Not the best of the new shows this year, not the worst. Certainly the one with the most hype and the most spectacle. This project was suppose to premier last spring (a la Glee), but it kept being pushed back more and more due to special effects problems and reshoots. The critics did not even get a finished pilot until a few weeks ago. Now it is out for the whole world to see, and amateurs like me can pick it over, like I am about to do right now.
The opening doesn't start out promising. The view of Earth is spectacular with the clouded skies, but the text telling us that the reason for those skies is decidedly not. It's the future and we are on the verge of environmental collapse. There is a hope though, and it's 85 million years ago. Throwing this information at us right away takes away some of the intrigue, and can easily be explained through setting and dialogue instead of explicitly stating it up front. We are then introduced to our core characters, the Shannon family. Mom, Dad, and three kids. Except the law is you can only have two kids. This is the beginning of the plot, they need to get to Terra Nova because overpopulation is not a problem there.
The whole first section of the show is poorly plotted. The staging of the reveal of Zooey in the backpack makes it seem like it was genuine reveal, that we weren't suppose to know what was in the backpack and why it needed protecting. We've known since the first scene that Zooey exists, so there was only one thing that could have been in there. If the show had begun instead with Jim in jail, but us not knowing why, it would have started us off with a nice bit of mystery. Now there's no mysteries until the kids get to the falls, but more on that later. I suppose there's still a mystery of why they would choose to break the law and have a third kid in the first place, but that's completely shrugged off throughout the episode.
Once the family reaches Terra Nova, things get better. Mostly because the spectacle is in full force. I liked the work they did on the future setting (maybe we'll see it more down the road), but the beauty shots of the Terra Nova settlement are wonderful. Also, fights with dinosaurs, very cool. The dinosaur effects may seem like effects, but for TV work, very good. I also don't care because it's fights with dinosaurs! We also get Commander Taylor at Terra Nova, by far the best performance in the show so far. It's Stephen Lang doing a not as crazy version of his character from Avatar, and it's great.
There are still a few problems at Terra Nova as well. The whiny teenager son, Josh, being the foremost. At least I understand where his gripes come from, which is better than most whiny TV teens, but they come up so abruptly it's jarring. He goes from concerned that his father won't make it to the portal to "You can't tell me what to do, you've been away in jail for two years!" in no time flat. His sojourn outside the gates, or OTG, also didn't feel like the "forcing of stupidity so there is some plot" that most whiny TV teens are saddled with. This is something Skye and her friends do all the time. So I'm not happy about the whiny teen, but while not handled good, at least it isn't horribly botched (I'm looking at you V).
Josh's OTG also led to the first thing about the show that really made me sit up and go, "Now that's intriguing, I like that." The mysterious writing at the falls. Where did it come from? Is there some indigenous people? What do the crazy equations mean? Unfortunately, we find out where they come from before the episode is over. It's Taylor's missing son, living in the jungle being crazy. This is also intriguing, but I feel this information could have been doled out a little more piecemeal. I had the same problem with the people giving this information, the Sixers.
The Sixers were the other part of the pilot that made me do the "this is intriguing" thing. A separate settlement that split of and is at odds with Terra Nova? Cool. They all came from the sixth pilgrimage, leading you to think it's some sort of conspiracy? Even cooler. Their introduction was wild with a great dinosaur fight and the Sixer leader's, Mina, interaction with Taylor was well done. Then we get a couple scenes from Mina's point of view. This immediately lowers their mysteriousness value. Now they're actual characters with motivations instead of enemies who could pop out of the jungle at anytime. I look at the others from Lost and how effectively they were introduced over time. This show would have to move faster than that (we didn't really see the Others until the first season finale), but it would have been nice to have a couple episodes without really knowing anything about the Sixers than what we saw in the goods exchange.
I like a good dinosaur fight, but there needs to be more than that and some mysteries. So far the family drama portion just isn't cutting it. There are a few other intriguing things in the pilot that I hope are elaborated on, I fear may not be. There is the ideas of building a new community and all the trials that go with that. Is there any sort of governing body or is it just Taylor? Will he become a dictator? There is also the time travel aspects. They handwave away the butterfly effect by stating it's a separate timestream. We don't have to worry about mucking up our time by playing around in the past, but do we deserve to be mucking up whatever may emerge in the future of this timestream? Trying not to repeat the mistakes of the future is also a good theme to build upon. There are kernels of great drama in there, I hope they pop.
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