Terra Nova, aka: Terra Awful

**Jaqhama** · October 2, 2011 @ 8:35 AM

Linda and I just watched the pilot episode of Terra Nova.

Oh my God, what an absolute load of rubbish.
Plot holes big enough to pilot a starship through.

And the most annoying thing of all...the firearms they have gone to the trouble of transporting back to the prehistoric age are all but useless against the predatory dinosaurs.

FFS we've firearms that can be carried and utilised by a single person today that will blow holes in the side of buildings and in Terra Nova they're using weapons that wouldn't make a hole in the side of a soggy meat pie.
John Rambo was blowing up trucks with explosive tipped arrows back in the 80's for Gawd's sake.

It's so very easy to see the difference in quality between a real sci-fi production and a load of hastily thrown togther bollocks like Terra Awful.

We took note that they didn't see fit to take any aircraft back in time with them. Not even ultra-lights. Even 007 had a mini-copter, and that was back in the 60's.

There's so many stupid plot holes that I can't even be bothered to list them.
Plenty of other people have, in different reviews.

For me the main brain dead let-down is the lack of suitable weapons. The lack of any kind of air support, for either recon purposes or search and rescue.

The addition of soldiers wearing motocross armour that isn't going to do a damn thing to protect them from anything at all. Oh, I'm sorry...was that camo painted MX armour supposed to fool viewers into thinking it was some kind of futuristic protective equipment? Ha ha ha. Ah, that's so funny. Listen...your prop dept sucks.

And I'm sure we all noted that even in 21 whatever everyone is still wearing the same kind of clothes you can buy in Walmart today.
Again, SF shows in the 60's and 70's realised that people would be dressed differently half a century later. Let alone a 100 years later.

Did anyone who had anything to do with making Terra Awful actually put any thought into any aspect of it?

Or was it...lets make a tv series like Jurassic Park. But maybe a bit more like Lost. Add a tiny bit of Avatar.
Hey, that's a great idea. Bound to have the viewers begging for more.
What about a plot?
Nah. Viewers are like Zombies, except they can drive cars. Forget about a plot, much less a decent screen writer. We'll do fine without one.
Ok, cool. We'll get right on it.

Welcome to Terra Awful.

There you have it.

Beam me up, Scotty. Now!!!

**John M. Whalen** · October 2, 2011 @ 9:59 AM

This is another mess produced for TV by Steven Spielberg. And that's the whole problem. It seems once he decides to put something together, whether it's TV or films, he hires people who want to be his clones. They have no original ideas. They basically use the Speilberg formula, i.e., start with a family. let them have 2.5 kids, at least one of which is something of a wilful brat who will not do what he or she is told and thence get themselves into trouble so the plot can move on. Next put the family into some exotic, special effects environment, a la Jurraisic Park, get the kids into jeopardy, and oh, yeah, don't forget the environmental message. Terra Nova is basically JURRASIC PARK IN SPACE. This was not just some idea hasitly thrown together. There are lots of big bucks that went into the special effects (development of which actually delayed the premiere of the series) and what a waste of money it is. Despite his enormous success, Spielberg has always produced and directed material aimed at the lowest common denominator. But then I guess that's why he's a success. It's time for the Academy to give him his lifetime achievement awards so he can stay home and retire.

**Jaqhama** · October 2, 2011 @ 11:40 PM

John ole horse it's just such a damn shameful waste of time, money and (supposedly) talent.

There's so many welll written SF novels that would make great long running TV shows.
And all they can come up with is Terra Awful.
Which is just another re-make of Walt Disney's original Swiss Family Robinson movie or the old TV serial Lost in Space.

Oh well, saves me spending another hour in front of the idiot box.
My time in front of the TV these days is about 4 hours a week.

My prediction is that Terra Awful won't last into a second season, what do you reckon?

**John M. Whalen** · October 3, 2011 @ 1:08 AM

Could go longer because of Spielberg's clout. But if the ratings aren't good, it'll get cancelled pretty quick. The show costs too much per episode to make.

**Jaqhama** · October 3, 2011 @ 4:08 AM

This guy liked it as much as us.

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ks...-lame-cliches/

**Dave** · October 21, 2011 @ 8:29 AM

I didn't watch the show, but I was reminded of that book series from from back in the 80s, although for the life of me I can't remember them. Abotu a group of people who travel back to the pliostene. Julina May. Seems like a pretty blatant rip-off.

**Jaqhama** · October 22, 2011 @ 12:10 AM

Best time travel / dinosaur story was in the 2000 Ad comic...called: FLESH.

Ran out of food in the future. Cowboy like dinosaur hunters go back in time and harvest the dinos. Explains why the dinos died out huh?
It was a great story.

**che2000** · October 22, 2011 @ 1:26 PM

Through sheer force of will, I sat through the first three episodes last night. It's main problem for me was that it was all just a bit dull - the characters were hard to engage with and all this tacked on nonsense about the 'Sixers' just seemed to be there in order to give the characters something to react against (as if a world full of dinosaurs couldn't produce enough drama in and of itself). I also felt slightly insulted by the whole 'snappers' and 'howlers' thing when it came to the dinosaurs, as if nobody could be bothered to find out their proper names. When the T-Rex finally arrives, I have no doubt it'll be called the Big Pointy or something equally as bad.

In the battle of special effects vs writing, once again the special effects won out, and special effects just ain't enough these days.

Flesh? Now there was a man against dinosaurs story, I re-read the whole thing not that long ago and was surprised at how well it still stands up some thirty odd years later and by how violent it was, particularly when you consider that 2000ad was very much a children's comic in the early days.

**Frank** · October 22, 2011 @ 4:47 PM

I agree the show could be much better. I'm tired of SF television being so formulaic and predictable and poorly written. I could live with a limited budget and unoriginal setting if only they'd try more adventurous appoaches to plot and structure. So what if the set up to the whole series is derivative? They could move on from there and use the setting to it's full potential. I'm equally tired of plots that fit neatly into one episode. What would be so wrong with carrying several plotlines across half a dozen episodes, or a whole season? SGU did this to an extreme and it got them cancelled. But there is a happy medium to be found between these two examples.