up good. I thought he did a rather good job with mediocre dialogue. The low point of the show was definitely the youngest girl, she was obnoxious but par for the course with child actors in scifi pilots.

Also, picking apart the science in a show about time travel and dinosaurs seems... a bit off.

dlinfiniti

she will redeem herself by knowing unix
just you wait and see

enlightenedbum

I didn't hate six of the seven teenagers on sight. Just Bart.

zilo

If the daughter locks a door by "hacking" a computer I will seriously freak out.

Nought

Schrodinger wrote:

So I just realized.

They're going to destroy the probe and reveal that it's the same time stream all along, right?

Yep.

Or the evil policestate government that caps the population at too many (fuck you government, we want to like like rats in a warren) want to remake the past in a way they like.

The one thing we can be sure of is that it's the same time-line.

pirateluigi

They really tried to do too much. If it was just a show about people trying to set up a colony and survive 85 million years in the past, that would be interesting. You don't need things like a massive conspiracy and mysterious markings to make me watch... I'd watch just to see people adapting to a new situation / getting eaten by dinosaurs. Save the conspiracy crap for Season 2.

RocketSauce

Was it just me, or did "Sky" totally look like she was the daughter of Jan from The Office?

Tastyfish

pirateluigi wrote:

They really tried to do too much. If it was just a show about people trying to set up a colony and survive 85 million years in the past, that would be interesting. You don't need things like a massive conspiracy and mysterious markings to make me watch... I'd watch just to see people adapting to a new situation / getting eaten by dinosaurs. Save the conspiracy crap for Season 2.

I think you'd struggle to get a series out of it, soon as any modern technology is involved, dinosaurs definitely work better as a wild card or part of the environment rather than the primary focus.

Also there seems to be a ton of dinosaur stuff at the moment, and I don't think Terra Nova has even started over here in the UK yet but we've got a whole bunch of documentaries (and even documentaries about dinosaur documentaries) and new CGI 'nature show' ones. Also Jurassic Park is back on in the cinemas - seems to be a dinosaur craze going on at the moment, wonder if it hangs on until Christmas when it'll be really noticeable.

Atomika

pirateluigi wrote:

They really tried to do too much. If it was just a show about people trying to set up a colony and survive 85 million years in the past, that would be interesting. You don't need things like a massive conspiracy and mysterious markings to make me watch... I'd watch just to see people adapting to a new situation / getting eaten by dinosaurs. Save the conspiracy crap for Season 2.

Somewhere, at some point, people writing sci-fi for TV seemingly unanimously decided that being straightforward about your concept isn't what people want. It's a bait and switch, but you're replacing your key attraction with boring shit that people can get anywhere in any genre. "I know this is supposed to be a show about dinosaurs, but fuck that shit! People really just want random characters talking mysteriously in darkened rooms!"

Just off the top of my head, these are the shows that were ruined (and often cancelled) due to bringing the stories down that road:
- The X-Files
- The Sarah Connor Chronicles
- Lost
- The Event
- V
- Caprica


Big props to shows like BSG and Stargate for at least making the show about what the show is supposed to be about.

adytum

BSG did exactly the same thing with the prophecies and hallucinations.

MplsOsiris

1 - OP of the year.
2 - I watched for the dinosaurs, I'll stay for the dinosaurs. JP was my favorite movie as a kid, I gotta relive that whenever I can.

I will say that as someone who a)used to be a dumb teenager, and b)worked for 5 years with dumb teenagers, that a teenage boy skipping orientation to go wander off in "a dangerous place" with a girl isn't too farfetched. How many of you guys can say you never did something stupid for a girl back in the day?

My big question was why they would let the little girl feed the brachiosaur? Something that large could clearly eat her along with the branch she was holding, or you know, take a hand. Shouldn't the security team have gone balls to the wall to drive those things away? The fence wouldn't be much of an obstacle to them, and they could easily destroy half the town by simply waltzing through. Just a thought.

Zilla360

dlinfiniti wrote:

she will redeem herself by knowing unix
just you wait and see

Also, OP is fantastic. Bravo, now I'm actually marginally interested in this.