Terra Nova Review: Time Travelling Dinosaurs.

The show starts off with text on the screen sstating the premise of the show.

AT THE DAWN OF THE 22^ND CENTURY. THE WORLD IS ON THE VERGE OF ENVIRONMENTAL COLLAPSE. MANKIND’S ONLY SURVIVAL LIES 85 MILLION YEARS IN THE PAST.

We are shown a futuristic apartment in a smog-filled city. It might have been Beijing or Shanghai or something. There’s a character walking inside the hallways wearing a futuristic air filter. Oh no. The air is so toxic that you can’t just breathe the air outside!

The first 5 minutes of the show just keeps hitting the viewer on the head about how terrible the future really will be. Consumerism and High-Tech gadgets are pretty much gone, except for the occasional super thin ID cards. The dad goes inside his apartment and shows his family the wonder of an orange. Apparently they’re so rare that it’s been years since some of them have seen one. The mom name-drops that respiratory diseases have risen recently, probably due to the poor air quality.

So, the police come in and say they have to search the house. In the future, one person can only have one offspring. They have three. The police finds the third child (named Zoe.) and the dad is put in jail.

For twelve more minutes, we see the dad try to solid snake his way out of prison and to the Stargate facility. In the end, he makes a mad dash towards the portal.

FLASH FORWARD 2 YEARS

In the two years, the mom found a way to get the family into Terra Nova and travel into the past because she’s a doctor.  Even though she can have a good life, she doesn’t want her kids to stay in a dying world! The bad thing is that the dad(Jim) has to stay in prison, and Zoe can’t go.

The first sixteen minutes of the show has been entirely superfluous. Honestly, if they excised it, the pilot would probably be better. I don’t think they had enough budget, time, or imagination to create the world of 214X well enough. Everyone is living in squalor… in a dying world. They don’t outright say what caused the environmental collapse. I hope it isn’t just pollution or ‘global warming’. Anyway, there’s enough dialogue after the jump in time to describe the future. There’d be more mystery and would have probably been better.

Jurassic Park.

So the Terra Novan colony has existed for 7 years now. They quickly explain that this is an entirely new timeline so they can kill dinosaurs or whatever they want without causing any causality problems.

Characters make the comparison about the lush environment compared to the dark/gloomy/perpetually cloudy environment. I can understand things like “The air is so fresh!”, but things like “I’ve forgotten what the moon looks like”, or  “the sky is so blue I’ve never seen.” is bizarre. Are there no television programmers in the future about what the past is like? Minor complaint.

When the family and the rest of the expedition arrive at Terra Nova, the dad is assigned to agriculture duty.

The youngest daughter Zoe finds some brontosaurus which was right on the other side of the fence. Nice job keeping dinosaurs away, security. It was one of those Jurassic park moments, and I guess it was absolutely necessary. Doesn’t mean it makes sense in-universe.

The main conflict of this episode revolves around Josh (the son) hanging around female love interest (Sky) and engaging is some incredibly dumb shenanigans. They decide to go into a restricted zone to jump off a waterfall. They also decide to go make alcohol in an area with dangerous dinosaurs. On their way back to the camp, they were ambushed by dinosaurs. That’s such an unforeseeable plot twist!  Oh, Sky shows Josh some strange cave markings, and then makes him promise not to tell anyone about the cave markings. Yeah, like that won’t be a plot point in the future.

The other plot point involves the doctor wife healing a man who was supposed to be a thief. Turns out that the guy is a “Sixer”, which is a group of people from the sixth pilgrimage who have since left the main group and found their own colony. The thief breaks out of the hospital laughably easily, and then proceeds to try and assassinate Taylor, the leader of Terra Nova. Why nobody at the hospital decided to inform security (to warn Taylor or anyone), I don’t know. Probably just bad writing or something.

Jim stops the plot and becomes a new cop. They go for a ride outside the gate and spots the Sixers riding towards the camp. They’re here to exchange some ‘meteoric iron’ for  the prisoner and some supplies.

The Sixers have a hidden agenda and are led in part by Taylor’s son. Apparently Taylor’s son is the one making the cave markings which will be the key to controlling the future.

The retarded teenagers and the sixers storyline intersects when the sixers were murdered on their way back to the their camp. The teenagers find their vehicle and hides inside it when dinosaurs come. They are rescued by the end of the episode.

This show has excellent dialogue/interaction such as

“GET AWAY FROM ME”

“Hey I know you, you are Drake, right? It’s me, Sky.”

“SKY? ALRIGHT GET IN”

Right as they’re getting away from a dinosaur.

Two guards chilling at a tower.

Security perimeter is so poor that people can just crawl outside the gate. If jurassic park taught me anything, is that there are small killer velociraptor everywhere.

