As I mentioned in my NBC Thursday post, I was way behind due to being out of town. I finally caught up, so here's last week's Terra Nova post just a smidgen late. Not a particularly memorable episode, anyway.
So I hope this is just growing pains. No mentions of the mysterious writing and only a cursory mention of the Sixers as a possible cause of the team disappearance. This in itself wouldn't be a problem if the family portion of the show was more compelling. We need to learn more about the people that make up the Shannon family. Okay, maybe they are trying to do that, but failing. Josh wasn't nearly as annoying as last week, but instead barely registered. Why should I care if he can get a guitar or not? And kind of hitting on Skye in the same sentence that he is reminiscing about his back in the future girlfriend was a little weird. I like the idea of the soldier guy and Maddy, but there's not enough there yet to be invested. He likes her, she likes him, not sure if the other knows. Interesting stuff, but has had maybe two minutes of the three hours of show so far.
The worst of it all was introducing Malcolm. I'm not against the introducing of a romantic rival, cliche, but can be done well. Here it was not done well. We have Jim and Elisabeth trying to reconnect throughout the hour, but keep running into distractions. Their scenes together are very lovey-dovey, and then we're suppose to think she would step out on Jim for this Malcolm guy. There are so many better ways to go about it. Wait a little longer and introduce this guy when the Shannons are having a big fight or marriage troubles, or introduce him now to be the science guy, but reveal later that his history with Elisabeth was more than school chum and that he recruiter her after there has been some build up of sexual tension. It comes back to what I was saying last week about revealing things too quickly.
There was one scene I quite enjoyed that didn't last nearly long enough. Jim playing Mr. Mom. There was actually good stuff in there. Jim having trouble cooking, Maddy asking him about boys, forgetting to give Zoe a bath. Jim has to reconnect with his family after being in jail for two years and it was nicely portrayed here. His flower pot interaction with Zoe in the beginning was a nice touch, too. If the powers that be can craft more scenes like this, the family stuff could get better.
On the non-family, dino side of things was a pretty lackluster story. It delved into how Terra Nova could be screwing up the ecosystem of the time, but didn't dwell on that nearly enough. I was especially put off by the fact that no one brought up the fact that Terra Nova is suppose to eventually house all of humanity (at least I think that's the plan, it's been vague). It's going to expand, and when it does they'll face the same problem again once they settle the valley they took the black pterosaurs to. If you're not going to dwell on the intellectual side of things, then give us some action. Nope, the two major action pieces of tagging the dinos and then leading them to the valley happen off camera. I suppose the house invasion was kind of action-y, but the special effects look better on the wide shots than the home close ups.
Oh, I forgot there was a small Sixer thing. Taylor thinks there's a traitor in Terra Nova. I thought that was common audience knowledge already, but maybe I was just inferring. Anyways, it's been spelled out now and he has Jim on the case!
Still early in the show to make any snap judgement, but I hop things improve next week.
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