Anyone Watch The Terra Nova Premier? Spoiler Alert!

While I did not have that much enthusiasm for it initially and saw it as just another opportunity to put CGI dinosaurs on screen yet again I must say I was impressed.

To be honest though I was more impressed with the 22nd century Earth (2149, choked horribly by pollution, overpopulation, and depleted resources) than I was Earth of 85 million years ago.

Anyway the premier was well cast, directed, outstanding production values, and actually a decent story.

Now the downside.

Is it even possible anymore to launch a new series, especially a science fiction series WITHOUT some kind of conspiracy angle?

Obviously not.

And the downside of Terra Nova is the conspiracy is blatantly obvious right off the bat.

"Control the past. Control the future"-the leader of the rebel "Sixers" (from the Sixth Pilgrimmage) said.

Along with the references about "What Terra Nova is really here for".

the ultra valuable "meteorite ore".

It is clear, by the value of the "meteorite ore" that Taylor the leader of the Terra Nova colony is willing to bargain for (and its relatively small quantity) that the real purpose of the Terra Nova colony is NOT to provide a "fresh start" for humanity but to acquire the meteorite ore and either ship it back to the 22nd century or use it to generate power that can be transmitted back to the 22nd century.

After all, while it is claimed that people can't return from Terra Nova, it is also made clear that communications are possible and do in fact take place.

If you can send a radio message from 85 million years ago to 2149 then you can send a power beam of some kind most certainly.

Also, if communications are possible, it is clear that the BS about Terra Nova establishing an "alternate timeline" where humans can prosper and not ruin the Earth eventually is false.

This is alluded to when the kids look at the first probe that went back in time and how it was "never found" (in the future) meaning the trips into the past established an alternate timeline.

An interesting series. If the writing holds up I hope it succeeds.

But to me conspiracies have a way of putting a "shelf life" on tv series. You can only dance around the "big story" for so long before you have to have some kind of resolution and move on. And once the "big story" comes out into the open, series tend to die.

But worth watching.

 

I don't agree with this - in fact, pretty much exactly the opposite. If they were still in the same time stream, then by all the conventions of the genre the future would be different already, in fact, it would shift again every time a new set of emigrants came through.

There's no reason within the context of the story who the portal could not still communicate with the old timestream that I can see. Since the portal itself is a plot device, the properties of the device can be whatever they say, as long as they are internally consistent.

I liked the show pretty well, even though I could see certain conventions in play. I really don't care if a plot device is recycled if the story is good. I do agree the production values were excellent.

 

DVR'd. I'll watch it sooner or later.

 

I wasn't. Earth will never get like that. But that's an argument for another day.

Wrong!

This is an upside for us viewers. We know what it's about and can watch the characters move through the conspiracy.

We won't get the crap we got with Lost, Flash Forward, The Event, and other shows where they string us viewers along never answering questions.

I'm glad I know what it's about.

He needs the ore for Terra Nova. I don't think he yet knows why the Sixers came through. Obviously their job was to take him out and take over the colony.

So from his point of view the Sixers are sitting on the ore quarry in order to blackmail him into dealing with them.

All you need is a time machine. Which is probably those strange writings on the ricks by the water.

Of course they never found the probe. How the hell would they expect a probe to survive 85 million years in order to be found? So little of that time period has survived.

Let's not forget that in 20 million years a big six mile rock comes to the party and wipes out the dinosaurs.

Anything could have happened in 85 million years. Damn thing probably rusted away.

I think TV shows, like Terra Nova, would be better off if they had a set number of seasons. Like a very long movie.

I don't need ten years of Terra Nova.

 

We don't know that.

In fact I'd say you're wrong.

It's a big timeline. Eighty-Five million years in the past and stepping on a insect isn't going to wipe out humanity or change us. If the timeline was that fragile then no one would time travel.

And given that 20 million years later we get a visit from a certain plus size rock which wipes out most life on Earth.

I'd think we'd be okay.....

I don't think we are on an alternate Earth and I'm willing to bet they just didn't find the probe in the future or someone did and kept it secret in order to push the agenda it's an alternate Earth.

Or a modern day America found it and boxed in a warehouse next to the Ark of the Covenant and that alien crap.

 

I don't see this show making it very long.

Very boring first episode.

I would have killed the Sixers. The less of them the better for my colony.

And in 2149 they don't have big weapons they can send back to take out a dinosaur? Really? Why bother shooting if you know your gun is next to useless?

Even today I'd bet on a .50, 20mm or even 40mm being more then enough to take out a pissed off dinosaur.

No helicopters? You can make fuel for them.

Who lets a doctor go on a dangerous mission? Terra Nova!! I guess they don't have medics.

