Pajiba

"It certainly didn't embarrass itself"

Did we watch the same bloated two-hour pulp-ridden festival of stereotyped characters, cliched dialogue, plot holes you could run a 747 through and bad acting?
The cop who gets too angry
The brilliant wife
The angry teen
The clever daughter
The cute little kid
The muscle-bound military leader
The rival gang

The set looked like they rented Butlins for a week to do the filming there. Everyone who has been in the new land for years still wears modern clothing (quick dry-bikinis anyone?) that couldn't possibly be produced there and if they brought it with them it apparently still looks brand new after 15 years.
And then there was the whole "don't tell us how many children to have.....in a dying world. And "a family is four". Why not three? Or two? Gah!!
It was awful. It was truly awful from start to finish.

How did this piece of shit get a good review on here?

I was looking forward to this show and it turned out to have writing on par with shitty soaps. Cliched cardboard cut-out characters, stupid one-liners, plot holes fucking everywhere. And the dinosaurs? I've seen better special effects on Fringe and they don't have a 4 million per episode budget.

I hope the person who piped up in a meeting someday with "You know what this show needs? More angsty teenagers!" dies in a fire.

Even Charlie's Angels was more enjoyable than this and that was the worst piece of shit I've seen in a long time.

My family enjoyed it to a certain degree, but my (nearly) six year old daughter commented that "the boys are all stupid, and the girls are all smart, why is that"?

And she's right. With the exception of the girl who panics in the woods, it's all smart chicks and dumb men.

The wife is set up as practically a nobel prize winning immunologist with a heart of gold. The husband? a beat cop. Really? how often does THAT happen? (side note, my Dr. wife was pissed that they were suggesting an immunologist would know which end of the scalpel to put into a body, but that's a quibble - most 'mericans think all doctorin's the same)

Daughter is a child prodigy math genius who seems to be a bit of an autodidact on the dinosaur front. Brother? Petulant idiot with poor practical skills and its suggested not a good grasp of book learning either.

Of the break away alliance? The featured leader is a woman - not sure if that will hold, but that's what we saw.

So the future doesn't look so good for the male chromosome.

My main question all along has been... why are they traveling back to a time that is inevitably going to be destroyed by a major catastrophe that will wipe out the majority of the earth's life? I mean, I know the Cretaceous was millions of years long, so maybe they timed it so they'd have millions of years before shit goes sideways, but still...

At the very least, shouldn't they have at least picked a time period NOT dominated by 10-ton carnivores?

"The wife is set up as practically a nobel prize winning immunologist"

Who apparently had her first kid at 17 and the second at 20, but still managed to come first in her class in Northwestern. Not that it couldn't happen, but given that the world she lived in seemed pretty unforgiving and primed for survival of the fittest, highly unlikely.

Obviously in the future, human kind has adopted the Doogie Howser educational track. Maybe in this world, if you don't have your PhD by 16, it's just not going to happen.

why are they traveling back to a time that is inevitably going to be destroyed by a major catastrophe that will wipe out the majority of the earth's life?

Because that's the only time they could travel to. They don't have a time machine. There's some kind of rift back to 85 million years ago, so it was that or nothing.

The problem with even thinking about watching this show is that I have no faith in TV to come to resolution,.

I can't bring myself to watch any more shows that are set up as mythos shows - where they have tons of mysteries that get slowly answered over time a la Lost or Battlestar Gallactica, b/c I have no faith a) the series will last long enough to even begin to answer questions or b) if the show does last, it will ever answer the questions or do so in a half-way decent / reasonable way. Even if the show was decent, I don't want to invest into something I know is going to disappoint. I have been burned too many times for that.

it is one thing if it is the type of show where the mythos isn't all the show is about (for instance, you could watch X-files w/o really caring about the overall mythos; or even BG, b/c there were plenty of stand-alone episodes and other things).

But a show like this is going to revolve 100% around the mythos, which is never going to be answered.

