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Try intoducing him to DVDs of the old Land of the Lost or, if he wants up-to-date CGI, Primeval. Both of them feature time travel and dinosaurs and are superior to Terra Nova.
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Originally Posted by Positron
My son will be crushed. This was his favorite show on TV. I agree with the sentiment that it was a terrible show, but when I saw it through my 9 year old's eyes I saw magic.
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My condolences to your son there. I can understand where you're coming from. It's just too bad that 'conflict' so heavily overshadowed those other four. There was certainly the potential for magic.
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Reason: Not enough Sleestaks.
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Whenever I consider/criticize shows like this I try my hardest to empathize with what the "target audience" might be for it.|
Originally Posted by Positron
My son will be crushed. This was his favorite show on TV. I agree with the sentiment that it was a terrible show, but when I saw it through my 9 year old's eyes I saw magic.
* Time Travel * Dinosaurs * Future weapons and tech * Mystery * Conflict I imagined how I would have reacted if this show was on when I was 9, and yeah, it would have been my favorite show ever. I think sometimes we lose sight that some shows need a chance because they can be something a family of all ages can watch together. |
I'm willing to accept the idea that this particular show was simply not geared towards me.
Still as TrueGentleman said there are alternatives to this kind of thing, and arguably many of them are better shows anyway.
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All joking aside I seriously thought, when I first heard of this show, that one of the "big reveals" of it was that they were going to find some kind of Sleestak-like civilization that would have become a main focus of the show.|
Originally Posted by ChaosAngelGeno
Reason: Not enough Sleestaks.
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Think of how interesting it would have been if they had to deal with some kind of "first contact" scenario and then deal with why those critters are there but yet we had no idea they existed before. Did we start fighting with them and wipe them out or would there be some other cool twist to it? Maybe we would learn that these "dinosaur men" were actually the first technologically advanced species on the planet and it was the actions of the Terra Novans (either on purpose or by accident) that caused evolution to turn towards mammals taking their place in the future. I just came up with that in a few minutes. *shrugs*
This kind of thing would have made the show 100x more interesting than it turned out to be.
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I didn't think the show showed no consequence between episodes. What did you want them to do with the son, keel-haul him?
I used that term on purpose because the colony is like a sailing ship in days of old, you can't lock someone up for anything short of mutiny or murder because you need all hands. The son was under house arrest (he was still considered a minor) except the times when he was on work detail. The infraction from the pilot (group sneaking out, going to the still, getting people mauled) resulted in latrine duty for all parties involved who still had functioning limbs IIRC.
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I think it was hitting its stride and that it might have had a chance given a second season. I mean look at Smallville's first season - Kryptonite mutant of the week got old fast. But they changed things and went 9 more.
And they hinted at the 2nd season. A man made artifact from the future found in the past. That meant there was some link from Terra Nova past to SOME future. Whether it was of their own future or the Terra Nova world future -- who knows? One way or two way? But that could have brought in several factions that were too far removed to get involved on first season. Indians? Pirates? Colonials? Their own ancestors from centuries beyond? Themselves from years beyond?
I wonder what they were aiming for -- and whether they would have broadened the focus so wide that they would have further lost their direction, *OR* more tightly focused it.
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My personal explanation is that the rift from the future to this Earth always existed, would randomly open up and swallow things and depositing them in the badlands region because that is where that end of the rift tends to open.
All they did in the future was to find a way to lock that end down and open it on command and the portal they eventually built at Terra Nova locked that end down (till it got blown up).
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Bermuda Triangle.|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
My personal explanation is that the rift from the future to this Earth always existed, would randomly open up and swallow things and depositing them in the badlands region because that is where that end of the rift tends to open.
All they did in the future was to find a way to lock that end down and open it on command and the portal they eventually built at Terra Nova locked that end down (till it got blown up). |
Think about it. 18th century ship's figurehead and we've got a section of the planet that is ripe with "unexplained" disappearances. They got sucked into a timewarp. I imagine they might've went so far as to having people from different eras, like pirates & WWII fighter pilots, having to either live together or kill each other. And that region could also play host to, potentially, people from a time in the future. Especially now that the embarkation point in 2149 is destroyed.
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My personal explanation is the writers wanted to create a cliffhanger that was sufficiently ambiguous and left enough openings to resolve their loss of the portal in any way they wanted next season. Finding something from the the pseudo-future in the terra nova past implies that there is another way to travel between time lines, but what that thing is could be anything at all. I doubt the writers knew for certain what that would ultimately be.|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
My personal explanation is that the rift from the future to this Earth always existed, would randomly open up and swallow things and depositing them in the badlands region because that is where that end of the rift tends to open.
All they did in the future was to find a way to lock that end down and open it on command and the portal they eventually built at Terra Nova locked that end down (till it got blown up). |
And even if they claim to know, these days I wouldn't believe them without proof. Writing teams seem to believe you can lie about this with impunity.
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Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
Try intoducing him to DVDs of the old Land of the Lost or, if he wants up-to-date CGI, Primeval. Both of them feature time travel and dinosaurs and are superior to Terra Nova.
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THIS!!!
And not just because it's an entertaining series for kids. But because currently Amazon has the entire series (7 discs) on sale for only $12.50
Don't count your weasels before they pop dink!
