Just when the theoretical water cooler was starting to get lonely, along comes “Terra Nova” (7 p.m. Central Mondays on Fox) to make it a popular gathering spot again. (Metaphorically, of course; the actual water cooler at my workplace is tucked in a corner office and you have to pay to be part of the water club.) This is the best new show of the fall, easily, and there are many reasons why.
Monday saw the two-hour premiere of this long-awaited, much-hyped Steven Spielberg-produced series about people from 2147 who travel through a one-way time rip to the age of the dinosaurs in order to escape a polluted Earth. Yes, it has dinosaurs — majestic brachiosaurs, required to majestically ease us into this world a la “Jurassic Park,” plus carnotauruses (“I hate carnotaurus,” gruff military man Taylor says matter-of-factly) and “slashers,” who attack by swirling their tales around like a giant serrated baseball bat. And it’s the most visually lush show since “Lost” (or, I suppose “Hawaii Five-0,” but that’s not my cup of tea); “Terra Nova” is filmed in the jungles of Australia.
Can the show-makers keep up the thrilling dinosaur-attack scenes week-to-week? I mean, the climax of the pilot features a whole swarm of slashers ganging up on a holed-up group of kids, followed by a strobe-light-filled showdown with the military. It’s a fair question, but here’s the remarkable achievement of “Terra Nova”: It doesn’t matter. There are enough good mysteries (a la “Lost”) and compelling characters (much more so than “Lost”) that we don’t necessarily need a regular fix of dinos to enjoy the show.
My favorites among the time-traveling colonists are:
- Taylor (Stephen Lang, playing a more human version of his “Avatar” general). The first man through the portal seven years ago, he tells us he spent 118 days in the jungle alone before the next man arrived (although, in 2147, that man was mere seconds behind him). He has a son who went missing beyond the walls of the fortified camp a few years back who is now leaving hieroglyphics on rocks near the waterfall, something Taylor doesn’t want other people to know about for some reason.
- Maddy Shannon (Naomi Scott). The teenage daughter among the five-member family we follow to Terra Nova, she’s a blend of the two kids in “Jurassic Park” with her geeky knowledge of dinosaurs, astronomy and technology. Upon meeting a cute guy, she rambles on about the diet of brachiosaurs, then tells her little sister “Kill me now” after he wanders off. He clearly still likes her though, and I do too.
- The group of misfit kids who go “OTG” (outside the gates) for fun. Led by Skye (Allison Miller), who invites Josh (the Shannons’ teenage son) to join them on an adventure of waterfall-jumping, hieroglyphic-reading and being chased by dinosaurs, these teens already seem like an established group of friends.
Then there are the fascinating sci-fi issues and story questions:
- The future society is based on our current form of democracy. We’ve enacted population-control laws that say “A family is four” — no one is allowed to have a third kid. But if you do, as the Shannons do, it’ll result in a hefty fine, not in the kid being hauled off or one of the parents being executed or something like you might expect in a dystopian sci-fi yarn. Some people are recruited to Terra Nova (like the Shannon matriarch, Elizabeth, who is a doctor), but the common folk have a chance to win a lottery to go.
- What’s the political set-up of the Terra Nova society? It seems to be a large commune — everyone is provided for, and everyone gets assigned a job — with a benign military leadership. However utopian this may seem on the surface, there are already problems that go beyond Skye’s gang sneaking out. Taylor’s son disappeared and he’s leaving strange drawings on the rocks by the river. And the Sixers — the sixth group through the portal — arrived with an agenda in tow and before long split the commune and became a nomadic band beyond the walls; we don’t yet know why.
- Communication seems to go two ways. One of Taylor’s men learns that 100 new colonists are due to arrive, and he mutters about how they’ll never get the housing built in time. Still, Terra Nova seems to have basically the right amount of people, suggesting that the future officials are being kept apprised of the society-building progress. But physically, you can only go back in time. Josh has to leave his girlfriend behind in the future (although you gotta figure she’ll come through that portal in a future ep, no doubt after he’s settled in with Skye). If “Terra Nova” runs for many seasons, I imagine they’ll construct a portal that goes the other way, too.
- “Terra Nova” sets up its time-travel rules right up front. This settlement is on a separate time stream from the future they left behind. Therefore, no one has to worry that stepping on a butterfly will stop them from being born. This is the same approach used by “The Terminator,” and it’s really the only way to tell a time-travel story without viewers’ heads exploding.
The “Terra Nova” pilot sets up a wonderfully rich, well thought-out world that will give the writers plenty of directions to go in, and viewers plenty of things to discuss around the ol’ water cooler. It’s likely that the show won’t be able to have huge dinosaur-vs.-machine-gun battles every week, just as “Lost” couldn’t feature a polar bear attack every week — the episodic budget will probably be much less than the pilot’s.
And yet I don’t think that’ll be a problem. This world is just so fun to explore, and it has people you want to explore it with (I haven’t even mentioned the show’s main character, Jason O’Mara’s Jim, a rock-solid but impulsive guy worth rooting for). It’s not hyperbole to say this is the best TV pilot ever — the mythology is on par with “Lost’s,” but the characters here have more depth and potential. Ideally, you’ll want to take full advantage of your home theater’s sound and picture capabilities, but even if you’re watching this low-tech-style, “Terra Nova” still captivates with its people, place and storytelling.
What are your thoughts on the first episode? What are the most intriguing questions as the story moves forward?