No guards at all. I guess that's why the little girl was able to feed the brontosaurus some leaves.

One guard on tower.

 

What I don’t like about the show, which probably won’t improve as it goes on, is that the military/security of Terra Nova is so absurdly terrible. We have areas where there are absolutely no guards while dinosaurs roam nearby. We have guards that don’t know to fire a weapon until ordered by the main characters. We have (farm) areas which are not within the perimeter of the colony. Terrible planning, guys.

Also, I refuse to believe that 130 years from now, humans won’t have weapons that would simply shred dinosaurs apart. Even in an environmentally collapsed Earth, you just know that hoards of money will be spent developing even more effective weapons of war.

5/10

It’s a pilot episode. It’s not very good at all. I have a feeling this show is going to be a lot like Falling Skies… except that Falling Skies doesn’t have as dense of characters as here. The teenager plot reminds me a lot of Tyler from V.
Is this show worth watching? I wouldn't say so. There's not really anything here that's done particularly well. There's better things to do with your time. Go watch Breaking Bad, or Fringe, or Supernatural. Go back and watch SGU or Alphas.

I am curious to see what kind of storyline they can do to sustain a full season.

Everything is Cheaper in Prague. Lost Finale

Internet hasn't been very nice in the past week or so. Arrived in Prague about 30 minutes ago. The hostel cost is cheap. 40 Euros for a private 8 person room. There's five of us, so 8 euros per person. P neat.

I finally watched the Lost Series Finale. That's right, instead of updating my blog, I have been wasting bandwidth downloading Lost.

Going into the Finale, I knew that not everything will be answered. I also knew that the sideways universe must be set after the island timeline because sideways verse was set in 2005 while islandverse is sometime in 2007/8? People who were awakened seemed to have memories that occur after 2005. (ie, charlie died in the main timeline day ~90), but it was still like two weeks after the plane in sideways verse.

When the mythological episode hit, I realized that there wasn't going to be anything remotely close to a scientific explanation. I'm kinda ok with that.

The problem is that I wasn't really engaged in the story anymore. The finale was filled with sequences of people 'remembering' their past lives. While nice and serves as a recap of the last six years, it just happened way too much for me to care anymore. The End was really bleh for me.

Better Off Ted Premiere, SGU, and Shitting my pants because of KFC

Better Off Ted - Returns tonight! Quirky science-fictiony show. Watch it!

SGU - As I mentioned before, this show doesn't appeal to everyone. Not everyone loves the slow, soapy, character driven shows. Historically, the Stargate Franchise has been more action and plot driven. As a result, many people dislike SGU, and it shows in the ratings. At this point, however, most of the critics have quit or already stopped watching the show, and the remaining few (myself included) mostly generally enjoy the program. The real question is whether there are enough fans of the show to sustain the program for another season.

Shit on pants, KFC - I made a detour coming home tonight to stop at the KFC at Lansdowne. What used to be Toonie Tuesday a couple of years ago have morphed into 2.69 Tuesdays. Two chicken pieces (thigh and drumstick) plus a small order of fries for that price is excellent. When I got out of my car and tried to close the door, I heard a loud clanking sound. I assumed it was my seatbelt which might have been stuck. I checked and it was clear. I closed the door.

When I got inside to order my sweet (salty) fat chicken meat, I realized that I wasn't carrying my N95 Mobile. Thus, I couldn't call My Friends and ask why they were so late. Oh well. I finished my food and went to buy some study-treats.

Half an hour later, when I was about to leave the parking lot, I remembered about my phone. Did I get messages? I'm a fairly important guy so I should have messages.

I couldn't find my phone. It was dark outside and the interior lights were being dumb. I looked under the car seats. Nothing.
At this point, I was starting to get scared. I thought back to when I last knew I had my phone. It was in the car. What was that noise when I tried to close my door? Was it my phone? WAS MY PHONE LYING ON THE GROUND OF THE PARKING LOT? OH SHIT.

I did a U-turn right in the intersection, ignoring all the traffic signals. After dodging a few cars, I made it back to the parking lot. I got out. I looked around. Did I park here? or there?
Nothing.
My phone was not on the ground.
I looked in my car again. This time, on the passenger side.
Nothing.
Fuuu-

I know! I'll call myself, and then the gentle vibration of its silent ringing will lead me to it.
Fuuu-

Oh well. I'll just go home and play world of warcraft, Patch 3.3
Fuuu- My Blizzard Authenticator is on the phone. Can't play without it.

Fuuu-

I walked between the rows of the car, feeling much like a thief looking for a weak spot.
In the end, I shamefully walked back to my car. I went back home.
I used my home phone. I find my phone. The end.