The short short version of this review? I spent the whole time wishing the main characters would get eaten by dinosaurs.
Okay, it wasn't a total disaster or anything, but if I'm being totally honest, I kept whinily asking the show to be over as I checked the time code on my DVR to see how much show was left. I didn't go into this one expecting to absolutely love every minute or anything, but I expected at least not to be bored. Literally, at one point two of the main characters are speeding away from a dinosaur that's trying to kill them and all I could think was, "I wonder if there are any brownies left in the kitchen... I should go check." I'm guessing I'm in the minority here when it comes to this pilot (and based on most reviews I've stumbled across, I'm mostly right), but I was underwhelmed pretty much from minute one.Terra Nova stars Jason O'Mara as Jim Shannon, a cop living in 2149 which is a post-industrial, polluted hell hole where the air is unbreathable without a "re-breather" to assist, people are packed into crumbling cities, resources have been almost completely depleted, and population control is necessarily
enforced with military precision. I knew the show was in trouble the second O'Mara got home to his family (a wife and three kids (which is one too many from a legal standpoint)) with an orange en tow. I think it must be required for all futuristic wasteland scenarios that fresh fruit be dragged out as some sort of emblem of how bad things have gotten. "Oooh, an orange?! I haven't seen one of these in years! Where did you get it?!" Ugh. Never seen that scene before. Don't get me wrong, some truly spectacular sci-fi shows have employed this hackneyed ploy, but when Firefly does it, you get a compelling piece of backstory about soldiers blowing each other up by placing charges inside apples. It was also very story specific, rather than simply being a heavy-handed illustration of the environmental state of the planet. With Terra Nova, it merely marked the first in a long long of sci-fi cliches that were borrowed from more successful predecessors.Upon finding the Shannon family's third child hiding in a vent (stupid kid couldn't keep her mouth shut for 2 little minutes), papa Shannon gets thrown in jail for assaulting one of the officers. Two years later, his wife gets called up to go back in time 85 million years on the Terra Nova project (she's very conveniently a doctor), whereby waves of citizens from 2149 will start a new timeline of human events. Basically, humanity wi
ll be allotted 85 million extra years to destroy the joint. Yay? Good for us? After a series of highly illegal events, the whole Shannon clan, Jim and illegal extra daughter included, make their way back to Terra Nova. From there, the highly predictable chain of sci-fi cliches and "back in time" tropes fall into place one by one. I kept hoping this show would bring something truly new and unique to the genre, but more than anything, it just tried to jam-pack as many other genres on top of this one that it could, borrowing even more cliches from around the narrative world. In its attempt to craft a show for everyone, it appropriated a fairly cheesy family drama (a sub-par version of Everwood sprang to mind), excerpts from The O.C. and Melrose Place as the hot young singles in the colony (including an obvious love interest for mopey teenage son of the Shannons) go jump off a waterfall (yeah, I called that one from a mile away), healthy dollops of Lost (the "Others" are called "Sixers" these days), the sci-fi militarism we've come to know and expect from this kind of project, a ridiculous number of set-ups for young love, more than a little Avatar thrown in, and Jurassic Park style everything else. It was all very impressive to look at, but it all felt extremely familiar. Honestly, that hardly covers the pantheon 
of predictable plotlines, but I got bored just recounting those ones. It all made for a disappointingly clunky debut to a show that should have blown me away, not annoyed me.For a show that's focused, has a clear identity and purpose, and whose writing team has solidified what it wants out of the show in advance, familiar tropes and storylines can easily and successfully be littered throughout. Firefly, for example, was a sci-fi western, complete with all the trappings, but was also a post-war battle between the allies and rebels, any number of love stories, a mystery, a family drama, and just about everything else. Firefly presented all these aspects in a seemingly effortless way that simply felt organic to the characters and the setting. With Terra Nova, I kept getting the feeling that there were just too many cooks in the kitchen with each wanting a certain aspect thrown in wherever it happened to fit in a shameless bid to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Knowing the American viewing public as I do, I'm sure a lot of people were more than happy with this show because indeed, it casts a wide net. Had I not seen so many other shows from similar genres, I probably would have been far more forgiving, but for me, this massively big budget, show-stopping production felt derivative, not innovative or original.