I've been wanting a show like this my whole life- a group of stranded strangers trying to survive in a jungle full of menacing, shadowy monsters, curious symbols of unknown origin, and mysterious "other" people, whose intentions are dubious at best.

Jason O'Mara is a hot piece, but other than that the show was all retread. The teens were pretty much unbearable, the dinos looked like leftover Jurassic Park and why did they bring useless weapons? If they can still bring people through, bring the DINO KILLERS! Or at least the dino tranquilizers so people can get out of dodge. And really, with the fences again?
Get O'Mara shirtless and send him back to the future.

No, it's not. It's going to be 70% stupid family drama and teenie hijinks, 25% people running from or killing shitty CGI dinosaurs and maybe 5% oh look, there are some scribbles on a rock, I wonder what that's about.

Posted by: jcollier at September 28, 2011 4:58 PM

either way, can't be bothered. I would be sucked in if a show like this was planned out as 1 season or 2 season from the start - that the writers knew the ending/answers they were working toward. then I could invest in it and enjoy the ride. When I know the writers are making it up as they go along, I can't enjoy investing into a huge mythos that is never going to be answered - either b/c the show was canceled (likely) or because the writers couldn't come up with a 1/2 way reasonable explanation for all of the various mysteries they created trying to keep people interested in the show.

But in the U.S., every new show HAS to be open-ended just in case it is a huge hit so it can be milked for as long as humanly possible. We can't possibly have a new show that has a planned ending.

I was pretty excited about this show but when I started watching it, I kept taking breaks since it bored the crap out of me. For the love of god, would the writers PLEASE create some believable dialog? That and get rid of the horrible teenage angle. Is that what they're marketing for, a younger audience? Because I'm willing to give this another chance but I can't imagine another hour of that stupid son causing problems again. I'd be thrilled to see him go head first down a dino gullet.

meh

Predictable story line, bad dialog, stupid teens, sub-par CGI, and no interesting characters. Did someone say $4M/episode? Yikes. I hate television.

They didn't go back in time to save their world, they went back in time to have a place to live that was nicer than the hellhole they were in.

@jcollier You watched a show for years and enjoyed it, but then you can't cope with the disparity between your inflated, unrealistic hopes and the way they actually tried to resolve it and that somehow takes away all your previous enjoyment?

No. Speaking of Lost, the hopes became unrealistic after the ending. Listen to the weekly podcast that came with the series from at least the fourth season (that's when I started listening to them)and read the interviews with Damon and Carlton while the show was airing. They kept teasing us by saying there would be answers, they really did. They fed our hopes because it was a way to keep us watching their show and then they just didn't want to commit to anything so they came up with a way to end the show while completely ignoring the island, which they said more than once that was the most important character on the show. They worked hard to create the expectations they wouldn't fulfill. So, yeah, it's in the end my fault for falling for it, but I still feel very cheated by the ending.
While I appreciate all the moments of enjoyment i got from Lost it was a series built on the premise that misteries would be answered, so it deserves all the anger it got: it manipulated us in a very cheap way just for the ratings.

As he was walking into the living room, Steven Lloyd Wilson tripped on the area rug, hitting his head on his coffee table and thereby letting his imagination create the show he actually wanted to watch for the two hours he was passed out. Which led to the review we have read

Because honestly, I agree with Paddydog 100%, we must of watched two different shows.

Only two things I'm going to mention:

1. The dinosaurs looked ripped out of the Discovery channel which I take as an insult from Spielberg, expected better from him, at least in that department.

2. Spielberg needs to stop producing TV shows and invest his money in good therapy to resolve his Family/Daddy/Teenage boy issues and stop working them through crappy TV and shoving them our throats. Looking at you Falling Skies, War of the Worlds, Super 8, Transformers, etc, etc fucking etc

vhrico: I liked Taken. Kind of it. I mean considering all his work, that might literally be the only thing I enjoyed involving him.

I remember Earth 2. It at least had an interesting concept of another intelligent, native species living on the planet the humans colonized.

I wandered by the TV as a mean looking dude strode down some corridors with a mysterious sack. "He's really a decent guy and he's carrying an orange," I said. Yep. I know there's so much stuff out there that some ideas get re-used, but come on.

