Fox’s newest Sci-Fi drama “Terra Nova” premiered last week after more than a year of speculation and intrigue with a two-hour pilot that proved to be worth the wait.
“Terra Nova” was initially supposed to premiere last fall season, but was pushed back due to torrential rains in Australia, where the show is filmed, as well as other issues.
“Terra Nova” is set in the year 2149, where the planet is in such bad shape that it’s quickly becoming inhabitable and threatened with extinction due to overpopulation, pollution and other factors. Never to worry, though, as scientists have found a space-time continuum in Chicago that allows people to go back in time to the land of dinosaurs 85 million years ago.
Our protagonists are the Shannon family, Jim (Jason O’Mara) and Elisabeth (Shelley Conn) and their three children, a 17-year old son named Josh, a 15-year old daughter named Maddy and a 5-year old daughter named Zoe.
Elisabeth has been recruited to Terra Nova because she is a doctor, which is a profession much in need back in time with the dinosaurs gnawing on people and all. But, there is a complication before she can go to Terra Nova … her husband, Jim, is in prison for assaulting an official of some sort, when it’s found out that he and Elisabeth are hiding a third child. In the future, the government has put a limit on the number of children a couple can have. Of course, it doesn’t take long for Jim to escape the futuristic prison with the help of a smuggled in laser, and the family is off to the past for their future.
If there is one thing that was taken from the pilot it’s that this show is going to be exciting, maybe the most exciting new series of the fall, and how could it not be with carnivorous big-ass reptiles running around chewing on humans.
Also, because the show is shot onsite in Australia, it’s likely to have the best scenery of any show we’ve seen on television in sometime, though many of the scenery shots are also clearly CGI’d. The CGI really leads to the only complaint from the first episode of the series … this is 2011 can’t we make the CGI behind the actors look more life-like?
A big complaint from many fans and critics alike is that some of the science involved in the show doesn’t really add up … as if a show about traveling back in time to the land of T-Rex should? Honestly, this isn’t a complaint that is very valid. If TV shows strived to make everything 100 percent accurate it would probably take much of the excitement from those shows.
“Terra Nova” airs locally on Fox on Mondays at 7 p.m.
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