Since we have a break in Terra Nova this week for the World Series and we are one-third of the way through the season (4 out of 13 is about as close as we can get to 1/3), I thought I’d take a second look at the show and determine whether or not to keep watching. The ratings seemed to have stabilized (and even gone up a bit), so there is little danger of it being cancelled. So, let’s go over what’s happened so far and see if it should still be followed. Warning: spoilers inside if you haven’t been watching.
What we have so far is a family coming from a horrible future 100+ years from now to a past in the dinosaur age, but in a parallel universe. The main focus of the show has been on the Shannon family (hothead security dad, doctor/scientist mom, two annoying teens: one rebel, one suckup and a cute little kid) with a few other people (leader of the community, his daughter, another scientist in the camp and a few people from a rival group known as the sixers). The biggest problem with the cast is that they are boring. We follow them around, but they don’t do anything interesting and all the interesting stuff happens around them, but they really contribute nothing to the table. They tried to bring something into the family by having the other scientist (Dr. Malcolm Wallace) be an ex-flame of the wife and the person who recruited her to Terra Nova (when Dr. Wallace thought the husband was still in jail). But even that revelation was handled in a boring way and no one seems to remember or care about the ex-flame/current co-worker.
The interesting characters are basically Commander Taylor and the Sixers (mainly their leader Mira). But the show is doing everything they can to make Mira less interesting. Originally the Sixers (named because they were all from the sixth group of colonists) were an outside group that was agitating against Terra Nova and living in a separate colony. There wasn’t much explanation about what the problems they had with Terra Nova was, but the conflict was at least interesting. But in the 4th episode, we get a spy (a girl from the Sixers camp who infiltrates Terra Nova to get something for Mira). The Commander thinks there is a spy already in the camp, so this starts causing some conflict and internal issues. The use of a child (a pre-teen girl) is also a great idea. But instead of having the girl have real beliefs and ideas about why she is a Sixer and why she agreed to be a spy, the writers use the lazy excuse that she was blackmailed by the Sixers holding her brother hostage. Then we get a revelation that Mira is being blackmailed as well. They took an interesting idea and concept and destroyed it with that idiocy. The overuse of the blackmail reminded me of the episode of The Office where Michael was taking Improv lessons and tried to make every scene exciting by saying he had a gun. In this case, the writers are trying to generate real conflict by hammering with the same idiotic tool (blackmail).
The special effects are good (as expected) and there is some interesting stuff going on (once you get past the blackmail and the boring family). Overall it’s still on the edge. It hasn’t pushed me away from watching yet, but I’m not that far away. Hopefully they can clean up some of the storytelling and branch away from the family based stories to get some decent episodes going. Otherwise I might not be willing to stay until the end of the season.