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TerraNova lived on the edge of my TV pull list each week, almost falling off since day one. The last 4 episodes including the 2 hour season finale redeemed the series though. At least they managed a wrap-up which makes it a relatively clean end.
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Originally Posted by Positron
My son will be crushed. This was his favorite show on TV. I agree with the sentiment that it was a terrible show, but when I saw it through my 9 year old's eyes I saw magic.
* Time Travel * Dinosaurs * Future weapons and tech * Mystery * Conflict I imagined how I would have reacted if this show was on when I was 9, and yeah, it would have been my favorite show ever. I think sometimes we lose sight that some shows need a chance because they can be something a family of all ages can watch together. |
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I think I've made my relative dislike for Terra Nova pretty well known here, but there is some news that Netflix might actually pick it up and keep it going.
I suppose this could be a chance to see the show revamped and reorganized into something that might actually be more palatable to more people. I'm not really holding out -that- much hope that'll happen, but still it would be interesting from the point of view that nontraditional companies like Netflix are starting to move into the "original content" game.
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I know I made the half-joking case yesterday that Terra Nova could have copied Land of the Lost enough to have their own version of the Sleestak. But we all know if they had actually done that then some people would simply dismiss it and claim Terra Nova was directly "ripping off" Land of the Lost. |
Originally Posted by Dark One
Bermuda Triangle.
Think about it. 18th century ship's figurehead and we've got a section of the planet that is ripe with "unexplained" disappearances. They got sucked into a timewarp. I imagine they might've went so far as to having people from different eras, like pirates & WWII fighter pilots, having to either live together or kill each other. And that region could also play host to, potentially, people from a time in the future. Especially now that the embarkation point in 2149 is destroyed. |
But having said that I'll bring up the point that Land of the Lost already basically explored the "Bermuda Triangle" angle as well. There were many Land of the Lost episodes that involved the Marshall family meeting pirates, Civil War vets and even fun mythological critters like Medusa. All of these "guest stars" of the week had supposedly gotten sucked into the Land of the Lost via random portals just like the Marshalls did.
So all I'm saying is if they were setting Terra Nova up to be based on running into random historical people via Bermuda Triangle style portals then that would have been anything except an original idea for a show.
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"Terra Nova is the Hubble Telescope of television," says its lead actor Stephen Lang.
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Well that's certainly one way to describe it. To me it was more like the Titanic: Here you had a show that was full of hype and majesty which, for all appearances, should have been unsinkable. Everyone had high hopes for it and it had all kinds of budget and talent behind it.|
Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
"Terra Nova is the Hubble Telescope of television," says its lead actor Stephen Lang.
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But despite all the expectations it suffered from fundamental story and plot weaknesses. It was as if they had the hubris to think they could get away tossing anything at us and we wouldn't mind the icebergs of poor dialogue and annoying characters that made the show a literal chore to watch.
For what it's worth I hope the show does get a chance to get a "corrective lens" (in the form of a massive restructuring in another venue like Netflix) because it was clear that what Fox had going was simply doomed to sink.
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Lack of proper planning crippled it, but no one wants to admit it was their fault.
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Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
"Terra Nova is the Hubble Telescope of television," says its lead actor Stephen Lang.
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If it doesn't get bought by someone else, I wonder if we'll see a movie or some books that carry on the story... That's the usual track...
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He might like Prehistoric Park if you can find it. My kids did. We all watched it together. It's more a nature show than an adventure show, but there is always excitement. And time travel, and dinosaurs.
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Originally Posted by Positron
My son will be crushed. This was his favorite show on TV.
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Never watched it. Was mildly interested until they cast that block of wood Jason O'Mara as the lead actor. He's the same guy that was in the US version of Life on Mars, and while that had a whole host of other problems, he was terrible in that too. He's just one of those actors some people seem to like that I can't even stand to watch.
The whole premise of the show made my brain hurt. You have an ongoing ecological disaster and your Plan A is TIME TRAVEL? What the heck was Plan B that made Plan A the more plausible solution?
Scientist: So the time travel plan is on the table. Any other suggestions?
Flunky: Plan B! Set FIRE TO THE SUN!
Scientist: ...plan A it is then.
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Meh, don't care much that it got cancelled. I watched a couple of episodes and I found it a crappy show. The plot was all over the place while leading nowhere and the acting was at times horrendous.
Next, please!
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Plan B:|
Originally Posted by Flafty
The whole premise of the show made my brain hurt. You have an ongoing ecological disaster and your Plan A is TIME TRAVEL? What the heck was Plan B that made Plan A the more plausible solution?
Scientist: So the time travel plan is on the table. Any other suggestions? Flunky: Plan B! Set FIRE TO THE SUN! Scientist: ...plan A it is then. |
Goodbye, I guess.
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My son will be crushed. This was his favorite show on TV. I agree with the sentiment that it was a terrible show, but when I saw it through my 9 year old's eyes I saw magic.
* Time Travel
* Dinosaurs
* Future weapons and tech
* Mystery
* Conflict
I imagined how I would have reacted if this show was on when I was 9, and yeah, it would have been my favorite show ever.
I think sometimes we lose sight that some shows need a chance because they can be something a family of all ages can watch together.
Positron
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