Terra Nova

[mogzilla]

Anyone else catch this?

sky had a double episode opener last night and so far so good!

due to humans buggering up the planet they find a one way rift in time that goes to prehistoric times and after sending a probe which isnt found in our time so "proves" its a seperate time stream start sending chosen or lottery winning people back in time to "start again"  following one family (dad an ex cop jailed for punching his colleagues when he hid his illegal third child) mums a science bod so gets chosen, she helps hubby bust out and in turn he busts out his 5 year old from her prison they all end up back int ime and live in a massive colony ...the first episode really sets this all up and the second gets a little more going introducing a breakaway group "sixers" and some nice jurrasic park alike monster action.

   two eps in and i'm hooked more so than falling skies which plodded.

  time travel and dinos seem familiar? does spiegelberg indulge in a bit of thrill power?

[Robin Low]

two eps in and i'm hooked more so than falling skies which plodded.

That's pretty much how I feel. I did try with Falling Skies, but it just didn't have much of storyline to get involved with or characters to care about. None of the characters are grabbing me yet in Terra Nova, but it does seem to have a proper plot developing, some decent action and nice effects.

Regards

Robin

[vzzbux]

Will continue to watch this but all I could think about was 'FLESH'.
The missus said the basic vehicle design looked like it had been poached from the Land Raider.





V

[COMMANDO FORCES]

At least people get eaten 

That scene outside the gate, when the boss stood in front of the charging beastie, now that was typical Hollywood bollocks. If one of the 2000 AD droids had written that, at the very least the twat would have been dino poo a couple of days later.

[von Boom]

It didn't thrill me. Don't get me wrong, I want to like it, but so far it hasn't grabbed me. I don't want to give any spoilers so I will say that I found the overall story lacked grit. Living with dinos should be a tough and dangerous existence so the consequences for any stupid actions should be equal to that existence, to everyone, not just 'red shirts'. At the moment it feels like a bad children's show where every week we'll learn a very special lesson. Weak.

If it continues like this I doubt it will last the season.

JvB

[Mardroid]

I completely missed this! Then again, that's not all that surprising as I don't watch all that much Sky. No doubt there'll be repeats, online, etc.

[Radbacker]

found it all a little bit meh, will watch the next couple but like Falling Skies i cant see this holding my interest for long.  Which is a shame because there seems to be a pretty hardcore Sci-fi show in there just studioed to death (do we really need two teen romance sub-plots? and i was kinda hoping we'd see the effect having people living in the past would have on the future but they've nixed that idea quick smart with establishing it as an alternate timeline).

CU Radbacker

[Zarjazzer]

It was okay, at least the dinos could act!  Not sure I'll be rushing to see what happens next though. But I might catch a re-run here or there.

[mogzilla]

are "slashers" the new raptors?

[I, Cosh]

I saw a bit of a trailer for this but didn't even pick up on the time travel aspect so I thought it looked like a bigger budget Outcasts. I suppose the same still applies but with added Flesh. Although what I'm really reminded of - with the rift and restricted, one-way travel through it - is Julian May's Many-Coloured books which I loved as a kid. Expect a group of heavily armed secessionists to turn up and blast their way into the past to set up the ultimate (or original, I suppose) Jonestown at some point.

[von Boom]

are "slashers" the new raptors?

<sarcasm>
Yeah. But they mostly come out at night. Mostly.
</sarcasm>

JvB

[Professor Bear]

i was kinda hoping we'd see the effect having people living in the past would have on the future but they've nixed that idea quick smart with establishing it as an alternate timeline).

Heh.  "We can't find any trace of our probe or our colony in the future so obviously this must be an alternate timeline" and not "well something must have happened to the probe and our colony" seems like strange logic to me.

Terra Nova seems to have been made with one thing in mind: that sci-fi viewers will watch anything as long as it's sci-fi and so the makers never put in the effort to make the characters interesting, the dialog unforced (at least two characters are told their own backstory), or even the setting to make sense.  I groaned when the guard said "he is a Sixer" darkly as yet another cliche clunked into place, and when the terrorist-type said "the REAL REASON FOR TERRA NOVA" I groaned again.  The FX aren't that great, but we get a lot of onscreen dino action even when a decent director could have made that unnecessary as we don't need to see the dinosaurs, we only need to know they're a threat.  This prioritising of FX over atmosphere suggests the kind of tv that thinks the trappings of sci-fi are more important than making a good show, and given sci-fi is a traditionally 18-30 male reserve, why there's two teen romances in there is anyone's guess, but I'd say it's indicative of how unformed and unfocused the remit of the production team is - this is cliche town, pure and simple, homogenized and unoriginal.

On the other hand, the only way is up from the pilot, so it might improve.  My money's on one season, though, with a cliffhanger ending even though the producers know the axe has fallen.

[Robin Low]

i was kinda hoping we'd see the effect having people living in the past would have on the future but they've nixed that idea quick smart with establishing it as an alternate timeline).

I wouldn't take that at face value just yet - it's possible there's some propaganda at work, especially as all is clearly not as it seems.

It's possible, maybe even probable, that it's just bad plotting, but sending people into the past to a new life seems kind of pointless anyway. It would make more sense to spend money on fixing the world they've got or going off planet (and it looks like they have the technology). With that in mind it would make sense for there to be a more complex agenda.

Regards

Robin

[mogzilla]

stop spoiling things by reading to much into them, its got dinos in it one ate a guy from a truck what more do you want?

[pauljholden]

i was kinda hoping we'd see the effect having people living in the past would have on the future but they've nixed that idea quick smart with establishing it as an alternate timeline).

I wouldn't take that at face value just yet - it's possible there's some propaganda at work, especially as all is clearly not as it seems.

It's possible, maybe even probable, that it's just bad plotting, but sending people into the past to a new life seems kind of pointless anyway. It would make more sense to spend money on fixing the world they've got or going off planet (and it looks like they have the technology). With that in mind it would make sense for there to be a more complex agenda.

Regards

Robin

In episode 2 (or the part 2 of the pilot), Meera(?) says something about 'controlling the past to control the future' which, I think, is a very clear signal that the two time line theory may not be as straightforward as first stated.