I turned this show on and regrettably watched about the first 10 minutes or so, I found it predictable, boring, shallow, a real yawner. Which means of course it will run for 5 years, another space holder in the vacuum of time.
Guess I will read a book as there is not much to watch on the tube remember those things books, hard bound, words inside, wonderful and lasting.
River
Terra Nova
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Riverwind (imported)
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BossTamsin (imported)
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Re: Terra Nova
I've watched a few episodes of this show, and regretted it.
Supposedly the more recent episodes are getting better in quality, but I'm not necessarily willing to trust the reviewers. About the only good news so far is that this series is apparently on the bubble, and its' chances of getting renewed are dropping each week. (Many are predicting that this show is not going to see a Season 2.)
Supposedly the more recent episodes are getting better in quality, but I'm not necessarily willing to trust the reviewers. About the only good news so far is that this series is apparently on the bubble, and its' chances of getting renewed are dropping each week. (Many are predicting that this show is not going to see a Season 2.)
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DonnyMac (imported)
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Re: Terra Nova
River, funny you mentioned this. I watched the show from the beginning. But last month stopped recording it. Way too predictable and simplistic. Just a mild soap-opera set in the past. Sad.
Don
Don
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moi621 (imported)
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Re: Terra Nova
Both Terra Nova and Hell on Wheels seem to be finding their feet.
Terra Nova is developing background stories as well as the story of the week.
Who is behind the "Sixers"? Why?
Will the petulant kid's girl friend be delivered for a future without question, favor?
American Horror Story and Lingerie Football (Friday, 10PM MTV2) remain my best TV season finds.
Although the Horror House (Murder House) seems to be getting overpopulated with 'spirits'.
Moi
Terra Nova is developing background stories as well as the story of the week.
Who is behind the "Sixers"? Why?
Will the petulant kid's girl friend be delivered for a future without question, favor?
American Horror Story and Lingerie Football (Friday, 10PM MTV2) remain my best TV season finds.
Although the Horror House (Murder House) seems to be getting overpopulated with 'spirits'.
Moi
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Cainanite (imported)
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Re: Terra Nova
Okay. I admit it. I like Terra Nova. I guess I'll be the whipping boy on this one.
For a science fiction show, it is very predictable. They have the opportunity to do so much more with the episodes than they are. The Terra Nova community seems too safe, and too secure. The wildlife is seen too little (needs more dinosaurs!) And the villain story line is too contrived (bad guys from the future want to devastate the past ecosystem for monetary gain.).
All that said, I find the story enjoyable, and the cast compelling. As the stories progress, the writing and acting ARE getting better. There is less cliche, and less bad acting. Do I expect it will be renewed?... No probably not.
Here are 10 things that would have made the stories better, and more compelling.
10. This should have been the first pilgrimage, not the ninth. It would have been better to witness people struggling to carve out human habitats from the hostile ancient world. Give the show some real danger. Try raising a child when at any moment you could be eaten by veloci-raptors.
9. Aliens. I mean you are 85 million years in the past. Why not? At least have some near human intelligence level inhabitants of that ancient world to clash with. It is science fiction after all, and you have an 85 million year gap in human knowledge to exploit. Time travel is okay, but aliens are not? C'mon writers, get creative.
8. You have a police officer (the only one.) trying to keep law and order in a lonely human outpost. He should be the sheriff in the old west. Things should be difficult for him. He should be a real investigator. Give him some corruption to fight. Give him some shootouts. Give him roughnecks and cattle rustlers. Star Trek was the wagon train to the west. Why can't this be more like that? Cowboys Vs. Sleestacks anyone?
7. More dinosaurs, less talking.
6. If they keep talking about the conflict with the future, why not do more with that? Why not balance what is going on with the past, with what is going on in the future? Do the show 50/50. 50% in the past, 50% in the future. Show the desperation of future people with too little clean air, too little food, and too little hope. Balance that with the trials and tribulations of people trying to survive in a hostile environment of 85 million BC. Make those conflicts between the two really mean something. Make me want to root for both realities. If you make me sympathize with both the future and the past, then you open up real dialog about how we can change our present. Make both sides morally compelling, but at odds with one another. It might cause some very heated water cooler debates, and keep interest in the show for a long time.
