Terra Nova - Monday on Fox at 8p EDT

In some ways it seems that the Novans have communication with the future, yet at the very beginning, we are told ‘It’s a one-way trip’. “I will find a way to get you there. Even if I have to come here and get youmyself” Josh told his girlfriend in the future. “It’s a one-way trip Josh, there’s no way back” was her reply.
If they can communicate with the timeline they came from, why would he need to find a way to come get her? Why would she say it’s a one way trip? And yet, when Jim asks about the Sixers and if Taylor had reported their ‘mutiny’, he is told that Taylor doesn’t know who to trust in the future, and until he does, he’s not going to report it. Which implies that there is communication with the future. But if so, why is it a one-way trip? With this being a different time-line, there really should be no way for communication with the future, unless the portal shows up on both sides, and they pass information back and forth during the time it is open. But again, there’s that little one-way trip thing…

I’m also curious about the Sixers and what their plans are. Mira also told one of her men that things were going to change soon. If there is no way to communicate with the future, how can she know this? There has to be some sort of bigger plans that the group the Sixers are part of have. Her statement also makes a person wonder if there are any more ‘Sixer agents’ in the new group of people who came across this time.

Other weird time things: Commander Taylor said that he was the first through the portal. He also said that for the others only seconds passed between him going through the portal and going through themselves, yet he was in the past for 118 days before they got there. Which makes one wonder just how long the Novans were waiting on the newbies at the entry point. How much of a heads up did they get? I suppose that in the intervening seven years they scientists in Hope Plaza have fine tuned the portal so that what happened to Taylor doesn’t happen anymore, but it does leave some interesting possibilities for future shows.

Also Taylor has been there for seven years, and yet Skye tells Josh that she doesn’t remember much of the future because she ‘was just a kid at the time’. She was also in the Fifth Pilgrimage, and if they are sending them regularly we can do some quick math and think that she can only have been there for four years tops. Yes, she’s supposed to be about 16, but I don’t know any 16 year olds that don’t remember things from when they were 12.

There have apparently been 9 other “Pilgrimages” to this time, with our family in the tenth, and an eleventh one planned with more than a hundred people and not as much time to prepare for them as the Novans would like. If the show continues for more than a season, this means that there is the possibly of an infusion of new characters.

I am confused with the whole ‘control the past, control the future’ thing that the ‘Sixers’ seem to believe in. Or at least they believe that that is what the Novans and Hoppe Plaza is doing. With 85 million years to play with, and knowing that somewhere around 65 million years the planet will face a huge calamity, just how do they think they will ‘control the future’? And since it’s a whole different timeline – or so we’re told – how can anything they do in the past ‘control the future’ that they all came from? And how could a whole Pilgrimage be replaced with people who have this philosophy?

The equations that we are shown by Taylor’s son are a big mystery. Somehow, watching the show, I figured that the equations had something to do with making a trip back to where the people came from. They also look to be sort of astronomical to my untrained eye.

The show has an interesting mix of super-high tech and rustic fort feel that I like. There has to be some sort of giant machine shops and giant lathes somewhere in the settlement. I say this because the logs in the fences are way too uniform to be otherwise. Also, in the past seven years a large amount of supplies, machines, and technology has been transported. Transported in parts and assembled at the settlement, I would think as that trek through the jungle the new arrivals took would be rather tough on high tech medical equipment we are shown if it was already assembled. And speaking of treks, in seven years, the colony hasn’t taken the time to make a good road through the jungle for people to walk from the entry point to the colony? Seems a bit strange to me.

All in all, I enjoyed the show and look forward to seeing how they resolve the conflicts and mysteries presented in the pilot. I just hope they don’t ask me to turn off my brain too much...

I just found this on Fox’s official Terra Nova site under this episode’s summary:
” Meanwhile, Mira orders the carvings destroyed, adding that - while incomplete - they tell of someone coming on the tenth pilgrimage who wasn't supposed to be here, someone who changes everything. And she thinks she knows who that person is.”

Now I just rewatched that part of the episode. Mira says and orders no such thing. The man with her asks why Taylor doesn’t blast them off the face of the rocks, and Mira says they are the key to ‘everything’, but she doesn’t order them destroyed, and she certainly doesn’t seem to know what they mean. Other than that whenever Taylor’s son ‘gets closer to an answer he puts them here for Taylor to see’. Also, the way Mira states that Taylor isn’t going to like that the kids were by the drawings makes it seem like she still works for Taylor. Which brings into question her’s and Taylor’s motives.

Although I have to wonder if Fox's summary of the episode is taken from an earlier draft of the script, and Mira's actions that it states didn't make it into the edited version.

Well it may be a one way trip for matter but not EM communications while the portal is open, like it was in SG-1.

It's been implied that there is likely Sixer sympathizers still at Terra Nova. It is also possible that members of the same group are sent back during each pilgrimage. It did seem that all you need was cash to get or fake credentials and money to smuggle stuff over.

I'm sure there will be additional back story of the previous pilgrimages as well as back stories of the major characters.

