★★★★★ 0/5

Terra Nova: reviews

Dino-series Terra Nova is like tuning into the old Sunday Night at the Movies.

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We’ve been waiting a long time for Terra Nova and it all begins on Sunday with a double-dose premiere from 8:30pm.

In many ways it’s like tuning into the old Sunday Night at the Movies. This is family fun (ok, it’s a little bit violent sometimes) on a grand scale. Shoot ’em up dinosaurs, teenagers misbehaving, eco-themes and lots of action.

Keep your eyes peeled for Damian Walshe-Howling and a buffed up Dean Geyer. Phwor. I also spied Eka Darville from Blue Water High, The Elephant and the Princess and Spartacus: Blood and Sand.

Definitely worth checking out, hope it sustains long term. It’s sci-fi after all…

Here is what the US critics are saying.

The Hollywood Reporter:
It might be impossible for Fox’s new drama series Terra Nova – one of the most hyped and anticipated of the fall – to either meet expectations or, more damning, its hoped-for Nielsen ceiling, but the show has a lot to get fans excited about. It’s ambitious in scope, has a likable, far-ranging cast and appears to be planting enough storylines to lure in fans who are having Lost withdrawal. The show only runs into trouble when it involves dinosaurs and, since Steven Spielberg is the main name attached to the program, will undoubtedly go Jurassic more often than not,” he adds. “However, for every eye-rolling appearance of a dinosaur causing Jurassic Park redux, there is a morsel of hope in some other, mythological strand that pops up in the pilot.

LA Times:
Easily the most exciting show of the fall season, Fox’s Terra Nova has such obvious, instant and demographically diverse appeal — sci-fi fans, fantasy fans, 5-year-olds, 50-year-olds, Al Gore — that you have to wonder why no one thought of it before. Part post-apocalyptic epic, part family drama, part monster-thriller, the two-hour premiere of “Terra Nova” manages to introduce a panoply of narrative threads and themes while telling a remarkably clean story, both in terms of plot line and tone; “Terra Nova” is whole-family friendly.

New York Times:
Is Fox’s Terra Nova, with Steven Spielberg’s name at the top of its long list of executive producers, the best of a generally unremarkable bunch of new network shows this fall? Possibly, though to make that argument you need to work around the fact that it’s without doubt the squarest, most old-fashioned series to hit television since — well, since Mr. Spielberg’s Falling Skies on TNT this year…..Turning conventional, sentimental family soap opera into moving drama and taut suspense is a Spielberg hallmark, of course, but that happens only intermittently in the “Terra Nova” pilot, which was written by Craig Silverstein, Kelly Marcel, Brannon Braga and David Fury and directed by Alex Graves. It doesn’t help that despite a reportedly lavish budget, we don’t get to see an abundance of dinosaurs. The Australian jungle locations, meanwhile, are colorful but look artificial and too heavily computer generated compared with the more realistic Hawaiian scenes in “Lost.”

Variety:
Depending on how one chooses to view it, “Terra Nova” represents another attempt to do a family drama in a (very) exotic locale, or the new TV season’s biggest gamble. Fox’s dino-spectacular — which counts Steven Spielberg and former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin among its herd of exec producers — boasts a muscular pilot, a serviceable plot and considerable ambition — none of which, it should be noted, sustained the net’s “Terminator” series. For starters, though, “Terra Nova” shines pretty brightly, even with the possibility it might wind up being remembered as another really expensive TV camping trip.

8:30pm Sunday on TEN.

37 Responses

  1. Thought it looked pretty cool from the ads…. finally got to watch the series itself and Wow. I think it’s awsome and I can’t wait for the season finale (and even a second season).
    It’s different t what I’ve previously watched, comeon; how many dino movies deal with a time fracture?
    Overall, awsome, I think it deserves a lot of credit.

  2. For a serious sci-fi buff, Terra Nova is massively disappointing. I was hoping for some real sci-fi fun. What I got was a hokum family melodrama with a bit of sci-fi decoration for cred.

    These people are from 140 years in the future but they still have early 21st century weapons (except for those sonic guns which are actually weaker than real guns), the same technology (actually, they’ve gone backwards – no laptops or mobile phones!), same clothing, same hairstyles, same everything. Oh wait, batteries are now called ‘power packs’ – but they run out just as fast. This is 140 years of progress!!! Sure, this is just detail, but it shows a crminal lack of imagination on the part of the writers – and sci-fi is about imagination. It could have been so much more.

    Also irritated by some wierd rule that dinosaurs can’t get hurt. A 19th century musket could kill an elephant with one shot, but we are expected to believe that masses of modern firepower can’t even wing one of these big lizards. Just plain stupid. In reality, those dinosaurs would be very quickly extinct!

    I’m not bothered by the use of an alternate time stream – the idea that you can be part of your own past is not just a paradox – it’s dumb. However, the ‘crack in time’ thing is the feeblest plot device. How convenient! No attempt to explain it or create a narrative back story. Hey, it just magically happened.

    That group of teens makes no sense either. Despite being in a frontier farming town, they have nothing to do all day but lounge around and go swimming. Even harder to believe, no one notices them missing (surveillance technology has gone backwards too).

    This show may work for the beer and pretzels crowd. Good luck to them.

  4. Anyone for an Avatar leftover and recycled security officer?
    Love the show but nothing new under the sun as yet.
    This appeared to be a collection of snippets from other movies including Pitch Black.

  5. Watched it tonight.Ads drove any chance of a build up in tension out the window .Characters were not realistic for the time.Taylor acts like a cold war warrior.Teenagers really that stupid… i think not.They need to spend money on writers.I think it will not last.

  8. The pilot was the best new shows I’ve seen in a while, especially for a sci-fi/action/drama. Wish they would have done better in the ratings.

    FYI (in the US) 2.5 Men fell 33% from last week, TPC was also down and in danger of being cancelled. 2 Broke Girls was also sharply down 37% another Nine show which I’m sure is now being put on the shelf next to Mr Sunshine and Episodes.

    Hawaii 5-0 was down a fraction so still pretty good sign for TEN. Lastly Mike & Molly held the same numbers as last week with the Emmy winning show winning it’s time slot in the US. Has Nine even made one mention of bringing this show back since Melissa won last week?

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