I can accept that maybe they figured they could keep the dinosaurs at bay, but like Ghisent, I can't understand on how they plan on mankind surviving a massive planet-wide event that wiped out the dinosaurs. I also found the beautiful houses, landscaping and pristine humans ridiculous. Becoming fully self-sufficient is hard, filthy work.

Why were some people fully armored up all the time? They looked silly beyond belief. And I know conflict is inevitable with our idiotic species, but they've already got people shooting at each other, which I see plenty of on other shows.

I perked up a bit with the mysterious rock writing (another intelligent species native to Earth?! Cool!) and then immediately deflated when they revealed it was one of the colonists.

Also that line "it seemed like a good idea" was not the finest but the dumbest line of the show. You're struggling to raise kids on a planet suffering from overpopulation to the extent that the kids don't have a future, and you think having another one is a good idea? What if everyone else thought that way? What the fuck makes these people so goddamn special that they can flaunt the rule everyone else obeys?

I bet the Third kid turns out to be a super genius who saves them all. I won't be watching anyway.

Why aren't they all dead in a month from Cretaceous ebola and whatever else is swimming around in dinosaur piss, of which there must be oceans?

@Madness Ham, I agree with you about the bad plotting on a lot of things you mention, but as for these:

8. Why didn't they build Terra Nova AROUND the portal, instead of letting it just hang out in the middle of the open jungle, so they wouldn't have to waste time and personnel escorting hyperventilating people on a potentially dangerous hike?

Not every spot is equally good to build a colony, there could be advantages to the area they chose like flatter ground, better water supply, better soil for growing things etc.

9. In 2149 the world is dying. People are killing each other in the streets, fighting over water and, apparently, oranges. WTF DOESN'T EVERYONE RIOT AND GO THROUGH THE PORTAL INTO A FRESH NEW WORLD?!?! EVEN IF THERE ARE DINOSAURS?!

I didn't catch the street killings/water riots, which part are you talking about?

10. Brachiosaur necks were not flexible.

Probably they were, after all isn't it likely that they bent down to drink water? (possible they got enough moisture from leaves I guess) The wiki article links here to some debate about their "normal" neck posture, and searching google books for "brachiosaurus drink neck" turns up this one which says "With up to 19 vertebrae, sauropod necks were at least fairly flexible; how much so is controversial ... It may have been difficult for tall-shouldered sauropods to reach down to drink", which at least implies they could do it if they splayed their legs like a giraffe or something.

12. Leech guy is "All better"... except for the GAPING SPINAL WOUND.

Well, we don't know how deep the leech would bite, might just be superficial since it only needs to get to blood vessels.

13. Shouldn't Josh be really sick after eating local fruit his first day? Wasn't that the point of the mint-green milkshakes?

Green milk could just be a precaution, some people could have problems eating the food right away while others would be OK.

Your main quibble was about the dinosaurs?? Really. Just saying, Jurrasic Park "made up" raptors too, making velociraptors super tall instead of 2 feet, and taking away their feathers. They were still great to watch.

Anyway, the parents just having a third kid for fun took away any appreciation i could have had for the main characters. C'mon people. 2 kids per family is not really stringent as far as population controls go..

Sorry I keep harping on this, but one of the things that bothers me more and more about time-travel movies and such is the apparent notion that, 85 million years in the future or 85 million years in the past, the composition of the atmosphere and the contaminants in it (such as viruses) will be exactly the same as in the period when the time-traveler left. We've seen just in the last 100 years how many different ways influenza can morph to kill millions. There's just no fucking way the immune systems of most people would be able to handle whatever germs were in the air. Shooting dinosaurs should be the least of their problems. Those people should all be wearing gas masks or they should all be dead. Didn't anybody learn anything from "War of the Worlds"? For all intents, the humans in the Cretaceous or Jurassic are aliens, susceptible to death by whatever the common cold was at the time.