5. More dinosaurs. I know I said this one already, but it bears repeating. Everything goes better with more dinosaurs.
4. Get rid of all that future technology. Things are just too damn easy for these settlers. Making a human habitat should be hard, dirty, brutal work. Make a world where an infected cut on a finger could mean blood poisoning and death. Make finding medicinal plants, and safe drinking water a matter of immediate survival. My Grandfather's Grandfather got an infected toe while working his land. He was several days ride away from the nearest doctor, and he was getting a fever. He was forced to hack off his own toes with a hatchet to save his own life. That is the kind of drama that Terra Nova is lacking. For it to mean anything at all, the idea of rebuilding humanity needs to be growth from the ground, up. The settlers on Terra Nova are nowhere near desperate enough to make real life altering decisions. They have it too easy. Drama comes when things are hard.
3. The conflict between the Sixers and the settlers of Terra Nova is upside-down. The more compelling story would be of a technologically superior people hoarding supplies, and ruining the land, while the true settlers are forced to live in the trees and try to survive off what nature gives them. Make the people of Terra Nova the bad guys, and put the new family of settlers in with the desperate Sixers, living in the trees and trying to find balance with the natural world.
2. The show needs an enemy. Terra Nova needs a face to be in conflict with. The Sixers are not accomplishing this. The people of Terra Nova need a real dangerous threat to their survival. There needs to be something that can drain the blood from their faces and send the settlers running for any hole to hide in. Everybody is too damn comfortable. A real threat would make the stories so much more enjoyable. Star Trek had the Borg. Doctor Who had the Daleks. Heroes had Syler. Star Wars had Darth Vader and the Empire. A good Sci-Fi series has a good villain to hate.
1. And the number one thing Terra Nova needs for better stories. You guessed it. More Dinosaurs. This needs to be Jurassic Park meets Bonanza. Scratch that, it just needs to be more like Jurassic Park. There are great big meat eating monsters that might come into the camp at any time. We need to see herds of Stegasaurs, and Sauropods. We need to see great Pterodactyls soaring overhead. We need to fear that there might be any number of carnivorous beasts lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce.
All these things aside. I'm still enjoying the show. I don't know why I am. I'm aware of all the problems. I just like it and cannot explain it. I guess I like the actors, and I see the potential the show has. I didn't like LOST when it came out, but I grew to enjoy it over time. I liked Heroes when it came out, and grew to hate it over time. Maybe I'm wrong about this one too.
But I do still like it.
For a science fiction show, it is very predictable. They have the opportunity to do so much more with the episodes than they are. The Terra Nova community seems too safe, and too secure. The wildlife is seen too little (needs more dinosaurs!) And the villain story line is too contrived (bad guys from the future want to devastate the past ecosystem for monetary gain.).
All that said, I find the story enjoyable, and the cast compelling. As the stories progress, the writing and acting ARE getting better. There is less cliche, and less bad acting. Do I expect it will be renewed?... No probably not.
Here are 10 things that would have made the stories better, and more compelling.
10. This should have been the first pilgrimage, not the ninth. It would have been better to witness people struggling to carve out human habitats from the hostile ancient world. Give the show some real danger. Try raising a child when at any moment you could be eaten by veloci-raptors.
9. Aliens. I mean you are 85 million years in the past. Why not? At least have some near human intelligence level inhabitants of that ancient world to clash with. It is science fiction after all, and you have an 85 million year gap in human knowledge to exploit. Time travel is okay, but aliens are not? C'mon writers, get creative.
8. You have a police officer (the only one.) trying to keep law and order in a lonely human outpost. He should be the sheriff in the old west. Things should be difficult for him. He should be a real investigator. Give him some corruption to fight. Give him some shootouts. Give him roughnecks and cattle rustlers. Star Trek was the wagon train to the west. Why can't this be more like that? Cowboys Vs. Sleestacks anyone?