The pilot buzzed through a hell of a lot of backstory and exposition in its two-hour debut, establishing a huge cast, a fair bit of mythology, the often saccharine and disingenuous inter-dynamics of the characters, and the scientific underpinnings of what they're doing and how. It's that last one that was probably the most unnatural for them to convey. In order for the viewers to be informed about the "science" behind it all right off the bat, eldest son Josh has to carry the idiot ball for the better part of the episode, having things explained to him by
his brainy younger sister left and right. Not only would anyone in this situation know the basics of what they're doing and how, but it would have been a lot more interesting for me as a viewer to leave some of it unclear. I don't need everything explained to me right out of the gate. I'm sure I'm in the minority once again, but I'd much rather be simply immersed in a world and have details about the mechanics relayed over time, letting them become clear naturally as I slowly learn more about the world around me. Instead of letting me wonder about the Butterfly Effect of it all, muse about the effects it will all have on the future, try to figure out how they got there, etc, I was instead forced to listen to an annoyingly stereotypical character offer a lesson to her siblings in the least natural way possible. But then again, in any family dynamic, we need to the brooding, moody rebel older son and the brainy, awkward younger sister, dontcha know. Ugh. All the plot exposition became oppressive, annoying, and largely unnecessary as the show went on. We've all seen this kind of show before, people. We don't need this. Indeed, the Butterfly Effect should have been the most interesting part of the show, with the past altering the future in unexpected ways, but this rules that out immediately, indicating that Terra Nova exists in a "different time stream" or something and therefore has no effect on the future. While I can understand where the writers wouldn't want to deal with all that (*cough* Lost *cough*), I think it would have made for a much more interesting storyline. The show could have created a dynamic whereby the colonists had no way of knowing what impact they were having on the future, which would have led to any number 
of moral and ethical considerations that would have been interesting to watch. As is, it kind of felt like the easy way out. A cop-out.I think if the basic set up had been more captivating the narrative elements would have been stronger over all. To be honest, I was more interested in the hellish future than in the dinosaur-laden past. I expected the time-travelers to be establishing a new colony in the past, figuring out how to survive and determining if this gambit will actually save mankind or not. That was not the case. Rather, the Shannon family travels back in time to a colony begun several years earlier and which has huge, detached houses for each family, a well-defined compound, and residents who basically grew up there. I should have been pleasantly surprised by this one and only surprise on the show, but instead, it just seemed to limit the writers on what they could do. By the end of the pilot, it was clearly evident why the colony had to be well-established for the story they were telling (and to avoid even more Lost comparisons), but all in all, I think I would have rather watched the show I expected because the show I got was kinda dull.
The show honestly has pretty decent bones to work with, it just didn't work with them very well. I think it's the kind of show that could be really good, but that the pilot wasn't very good. This clunky hodge-podge of stories and characters didn't take full advantage of the assets at its disposal. Hopefully they will in the future... Easily the most interesting aspect of the show was the "Others" who are comprised of a group of colonist who all came back with the sixth wave (which is why they're called "Sixers" now). They broke off and formed their own colony which is now at odds with Terra Nova. They've been posited as the bad
guys (or at least the opposition) of the show, but I found myself wishing I were on their journey instead of the one I was on. In spite of the constant Hallmark Family Movie moments between the Shannons, I so didn't care about that family at all. I salute the writers for trying to endear them to viewers in a substantive way, but they were all so stereotypical that it was impossible for me to jump on board or get attached. They all just seemed like 2-dimensional cardboard cutouts that I just wanted to see get eaten by dinosaurs. The Sixers were far more interesting and for the sake of my enjoyment of the show, I hope to hell they have a more prominent role in episodes to come. I think they struck me as the most interesting because their origins and motives were left unsaid, allowing me to speculate and theorize to my heart's content. Had I been forced to listen to clunky plot exposition in that regard, I'd probably be as disillusioned with them as with the main guys, hoping both bloody colonies get eaten by dinosaurs. Fortunately though, they left some room to grow in this regard and I'm genuinely intrigued. Added to that, Captain Taylor (the main guy leading Terra Nova) has a son that went missing years back who, I like to think, has something to do with the Sixers, but we don't know what. What we do know is that he's most likely the one behind a number of mathematical inscriptions on some stones by the falls that look like they were left a confoundingly long time ago. My hope is that Taylor's son is some sort of a genius who devised a way to manipulate time by himself and went even further back and left the inscriptions. Between Taylor's son and the Sixers, I was rather entertained amid the other blander aspects of the pilot. Hell, they were a lot more 
captivating than the Shannon family and even the dinosaurs.Speaking of the dinosaurs, I did not love the CGI. At times, the dinosaurs looked really good, but more often than not, it was pretty apparent that managing the level of special effects necessary to be convincing on a television budget was a pipe dream. This was an obscenely expensive television pilot and I still wasn't buying the dinosaurs half the time. Man alive, I can only imagine what they'll look like week-to-week with only one fifth the budget to rely on. Prepare yourselves for puppets on sticks in the future. Er, the past... You know what I mean.