And alcohol is banned or something? Build the still inside Terra Nova. DUH. In fact you could build one inside your house. Are they doing regular searches?

All the emo shit from everyone, kids and adult?

I was rooting for the dinosaurs. Which were pretty cool and I like how that one guy got taken out of the vehicle and chowed down on. Lesson to the next man? Keep your eyes on everything. If it moves towards you then duck!

My prediction: Show gets canceled after one season. It is Fox afterall.

 

I'm not talking about a butterfly - the introduction of a highly influential new species to the ecosystem, particularly one not shy about making a HUGE footprint - would do it alone, but much more importantly, the initiation of advanced technology that far in the past is a difference maker of a size impossible to adequately describe.

A Asteroid in 20 million years? Hell the human race hasn't been around more than what, a tenth of that? And these people are not starting with stone knives and bear skins. If these' fuckers haven't terraformed the moon in half that time (20 million) they're a bunch of slackers.

Assuming thy don't wipe themselves out before then of course, but even if they do you have to assume the next race that rises behind them will never discover any of the tech they left behind. If they don't wipe themselves out, it's probably not possible for us to grasp what achievements they will reach even before the asteroid arrives - let alone in another 65 million years after that.

Certainly something radically different than the dirt-cloud they left.

 

I'm not counting on them surviving.

And besides they may have evolved into:



So they don't have to live on Earth anymore. They packed up and left for the stars......

 

This has to be some of the most contrived bullshit I have ever watched on television.

 

Everyone's favourite hack Brannon Braga is involved in this show. Just on that basis I predict the show will flop.

 

There are a couple of things this series reminds me of

A short story (later novel) called "Hawksbill Station" where a right wing dictatorship in the United States exiles its political enemies to Earth a billion years in the past.

And another short story about a colony much like "Terra Nova" established by the U.S. and Soviet Union in a joint venture (this was in the 1980s) tens fo millions of years in the past. While almost everyone thought it was some kind of research project, both sides kept sending back families and kids.

It turned out both sides considered an all our nuclear war inevitable and scientists on both sides were sending back as many people as possible so humanity could start anew.

 

What I hate most about this series is simply the concept. It is in line with most all new "science fiction" series and movies these days. There is absolutely zero confidence in the future of the human race. Everything Is Going To Hell So We Better Climb Back Up In The Trees.

In fact, it's pretty funny in a way, because this is a series so reactionary environmentalist that they actually have to turn back the clock back to when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. That's rather harsh.

 

I think there was a tv producer a few years back who said

"You want sunny and optimistic watch Star Trek".

The big thing is it basically takes some serious writing talent to write good drama that is "sunny and optimistic".

Why are networks (including cable) overrun with crime dramas?

One reason is that they are damn easy to write for. It allows writers to push the envelope in the darkest parts of human existence and that tends to be interesting.

Another thing is that "sunny and optimistic" often requires writers who at least have a passing familarity with science fiction.

But the bulk of television writers are not science fiction writers, haven't watched or read much science fiction, and really are not that interested in science fiction.

One of the seldom mentioned reasons for the success of the original Star Trek series was that a number of the writers were not only familar with science fiction but very exceptional science fiction writers themselves. Ellison and Spinrad to name just a couple.

 

Hawksbill station was much more clever. It was set in the era of ultra primatibe life, long before dinosauers and plants. Furthermore the men and women were sent to different times to avoid reproduction. This book made sure the prisoners could not effect the future. Terra Nova, not so smart.

 

All you need is to influence one little shrew like mammal though.

It meets its mate an hour later than it would due to going into hiding to avoid a human walking past. A different sperm fertilises its mates egg as a result, which results in a different offspring to our timeline, which has a different offspring to our timeline, which has a different offspring to our timeline, which has.......85 million years later if humanity exists at all we are all entirely different people.

 

IIRC, the most common ideas today regarding time travel into the past (and back again) is that when you return to your own time period, you would not be actually returning to the original time period you left, but to basically an alternate time period that has been changed from where you originally left due to whatever changes no matter how large or small you made in the past.

Returning to your absolute original time period is basically impossible.

 

If time is that fragile then no one goes back.

Just the act of going back could change the future because as soon as you show up you could make that little shrew of yours mate an hour later. (If the shrew is near where you "materialize")

I don't think the timeline is that fragile.

 

I agree wholeheartedly.

I've always thought the so called "Butterfly effect" was a lot of bull.

I'm reminded of that episode of MASH where Frank Burns asked dramatically

"What if Washington's troops on the way to cross the Delaware had stopped to go to the bathroom?"

(or something to that effect).

Hawkeye's reply

"So we'd have gotten independence 10 minutes later".

I think the vast, vast majority of changes people might possibly make in the past simply don't matter much. Most all lead to the same general result in the timeline anyway.