7. More dinosaurs, less talking.
6. If they keep talking about the conflict with the future, why not do more with that? Why not balance what is going on with the past, with what is going on in the future? Do the show 50/50. 50% in the past, 50% in the future. Show the desperation of future people with too little clean air, too little food, and too little hope. Balance that with the trials and tribulations of people trying to survive in a hostile environment of 85 million BC. Make those conflicts between the two really mean something. Make me want to root for both realities. If you make me sympathize with both the future and the past, then you open up real dialog about how we can change our present. Make both sides morally compelling, but at odds with one another. It might cause some very heated water cooler debates, and keep interest in the show for a long time.
5. More dinosaurs. I know I said this one already, but it bears repeating. Everything goes better with more dinosaurs.
4. Get rid of all that future technology. Things are just too damn easy for these settlers. Making a human habitat should be hard, dirty, brutal work. Make a world where an infected cut on a finger could mean blood poisoning and death. Make finding medicinal plants, and safe drinking water a matter of immediate survival. My Grandfather's Grandfather got an infected toe while working his land. He was several days ride away from the nearest doctor, and he was getting a fever. He was forced to hack off his own toes with a hatchet to save his own life. That is the kind of drama that Terra Nova is lacking. For it to mean anything at all, the idea of rebuilding humanity needs to be growth from the ground, up. The settlers on Terra Nova are nowhere near desperate enough to make real life altering decisions. They have it too easy. Drama comes when things are hard.
3. The conflict between the Sixers and the settlers of Terra Nova is upside-down. The more compelling story would be of a technologically superior people hoarding supplies, and ruining the land, while the true settlers are forced to live in the trees and try to survive off what nature gives them. Make the people of Terra Nova the bad guys, and put the new family of settlers in with the desperate Sixers, living in the trees and trying to find balance with the natural world.
2. The show needs an enemy. Terra Nova needs a face to be in conflict with. The Sixers are not accomplishing this. The people of Terra Nova need a real dangerous threat to their survival. There needs to be something that can drain the blood from their faces and send the settlers running for any hole to hide in. Everybody is too damn comfortable. A real threat would make the stories so much more enjoyable. Star Trek had the Borg. Doctor Who had the Daleks. Heroes had Syler. Star Wars had Darth Vader and the Empire. A good Sci-Fi series has a good villain to hate.
1. And the number one thing Terra Nova needs for better stories. You guessed it. More Dinosaurs. This needs to be Jurassic Park meets Bonanza. Scratch that, it just needs to be more like Jurassic Park. There are great big meat eating monsters that might come into the camp at any time. We need to see herds of Stegasaurs, and Sauropods. We need to see great Pterodactyls soaring overhead. We need to fear that there might be any number of carnivorous beasts lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce.
All these things aside. I'm still enjoying the show. I don't know why I am. I'm aware of all the problems. I just like it and cannot explain it. I guess I like the actors, and I see the potential the show has. I didn't like LOST when it came out, but I grew to enjoy it over time. I liked Heroes when it came out, and grew to hate it over time. Maybe I'm wrong about this one too.
But I do still like it.
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Riverwind (imported)
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Re: Terra Nova
I think you hit on it, I watched it for the first time tonight, a young chick was pissed because her hand held computer that does everything went on the blink, Oh the poor thing, it just seemed a bit to Beverly Hills for me, you know what I mean? Lets see, you go back 85 million years in time and OH no my manicure appointment got canceled. the horror of it all. And your right, needs more dinosaurs, like one looking in the window, and growling a bit would help. We had Bambi meets Godzilla years ago, it was a classic, what this needs it dino meets the fresh prince of Beverly Hills. But what can you expect from sound stage 7 on the Universal lot. It was to neat, to plastic, everything in its place, like the gardener comes in twice a week clean.
Back to my original comments, shallow and boring, maybe it needs more dinosaurs. Even Jaws had music, so you think this might make it to the end of the season?
