Terra Nova (Sci-Fi TV series)
 

Plot:
From executive producers Steven Spielberg ("Saving Private Ryan," "Jurassic Park"), Peter Chernin, René Echevarria ("Castle," "The 4400") and Brannon Braga ("24") comes an epic family adventure 85 million years in the making. TERRA NOVA follows an ordinary family on an incredible journey back in time to prehistoric Earth as a small part of a daring experiment to save the human race. In the year 2149, the world is dying. The planet is overdeveloped and overcrowded, with the majority of plant and animal life extinct. The future of mankind is in jeopardy, and its only hope for survival is in the distant past. When scientists at the FERMI Particle Accelerator unexpectedly discovered a fracture in time that made it possible to construct a portal into primeval history, the bold notion was born to resettle humanity in the past – a second chance to rebuild civilization and get it right this time. The series centers on the Shannon family as they join the Tenth Pilgrimage of settlers to Terra Nova, the first colony established in this beautiful yet foreboding land. JIM SHANNON (Jason O'Mara, "Life on Mars"), a devoted father with a checkered past, guides his family through this new world of limitless beauty, mystery and terror. Jim's wife, ELISABETH (Shelley Conn, "Mistresses"), is a trauma surgeon and the newest addition to Terra Nova's medical team. JOSH (Landon Liboiron, "Degrassi: The Next Generation") is their 17-year-old son who is angry to leave life as he knows it behind; upon arriving at the settlement, he finds himself instantly drawn to the beautiful and rule-breaking SKYE (Allison Miller, "Kings"). MADDY (Naomi Scott, "Life Bites"), Josh's endearingly awkward 15-year-old sister, hopes Terra Nova will give her a chance to reinvent herself. Although Elisabeth's medical training secured the family a spot on the pilgrimage, a secret involving their five-year-old daughter, ZOE (newcomer Alana Mansour), soon endangers their place in this utopia. Upon the Shannons' arrival, they are introduced to COMMANDER NATHANIEL TAYLOR (Stephen Lang, "Avatar"), the charismatic and heroic first pioneer and leader of the settlement. Taylor warns the travelers that while Terra Nova is a place of new opportunities and fresh beginnings, all is not as idyllic as it initially appears. Along with blue skies, towering waterfalls and lush vegetation, the surrounding terrain is teeming with danger – and not just of the man-eating dinosaur variety. There is also a splinter colony of renegades led by the battle-hardened MIRA (Christine Adams, "TRON: Legacy"), who is vehemently opposed to Taylor and his leadership. Even more threatening than what lies outside the protective walls of the colony is the chilling possibility that something sinister is happening inside Terra Nova. The Shannons will come to suspect that not everyone on this mission has the same idea of how to best save mankind; in fact, there may be forces intent on destroying this new world before it even begins.

Now this is interesting and looks like a hit. And it's got Colonel Miles Quaritch too!:)
Can't wait for the premiere.

Well surely if the colony was a success it would create an unstable time loop, right? So it would have to be doomed to failure.

that depends on whether you see time as being linear or multi-dimensional

Goddamn it.

And here I thought they were adapting a great classic Looking Glass title, Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri, into a TV show.

Too bad. :(

I thought there was already a TV series called Terra Nova that came out like decades ago. I'm probably thinking of Earth 2 though.

This show is either gonna get cancelled or end up as convoluted and unsatisfactory as Lost.

More Hollywood anti-technology, anti-progress nonsense. Yawn.

Unless of course you're not dealing with that kind of time travel. You could be dealing with something where time traveling is really more analogous to going to an alternative universe.

Or someone was stupid and forgot about the asteroid. Though that give humans about 20 million years to screw up.

Since they have cars, guns, and a medical unit, I suspect it isn't entirely anti-technology and anti-progress. However it looks like they are going it wrong if they intend to colonies the past. They have way too few people...and if they want to keep going forward, they need to bring their toys with them and continue on from where they started.

Could be an alternate universe I guess.

I think that other then that, doing a "colonisation" type story could be pretty neat. I do think though that they could easily dodge any timeline quirks by just having it be a new planet with monstrous beasts (a la Avatar) rather then the past. Then you could simply observe the whole man vs. nature dynamic, as well as how people behave under pressure and a relatively lawless (and more tribal) world.

A bit like a more sophisticated version of Eden no Ori.

Anyway, I think it has a lot of potential. Man vs. Nature is a stable of storytelling, but it's often not seen as much in modern fiction these days.

Exploring the urge of man to control his surroundings etc. I for one don't think this will take the "technology is EVIL" route that we kinda see in Avatar, but something a bit more nuanced.

I hope.

I'm guessing they're sending in more people into the past.

And depending on how diverse the gene pool of the colonists you were sending in (plus intensive screening for major genetic defects), a pool of over a thousand people might not be to unworkable as an initial population base.

Let's say multidimensional/multiuniversal. Otherwise my head will explode trying to deal with time paradoxes.

American media hasn't be keen on progressive technology in decades. Ironically, this is true for the general population as well. People love their iPhones and other gadgets, but they really have no clue about how far past that science is really pushing the boundaries of technology.

As interesting as dystopian futures and "new frontiers" can be, the "let's escape and go somewhere else/start over" plot line is getting old. I'm seriously impressed with the budget, but all I really see is Avatar/Earth2 with Dinosaurs and a dash of SGU/BSG. With the incredible amount of science fiction/fantasy stories to tap from, these recycled ideas mish mashed together are starting to feel stale.

Even worse, this is a FOX show. I have no faith in it lasting, considering the networks track record of cancelling stuff before it can actually get an audience.

Don't know how I feel about this. Dinosaurs are cool but bad CG is going to seriosuly ruin the feel. They didn't exactly show much from that video so far so it's hard to tell if the dinos are going to keep looking good.

Yea I have to say this show is probably not going to get far. Gona be cancelled :(.

They paid for 13 episodes without a pilot. Mostly due to location shooting, large sets, and expense (4 million an episode or something like that).

Earth 2,

now that was a long time ago, ok show, didn't last long through.

I'd actually prefer if they went for the defined limit of episodes, rather then a never ending lost clone. If it only lasts one or two seasons I'd be very happy. Just so long as it doesn't get cancelled prematurely.

There was also a Star Trek episode called "Terra Nova":

http://www.startrek.com/database_article/terra-nova

Can't wait for September 26.

I'm definitely interested in watching this but I'm not sure if I'll bother. Every other sci-fi show on network television I've been interested in has been canceled after a season or less, and this is on Fox, the undisputed champion of canceling shows. Tired of getting into stories only to have them end abruptly with no resolution or a rushed ending at best.