I call the idea of "changes without results" to be "Deadtime".

For example, you decide to get the oil changed in your car on Thursday instead of Tuesday.

When Friday morning comes around, the timeline is the same regardless of what you did.

 

I'm still trying to figure out how the wife hid her pregnancy. If she was already a high profile doctor, I would think that somebody would have noticed.

And the son needed a good boot to the head with his whining about daddy being gone for two years. Like fucking prison was a damn cakewalk you little shit!!!!

 

Perhaps she was influential enough where she worked that her coworkers had no interest in informing the police.

Or perhaps she was reported but if the govt. is anything like it is today, it took them a few years to get around to an investigation.

I agree about the son whining but one of his lines was important.

He suggested that "if dad hadn't lost his temper and hit the cop, he might've gotten off with just a fine".

So obviously it isn't like they drag a third child out and kill them or anything. Apparently it can be just a fine (though perhaps a stiff one).

I still think 22nd century Earth, just 138 years from now looks pretty cool.

 

while i agree that the so-called "butterfly effect" is far too far an extreme - I DO think a big enough change can make a big difference. Obviously Terra Nova's very existence qualifies.


But to use (kinda) the Washington example, there were a number of fortuitous turns of events such as a timely fog) which a small difference in timing would have wreaked.

Or consider the Back to the Future scenario - if your parents actually only have one chance to meet (unlike the McFlys) and your dad, for instance, doesn't get to go to the concert where he met your mom or whatever, that does create a tangible chain of cause/effect events. You can't just say "they would have somehow met anyway" unless you apply fate.

 

you might be forgetting how VERY much contrived bullshit has ever made it onto a TV screen...

 

The most concise explanation for alternate timelines is the chalkboard scene from Back To The Future 2.

 

Cute chicks, dinosaurs, guns. Check, check, check. I will continue to watch with my brain turned off, and enjoy it on that level.

btw, did anyone cath the one really clever gag - the "bullfight" moment with the Carnotaurus. Carnotaurus translates as "carnivorous bull." (Unless that wasn't clever writing, but a complete accident).

 

That's what I asked my wife.

It's not like the doctor was fat and could hide it. I mean I guess she could but it be pretty tough and in a world where they have "extra children" police and she works for the government you'd think they'd be testing people.

Or more importantly sterilizing women after the second baby.

Yeah he needs a boot the head. Oh gee they had to scrap and fight for the two years he was gone.

I'm sorry I thought mommy was one of the top doctors around. In fact she was asked why she didn't do what many of her colleagues did and get a home in a dome (i guess the dome is for rich people). They didn't need to scrap for crap.

Thankfully they got this nonsense out of the way in the first episode.

However it's more then a fine in their case. The wife told the husband in prison, after he told her to take the family to Earth, that they weren't allowed to take the youngest daughter. It would be rewarding the family for breaking the law. That's why she came up with the plan to break out the father and if you notice all the cash the father used came from the mother.

 

The only thing I caught in that scene is that a man faced off against a dinosaur no more then a couple hundred feet away when the dino charged him full speed yet a vehicle was able to get to the man and the man had time to stand there and say something corny like, "well don't just wait around, go" and the dinosaur wasn't able to stomp on the vehicle and both men before the vehicle could drive off.

 

The whole thing about "bullets won't kill" dinosaurs easily is one of those "givens" in science fiction that is about as common as faster than light travel.

It has been around for ages. And of course its ridiculous. A single harpoon gun will kill the largest whale and the large whales are several times the size of dinosaurs.

Of course whales are mammals and dinosaurs are reptiles so they might not be as vulnerable. But still. The whole "bullets won't work" has been a conceit of monster movies since the beginning.

I'm not sure why I was so interested in Terra Nova. Maybe I'm just tired of every other show on television being a police procedural.

 

Ah, but so is René Echevarria and I think I've really liked pretty much everything he's touched.

 

I've always felt that Braga was talented.

One of his problems on Star Trek was his obvious contempt and disregard for the franchise history and the fans that cared about it.

I always got the distinct impression that Braga considered Star Trek's huge backstory and "canon" to be an inhibitor that kept him from writing the kinds of episodes he wanted to write..

...and that he considered die hard fans who cared about such things to be simple minded amateurs who were trying to tell him what he should and shouldn't do.

At least that was the impression I got.

 

I would have preferred if the conflict could have just been between the two colonies after a falling out of the leaders. You know - how to run the colony. One wants to be as close to the way things were (will be) and the Sixers want to do something totally new and unique or maybe very old. And let the conflict remain strictly in the Terra Nova site without involving the folks from the future.
But maybe there's a better story editor on this series that will keep things interesting and keep Braga out of the script room.