Terra Nova: Do These Dinos Bite?

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There’s also a group of “others” called the Sixers, named so because they were in the sixth group to migrate through the rift. For some mysterious reason, the Sixers have an agenda against the colony.

This isn’t great TV so far, but at times it’s visually impressive and has some great ideas. There are other times where the CG is below B-movie levels, but I chalk that up to the producers showing off their budget for good and bad and trying to get by.

In some scenes, the characters venture out in the wild at night and we see the best usage of the carnivorous dinosaurs out on the hunt. There were elements of these glimpses, shadows and random animal noises in Jurassic Park, but there weren’t 22nd century weapons and tech to fight them like in Terra Nova. This adds a level of fun to the mix.

The second episode seems to offer a better idea of how the series will function on a week-to-week basis. It features a “monster of the week” premise, where mysterious flying dinosaurs are attacking the colonists of Terra Nova. I enjoyed it more than the first episode because all of the clunky exposition was out

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of the way, allowing for more viewer immersion into this mysterious and dangerous new world.

I’m still not the biggest fan of the family element, because it seems to bring up unnecessary time-wasting that could be better spent hunting dinosaurs. But alas, those dinosaur effects are expensive.

The show is a mindless good time for the action elements alone. The broadness of the characters is definitely a turnoff, though. Only Commander Taylor seems compelling at all, and that’s because we get an idea of who he is and what his motivations are (he appears noble so far, but we know at some point we’ll probably be rooting against him when the Sixers finally state their case).

The main family characters are archetypes that have been recycled since Lost in Space and Land of the Lost and seem to have been added simply to hook the family demographic.

There is roughly four million dollars invested in each episode of Terra Nova, which is quite a sum. My characterization gripes may not be the biggest problems of this show; with such a large budget, low ratings may ultimately be its undoing.

Hopefully Terra Nova will at least make for an exquisite corpse, much like the T-Rex bones on display at the Museum of Natural History. I will be watching in the meantime, until the fun of 22nd century colonists fighting dinosaurs off with lasers becomes boring. When that happens, you know a show has failed.

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Check out Terra Nova, Mondays at 8 p.m. on Fox.