Grade: B
The long delayed series from Steven Spielberg,
Terra Nova, has finally premiered with a two hour premier & while it was plagued with many problems delaying it for over a year the time taken to work out the kinks has well payed off. Centered on a group who has journeyed back in time because the world has become a polluted unlivable mess the series boasts that same type of new world escapism that made so many love
Avatar while also reminiscing on the same old world love of dinosaurs for fans of Spielberg’s previous work
Jurassic Park.
As the episode starts off we zoom into a brown world with less space pollution than we currently have with all our space junk floating around & center in on a city where its inhabitants wear face masks because the air is so toxic & even the poorest have tablets, with broken screens, to stay informed in what seems like a continuation of our ever connecting world. The series focus is on the Shannon family who as we see in the beginning of the episode is in awe of an orange & who are immediately raided by the authorities for suspicion of harboring an unauthorized third child. This & punching the supervising officer lands our patriarch Jim Shannon, a now former police officer played by Jason O’Mara, in prison with a very lengthy sentence for breaking an almost Orwellian seeming law.
Soon after years pass & we get to see Jim’s wife Dr. Elisabeth Shannon, played by Shelley Conn, visiting him secretly in prison before her pilgrimage to Terra Nova leaves. It becomes clear that this was not any regular visit as it was set up to deliver a laser that would be used in Jim’s escape from the high security prison to get onto the pilgrimage & also smuggle their third child Zoey through the tear in time. Of course right near the end when everything seems like it is going to work out do things go haywire & it becomes a mad dash through the portal. Once they make it over it becomes clear to the Terra Nova military crew that Jim was not supposed to be there & he is brought to meet with the head of the collective Commander Nathaniel Taylor, played by Stephen Lang of
Avatar fame.
As the episode unfolds we get some dinosaur action as well as some very interesting plot points involving cave drawings & a renegade pilgrimage that, while tensions go off in the premiere, its obvious this is only the beginning of some key actions before things come to a head. There is no doubt
Terra Nova took a lot of time & a lot of money to work out as much details as it could for its premiere & a lot of its science actually makes sense besides the little amount of space junk right at the beginning of the episode. The only thing that felt somewhat lacking was the amount of dinosaurs & while they do play a large part it just feels a bit lacking due to Spielberg’s amazing job with animatronic dinosaurs on
Jurassic Park that we have to be reduced to CGI dinosaurs in the series. FOX has finally found a Monday series that can last & stand beside its ratings powerhouse
House & as long as its keeps serving us a weekly
Land of the Lost family adventure Stephen Lang will be able to continue playing a grizzly badass.
Ed. Side Note:
- Kind of glad that the future we were dropped into was futuristic Chicago & how it looks nothing like current Chicago.
- Sixers are the new Others. Fuck you!
- I could honestly care less about the children’s adventures in love if they do not continue to involve dinosaurs trying to kill them every five seconds.
