Review of Terra Nova

Terra Nova takes place about 100 years in the future when we’ve destroyed the environment and everyone has to wear masks all the time to protect themselves from the toxic air.  They find a way to go back in time (to an alternate timeline so they can’t effect the future) to a time before humans existed and dinosaurs did.  They start a settlement and try to start humanity all over again.

I was really impressed by the first episode.  The sets looked really good as did the dinosaurs for the most part.  I was afraid it might look too cheesy but they did a good job.  The first episode was two hours, most of the first spent telling the story of a family, the dad being arrested for trying to protect his daughter, him breaking out of jail, and all of them ending up in Terra Nova.  They had a number of storylines that have potential, mysterious writings on rocks, a rogue group that broke apart from the main group and has an unknown motive, dinosaurs….

Had I not watched the next two episodes I would have given this show a B+.  The next two episodes almost entirely ignored all of the story lines from the first episode.  Other than a two minute scene in the middle of episode 3 and a 1 minute scene at the end of that episode it didn’t advance the story at all.  Instead they were both self contained, very generic stories.  Both epsiodes went like this:

Hey, um we have a problem.
We need to find a solution before it’s too late!
I’m a scientist I’ll figure it out…….Here’s the answer!
Yaaaaaaay!!!!!!!

I understand the main characters wife is a scientist but is she going to solve the problem every episode?  This is turning into House with dinosaurs. 

It looks like the story will progress a little bit next episode.  Hopefully it does because I won’t watch a whole season of episodes like the last two.

I’m giving this show a tentatice C until I see what they do with the next episode or two.