River
Back to my original comments, shallow and boring, maybe it needs more dinosaurs. Even Jaws had music, so you think this might make it to the end of the season?
River
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Cainanite (imported)
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Re: Terra Nova
This is just an educated guess, but I'm pretty sure the show will get to the end of the season.
It will end on a cliff-hanger, probably that the portal to the future will be permanently wedged open, and all the future people are pouring in unchecked.
It will be a big, edge of your seat moment that will get people talking, but it will be too little too late. The ratings will have already tanked, and the cancellation notice will have already come in.
It will be like the end of "The Event". I don't know if you remember that one. Writers were keeping too much too close to their vests, thinking, "This will be the next LOST. He he." Audiences were losing patience with it, and in the last season the writers had to start resolving stuff they probably hoped to hold onto for a couple of seasons more. It ended with "The Event" finally happening... after two seasons. A second Earth appears in the heavens, and Earth has to deal with an impending alien invasion of a technologically superior people.
It ended with the promise of a great story to come. Sadly, it was too little, too late. The Event should have started with that moment, not end with it.
I expect Terra Nova will end much the same way.
The writers will finally notice that people want some drama and conflict in their stories. The cliff-hanger ending will finally introduce some real stakes into the story, and then we'll never see or hear anything about the TV show Terra Nova again.
I've seen it happen far too often.
I still like the show, but it may be because I have a strange attraction to one of the characters/actors.
No. I'm not telling you which one it is. That is something private between me and my TV.
It will end on a cliff-hanger, probably that the portal to the future will be permanently wedged open, and all the future people are pouring in unchecked.
It will be a big, edge of your seat moment that will get people talking, but it will be too little too late. The ratings will have already tanked, and the cancellation notice will have already come in.
It will be like the end of "The Event". I don't know if you remember that one. Writers were keeping too much too close to their vests, thinking, "This will be the next LOST. He he." Audiences were losing patience with it, and in the last season the writers had to start resolving stuff they probably hoped to hold onto for a couple of seasons more. It ended with "The Event" finally happening... after two seasons. A second Earth appears in the heavens, and Earth has to deal with an impending alien invasion of a technologically superior people.
It ended with the promise of a great story to come. Sadly, it was too little, too late. The Event should have started with that moment, not end with it.
I expect Terra Nova will end much the same way.
The writers will finally notice that people want some drama and conflict in their stories. The cliff-hanger ending will finally introduce some real stakes into the story, and then we'll never see or hear anything about the TV show Terra Nova again.
I've seen it happen far too often.
I still like the show, but it may be because I have a strange attraction to one of the characters/actors.
No. I'm not telling you which one it is. That is something private between me and my TV.
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BossTamsin (imported)
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Re: Terra Nova
So many things to reply to, Cainanite.....
1, 5, 7: Hell yes. All the way.
2, 9: From the premiere, when the kids were exploring the 'forbidden waterfalls with coincidental mysterious glyphs', I had been expecting some form of alien/saurian/whatever to show up and become their big baddies, forcing everyone to work together in an attempt to survive.
Everything else: Wholeheartedly agreed upon.
Yes, the series will hit it's season end and all episodes will air. I don't think Fox has anything in the chute to replace it before then, and since they've already filmed, might as well squeak out what return they can get.
Yes, it will end on a massive cliffhanger, likely upon some plot point that really should have been introduced much earlier in the season when people might still have had a chance to actually care about what happens to any of these people.
And yes, The Event should have compressed that entire season down to maybe three episodes or so, with the massive climax occurring end of the third episode, giving them a chance to spend the rest of the season exploring it. Maybe by eliminating everything 'flashback', particularly anything involving the kid and his fiancee. Similarly, V should also have been heavily edited down, and the pace doubled.
1, 5, 7: Hell yes. All the way.
2, 9: From the premiere, when the kids were exploring the 'forbidden waterfalls with coincidental mysterious glyphs', I had been expecting some form of alien/saurian/whatever to show up and become their big baddies, forcing everyone to work together in an attempt to survive.
Everything else: Wholeheartedly agreed upon.