Notice that the try not to kill the local animal life. Sonic cannons and tranq rounds. If this is a split of the time line, why worry about a butterfly effect?

Also there is part of me that wonders if the reason they "accidentally" discover the time rift is because someone found evidence of the colony in the present.

And yes, it's my understanding that the series got reworked a lot since it was suppose to have been ready last winter or spring.

"Don't worry, they mostly hunt at night."

"Mostly?"

In the novel _Timeline_, Michael Crichton dealt with the the time travel paradox by envisioning that the traveler does in fact visit a universe next door, but it's one so similar that the difference is undetectable. Like, say, one where everything is identical except that a coin flip came up heads instead of tails a drop of rain landed a little to the left or the right of where it landed in the next door universe.

In that scenario,the Traveler from Universe A visits a point in the past in Universe B. Meanwhile the analog Traveler from Universe Z visits the same point in time in Universe A and undergoes substantially the same experience as A experiences with the same consequences. They both return to their respective homes and the evidence of their activities exists (presumably there's a Y who arrives in Universe Z). For all intents and purposes, they've traveled to their own pasts and interacted with them. Short of somehow identifying a cosmic signature that identifies what universe a thing originated in, there's no qualitative difference between traveling to the universe next door and traveling to your own actual past.

It was a rather elegant way of dealing with the whole business while still basically telling a standard time travel story. He also addressed the Star Trek transporter paradox - That is, if you destroy a person and reassemble them, can you say it's really the same person?

Anyway, Terra Nova - Even if it was the "real" past (and apparently it's not) I'm not sure it would matter. The ability to travel to the past means that there's some kind of cosmic meta-framework that allows the past to actually have some kind of persistent existence. If that's the case, then the ability to time travel precludes paradox in the first place. Everything that will happen does happen, including the time travel. You can't change the past; you can only fulfill it. If you appear to change the past, it's only because when you "went back to the future" you actually shunted yourself into a different universe on your return trip and not because you actually altered the state of affairs in your original origin point.

In any case - I'm not sure that the government(s) behind the colony would care. Butterfly effect aside, 85 million years is so far back that the colony's descendants would have to survive and thrive for many hundreds or thousands of times longer than mankind has been in existence in order to make much of a dent.

In fact, if I was the person who proposed the initial colony, I might well look to folkore about Mu and Atlantis and say "See? We have to do this. Those legends are about US.

The comet might even be viewed as a safety switch that protects the future from the colony. Let's face it - The whole of recorded human history (barring cave paintings) is around 8-10 thousand years. The fossil history of **** Sapiens is around 100,000 to 200,000 years. If you're buying the species twenty MILLION years then I don't think people are going to be too awfully worried about the whole ELE business.

Actually, my biggest question after watching the pilot is the one that Taylor had for the father - Why break the population law in the first place? No good answer was given, which implies to me that there IS an answer that's going to be involved with some kind of big "reveal" later in the story.

An obvious speculation would be that someone in the family has a genetic disorder that requires a contribution from the third child to treat. How you do that in the Jurassic, I'm not sure, though, so I suppose it may end up being something non-medical.

Great show so far, I love it. I loved firefly too. I hope this doesn't turn into another disappointment.

Lost meets Jurassic Park, meets No Ordinary Family.

Didn't really grip me as a pilot but I'll give it a few more eps cause the guy from Life on Mars is awesome.

Dinos are killing other dinos, the skull could have simply been found but I'm guessing it's a trophy from the time he was alone.

All the Sixers were one time members of Terra Nova. Since Skye was part of an earlier pilgrimage she may have made it a point to meet and greet everyone new. The population was smaller of course so knowing "everyone" would have been easier.

We finally watched the pilot last night on TiVo. It took me a few hours after that to stop unconsciously muttering in disbelief and shaking my head over just how groan-tastic most of it was. Like Father Xmas said it's like they marched out every overused TV trope you could think of and threw it against the wall to see what would stick. I can't say that I was exactly bored by it, but at the same time I couldn't get past how annoyingly shallow and trite most of it was.

About the only saving grace was Stephen Lang as Commander Taylor, but I'm not sure if he alone can carry the rest of the dead weight on the show. His character and the mystery involving his son and the waterfall etchings is probably just about the only thing that might make me want to watch a few more episodes to see where that plotline goes. Might just end up resorting to fast-forwarding through any part of the show he's not on the screen from now on. *shrugs*

Bottomline it was a very lackluster start to a heavily over-hyped network show. If it doesn't get incredibly better in the next few episodes its going to get dropped like a sack of rotten dinosaur eggs.

Okay, seems like others are answering faster then I do so I always seem 'late". hehe

It's a habit of mine to reply in a thread as soon as I read something post-worthy, but I am going to TRY to start reading the WHOLE thread before I comment on posts. (Gonna be difficult) ;P

I wonder... what would happen if other people did the same...?

*UNIVERSE ASPLODES*

Of course a lot of the "devices" have been used. EVERYTHING has been used.