Terra Nova

I was on the fence about watching Terra Nova. On the one hand Speilberg still has a bit of talent, a lot of money, and seems to be able to delegate well. All qualities missing currently in his pal George Lucas. Unfortunately, Speilberg's television stats are only so so. "Amazing Stories," for example looked wonderful and had great talent. But ultimately it was a snorefest that only lasted as long as it did because of Speilberg bucks fueling it. So what would Terra Nova be? Well I decided to give it a look.

Ok, in the future it's bad. Wearing masks to breath and never seeing the sky bad. We are over crowded and over polluted and a bit on edge. Our heroes is just your standard ordinary Speilberg family, which makes the criminals here in the future. They had one too many kids and to stop the cops from finding the plus one baby, Daddy punches the cops and winds up in the future prison. Luckily, mom is a really good doctor so she and her family not in jail get a ticket to terra nova. Daddy breaks the law again by breaking out of jail hitting cops again and running with his kids into the past. Obviously, this bridge has been burned toasty like.

A brief aside. One thing we learn at this point is that we didn't open up this portal to the past. We found it, explored it, and are now exploiting it. This works with me cause it solved one of the major stupidies of the idea as shown in commercials. If I could make a time hole and I wanted to save situation, then I wouldn't risk paradox and inside go the other. Say the half life of all our pollution is ten million years, I just set the time gate for twenty million years into the future. I could even create bunkers filled with needed supplies just waiting for the future colonists.

Anyway, now we are in terra nova. It's sort of a cross between bed rock and the costa rican village in "Off the Map." Folks are having a little problems with too much oxygen at first and everyone is dealing with this thing called sunlight. Our new colonists are given a pep talk by the fearless leader of this brave new world who looks tough enough to eat dinos raw. He takes Daddy aside reads him the riot act for being an escape convict then says he really doesn't care and puts him on garden duty.

The family settles into their new house, and less comfy back as a family. Oldest son is in teen snit that Daddy had to go all criminal. The plus one baby never really knew Daddy so they are trying to get close. Mom is trying to keep peace and oldest daughter probably wishes she was somewhere else. Luckily, seeing some dinosaurs just outside stops the domestic squabblings and everyone goes all Speilberg gooey.

Next day, well things happen. Mom goes to work and discovers the leeches here are as big as footballs. The kids go to a lecture and we are spoonfed more info. The big thing is there can't be any paradox here because they didn't actually go back into THEIR past but the past of some other universe. Daddy enjoys physical labor, and the son decides to take off with new pretty girl. New pretty girl leads him far astray as they go on the other side of the big fences which is a no no.

Meanwhile, rebels make trouble. Doctor mom treats one and is briefly held hostage and Daddy takes one out. He asks, "what the hell?" And we are given a walk and a lecture by fearless leader. See the worm in paradise are the the sixers, called that since they came in the sixth wave. They smuggled in weapons and went off the reservation and now cause trouble. They cause so much trouble the Fearless leader hasn't told the people in the future about them since he doesn't know who to trust.

Now comes a confusing bit. There are sixers in tanks attacking, oh wait now they are running from big dinosaurs. Fearless and Daddy decide to go help and it's a dinosaur hoedown till both sides are inside the fence. There the sixers boldly offer to make some trades including the idiot they had captured earlier. For some reason Fearless doesn't laugh on their face and makes the trades minus ammo. There's obviously more here than meets the eye.

Oh, back to the teens. They find odd scratches in rocks that look like math. They ignore it cause they are teens. They concentrate on their homemade still. Hooray for the teenage spirit! They party, then panic when they realize they don't have a working vehicle and are now dinosaur fuel. Daddy who's been upgraded back to Daddy Cop and Fearless leader come and save the day that night. Everyone gets back together. There are some cryptic passages that will no doubt be future stories and everyone looks at the moon, cause she's beautiful.

The pilot was ok. I do like some of the characters and there is a potential here. However, my turkey sense is clucking. The potential for this show going to suckville is high. It's high minded green mentality plus characters that are just barely more than Speilberg cyphers have the mispotential of creating stories that will just be overbearing morality plays. Dinosaurs will not save the show if it goes down that road. We'll just have to watch and see.