Yes, the series will hit it's season end and all episodes will air. I don't think Fox has anything in the chute to replace it before then, and since they've already filmed, might as well squeak out what return they can get.
Yes, it will end on a massive cliffhanger, likely upon some plot point that really should have been introduced much earlier in the season when people might still have had a chance to actually care about what happens to any of these people.
And yes, The Event should have compressed that entire season down to maybe three episodes or so, with the massive climax occurring end of the third episode, giving them a chance to spend the rest of the season exploring it. Maybe by eliminating everything 'flashback', particularly anything involving the kid and his fiancee. Similarly, V should also have been heavily edited down, and the pace doubled.
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Dave (imported)
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Re: Terra Nova
The problem with THE EVENT and I suspect TERRA NOVA (from what little I've seen) was that the writers tried to stretch the story and failed.
This is the pattern of most detective stories:
A body is found. A detective is called. Suspects interviewed. Deductions are made. secrets revealed and finally, the murderer confronted, justice served, denouement.
Think of PERRY MASON or LAW AND ORDER and all the other police procedurals. Even Sherlock Holmes follows this pattern.
The choice of the "frame" around the basic murder story can lengthen or shorten the presentation but still, the individual parts are all there. The story might be told by different characters but the story contains the basic parts.
I think what happens here is that a story is loaded up with interior acts looking into everyone's motives. Those introspections and serious navel gazings might or might not advance the plot. The viewer or reader might not care about the particular characters past (maybe marriage history) and that lengthens the story but slows it down and makes it boring. Most characters in failed TV mysteries have insignificant back-stories. The reader or viewer doesn't need to know the prior history to solve the murder or the bank robbery or the crime.
This is the pattern of most detective stories:
A body is found. A detective is called. Suspects interviewed. Deductions are made. secrets revealed and finally, the murderer confronted, justice served, denouement.
Think of PERRY MASON or LAW AND ORDER and all the other police procedurals. Even Sherlock Holmes follows this pattern.
The choice of the "frame" around the basic murder story can lengthen or shorten the presentation but still, the individual parts are all there. The story might be told by different characters but the story contains the basic parts.
I think what happens here is that a story is loaded up with interior acts looking into everyone's motives. Those introspections and serious navel gazings might or might not advance the plot. The viewer or reader might not care about the particular characters past (maybe marriage history) and that lengthens the story but slows it down and makes it boring. Most characters in failed TV mysteries have insignificant back-stories. The reader or viewer doesn't need to know the prior history to solve the murder or the bank robbery or the crime.
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Cainanite (imported)
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Re: Terra Nova
Dave (imported) wrote: Wed Dec 14, 2011 8:49 am The problem with THE EVENT and I suspect TERRA NOVA (from what little I've seen) was that the writers tried to stretch the story and failed.
This is the pattern of most detective stories:
A body is found. A detective is called. Suspects interviewed. Deductions are made. secrets revealed and finally, the murderer confronted, justice served, denouement.
The problem with shows like V and THE EVENT and even TERRA NOVA is that, if we use the analogy of the detective story, they have yet to find the body. They are spending too much time on the motivations and investigations without the big crime even taking place yet. A good detective story begins with a crime taking place.
In THE EVENT the body or crime was the alien invasion, and bringing the alien planet into orbit with the Earth. It took them two seasons to get there. Finally happened in the last episode.
In V it was the Visitors controlling the minds of all the inhabitants of the Earth, except for a rare few freedom fighters. Again, it didn't happen until the last episode.
In TERRA NOVA it is the invasion of people from the future coming to destroy the utopia a small band of humans have built for themselves. Probably won't happen until the last episode.
If we want to compare these to a murder investigation in a good crime story, then where is the damn body? If these TV executives want to create compelling TV you have to start with the big crime, or big event, and build your story around that. You can't spend season after season of viewers time building up to something big. Viewers will decide you'll never get there, get fed up and stop watching. When you run out of viewers, you get cancelled. Then it is too late to tell the story you set out to tell in the first place.