I really wanted to love this pilot, and I'm sure a number of people did, but at the end of the day, I was just plain bored a lot of the time. The whole thing felt inelegantly devised and like it had been cut and pasted together from 9 other shows and 15 previous drafts. It just didn't seem to have its own identity. In theory, this is something that can easily develop over time, but really, I don't know if I want to give it that much time. I walked away from this pilot without much of an attachment to anyone. Indeed, the two characters that I found the most interesting were the two main Sixers who, all told, saw maybe 10 minutes of screentime, if that. I'm not the least bit invested in the Shannon family or their petty squabbles. In yet another trope that drives me crazy, I had to endure a family bickering over stupid, meaningless crap while there are dinosaurs trying to kill people. Yeah, so Papa Shannon went
to jail for two years for punching that cop who was after his daughter, right? At one point, after the family has traveled back in time 85 millions years, whiny teenager Josh actually gets pissed at his dad for leaving them for two years and making them fend for themselves. Uh, you mean when he was in prison? Geez, the nerve of that guy! Don't worry though, the prison is squalid nightmare where they can't even use re-breathers, but Jim got a clean shave every morning, that's for damn sure. Seriously, he's supposed to look all haggard and worn, but there isn't even a trace of stubble on his cheek. Heh. What's worse, it's later revealed by the son that they probably would have incurred some sort of fine for having a third child. Seriously?! Jim freaked out and started punching people because he was afraid of a fine?! I thought the soldiers were going to kill the girl! It's things like this that make me think this script went through about a dozen drafts. At one point, maybe the soldiers would have killed the girl, but in a later draft, that seemed to harsh, so they watered it down. Quite frankly, I think it would have made for a much more compelling if the soldiers had killed the daughter. Not only would it have established the future in a way that was much more terrifying, but it would have given the family as a whole a deep-seeded resentment against the government that could have been spun into thrilling storylines once they got to the colony. Are they really loyal? Might they join the Sixers? It would have given the show a lot more gravity than it has. Hell, at the end of the day, after dinosaur attacks and military engagements, no one was killed? Seriously? Well, maybe this place isn't so scary after all... And I don't think that's a good thing.It was all the little things that let Terra Nova down. There was no one failing that made me dislike it, no big giant Jim Caviezel to bore me to tears. Little things like the prisoner's lack of stubble, the see-through medical charts (because apparently patient privacy is a thing of the past... er, future), clothes that apparently came from The Gap and Ann Taylor (I swear to god, I think I own that sweater the mom had on),
references and verbal turns of phrase that felt idiosyncratic and out of place for the future, piles upon piles of cliches, etc. all came together to the clear detriment of the storytelling. Were the narrative more compelling and original, the little things wouldn't have mattered. But, when the characters are bland and unmemorable, the conceit is overwrought and derivative, and overall narrative drive is inconsistent, the little things are much more glaring. When my family and I weren't actively mocking the show, we were pretty bored. For comparison's sake, we watched the CW's sappy, schlocky new series Hart of Dixie right after this and even for as bad as it was, we weren't as bored. At one point we were noting how cheesy and it was and I said, "Well, it's bad, but I'm not as bored as I was with Terra Nova." A sentiment echoed by the room. How sad is that? Yikes.In fairness, it wasn't a total disaster and really does have some good elements to work with. I think if the writers can settle in and really get a good grip on their goals for the show, it could turn into something really good. While I'm not chomping at the bit for more, I think is has enough in place that I'm willing to hang on. I'm genuinely intrigued by the Sixers' story, even if not much else. My hope is that Terra Nova can break away from all the cliches and craft its own identity. If it can manage that, I think it could easily turn into something more captivating than it is. If, however, they insist on following the melodramatic, charmless Shannon family for the entirety of the show, I'll be tuning out sooner than later. Seriously, for a show with this kind of concept, I would have expected someone, anyone to have had some edge and uniqueness. Quite the contrary, I felt like I was watching the wacky hijinx of one Time Traveler Barbie after another. Here's hoping for better down the line.
Pilot Grade: C-
