This Steven Spielberg-produced epic is seductive. But I wouldn't care if any of them got eaten by a carnosaur
So it seems my colleague George Monbiot is worth every penny of his (recently divulged) salary because he's spot on about the future of the planet. Well, spot on according to Terra Nova (Sky1), this gargantuan new American sci-fi TV series. We start off in the year 2149 in Chicago, in a vast urban circular structure called (ironically) Hope Plaza. It's not nice or hopeful; through poor air quality and overpopulation the world is on the verge of environmental meltdown, almost literally gasping its last breath. Vegetation hardly exists; forget your five a day, an orange is up there with a major lottery win in terms. Creepy armed police patrol the place, checking for population-law violators (there's a strict two-child policy).
Violators such as the Shannons, who have three kids. Otherwise they're perfect. Jim is an action-hero cop, Elizabeth a brilliant doctor and English (these big shows require at least one British accent), the kids are gorgeous, they all are, they're huggy and adore each other. But because of little Zoe, they're in trouble, Jim is tossed into a Kafkaesqe prison ...
Yeah, like that's going to stop him. Already we've done Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mao's China, Cormac McCarthy's The Road and a bit of The Day After Tomorrow, now we're in Prison Break territory. He's outta there, in a flash. And off with the family to the only possible escape from this environmental apocalypse, a crack in space-time. Chosen citizens ? with the right skills, the right looks, possibly the right DNA ? leave by train (there's a touch of Nazism about it) to the fracture. The Shannons make it too, and step through to ... Terra Nova, of course.
Terra Nova is basically a luxury tropical eco-lodge, with tasteful sustainable upmarket accommodation, lush grounds, flowers, and baskets of fruit all over the place. Cond� Nast Traveller magazine should probably do something on it. In charge is Commander Nathaniel Taylor (Stephen Lang from Avatar, which this show also more than nods at). A little bit Colonel Walter E Kurtz, a little bit David Koresh, he's already the standout character by a mile.
Oh, and we're 85m years in the past, so there are CGI dinosaurs bounding about outside the gate, or OTG as they say around here. So it's Jurassic Park, too, of course (Steven Spielberg produces this). And King Kong, Lost, Lord of the Flies, possibly the Rings too. And everything and anything you want it to be.
It's massive, monstrous, a giant snowball of a show (there may well be giant snowballs later), gathering ideas and momentum and everything before it. The scale and confidence of it are both epic and scary ? the sets, the locations (it's shot in Australia, mostly in Queensland), the CGI wizardry. To make, it reportedly costs around $4m (�2.6m) an episode. By my totally untrustworthy calculations, Monbiot's entire annual income doesn't even get you a minute of Terra Nova.
It is undeniably seductive. And intriguing. So what's wrong with it? Well some of the old-fashioned stuff people used to want from a drama. Plot? It's hard to tell yet. It may know where it's going and go there, or it may do what Lost did and get lost (before it found itself), meandering in circles as recommissioning decisions were made. The premise and setup of Terra Nova are certainly intriguing.
Cast and characters? Well, I mentioned that Taylor was the most interesting, but actually so far he's pretty much the only interesting one, and Stephan Lang's is the only performance to stand out. Everyone else looks nice but there's not much depth or humanity to them. Perhaps they're CGI too. I honestly wouldn't care one way or the other if any of them had their head ripped off by a carnosaur.
A lot of the fault lies with what they have to say to each other. The script is as corny and cheesy as a family-sized portion of cheesy corn nachos. Family being the key word, because that's what it's all about ? the family sticking together, old-fashioned values, making a fresh start, hard work, Jim and Elizabeth getting a bit schmaltzy, and the first time little Zoe calls Jim "daddy". There's almost a preachiness to it. Hey, don't worry about the bad stuff, if we stick together we'll be all right, group hug! As well as all that other stuff ? Lost, Jurassic Park, Prison Break, Georges Orwell and Monbiot ? there's also more than a hint of The Waltons.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/oct/03/tv-review-terra-nova
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