Thing that bugged the hell out of me:

The entire colony is set up ass-backward. Buildings are all slung around the fenceline, with the fields in the middle? Putting the community in the center with the fields radiating out to the fence is far more sensible -- fosters better sense of community, more practical for maintenance/services/etc, easier to protect (not just everyone not being spread out, but also longer line-of-sight if hungry dinos get through the fence).

Plus what everyone else said.

Jesse M.:

I should have been more clear about the Brachiosaur comments.
10. There's a huge difference between giraffe-style bending for water, and the kind of insane neck-arcs going on in that scene.
20. My problem with the herbivore bit was primarily to do with the gawdawful, nonsensical sequence of dialogue.

For the rest:
8. You're right, but they should still have enclosed or fortified it somehow, at the very least to ensure that the "freshies" wouldn't be stumbling out into a slaughter or a firefight.
9. I was extrapolating a bit from the shots of social decay, and making a joke about the orange, but given the clear overpopulation problems I think it's safe to say water would be the #1 thing to fight over. Life isn't good for 99.99% of the population, they make that plain. Why else have a lottery to send people to Terra Nova? Consider this in the context of the recent social riots in Britain and elsewhere. I think catastrophic violence would ensue.
12. A knee-jerk reaction to seeing her awkwardly pry off the giant leech, revealing an ugly seeping wound.
13. Again, more of a complaint against the plot holes of the show. Why bother to include the lines about how "we aren't used to the enzymes yet, we need to drink Shamrock Shakes", if you're going to ignore it later?
21. You're probably right, but again they seem to equivocate a lot.

There's just no fucking way the immune systems of most people would be able to handle whatever germs were in the air. Shooting dinosaurs should be the least of their problems.

I think pretty much all disease organism are only evolved to infect a particular group of animals though, there wouldn't be any that evolved to infect primates back then (they don't even know if placental mammals had evolved by then as mentioned here). They can sometimes mutate and jump over like with that strain of avian flu, but I don't think this is common.

most people in the audience aren't concerned with immunology, or radio contact with the present, or even how anything from the period is even edible (you should try eating a heritage vegetable, before we eugenics'd them into eatability--and they aren't 85 million years old), but they are very concerned with how will mankind cope with the impending doom of a asteroid due to arrive in 20 million years (primates have been around for 2-4 million years in total, recognisable humans, a tiny fraction of that)

Monkeys appeared over 30 million years ago and ape-like primates have been around at least 14 million years (see here), are you talking specifically about hominids? Anyway like I said earlier I don't think most people actually are that concerned with the fate of our unknown descendants in 20 million years, and in any case if you assume that we'd hold on to some kind of civilization, that's a long time to work on asteroid deflecting technologies which we already have plenty ideas about today.

I read the review before I watched the pilot and man oh man were my hopes dashed upon viewing.
Biggest Gripes:
1) ACTING: I (and everyone else) knew that the little girl was in that backpack. Did you see how casually the cop handed the bag to his doctor wife? Like it weighed nothing? Kids are heavy people. ACT like the bag has weight for chrissakes!
2) WRITING: When the population control team arrives at the apartment, they immediately start tossing the place, violently. Aren't they looking for a child? Maybe you shouldn't be so rough?
Fuck this stupid show in its face.

I don't really want to get into this argument but Lost and BSG fans who keep whining on forums years after the shows have ended about how horribly they have been burned and that they won't ever be able to enjoy any show that has some kind of mythology arc just get on my nerves.

Seriously, suck it up. There are a lot of people who enjoyed the endings of both those shows. You didn't? Tough shit. I don't get people who go "oh I loved Lost, but the ending ruined it all for me." Seriously? You watched a show for years and enjoyed it, but then you can't cope with the disparity between your inflated, unrealistic hopes and the way they actually tried to resolve it and that somehow takes away all your previous enjoyment? You're some weird ass people.

Posted by: jcollier at September 28, 2011 5:54 PM

Interesting that you call me bitter with that rant. Look in a mirror. I never watched lost, for the very reason i won't watch this show. I'm sorry if what I enjoy in entertainment doesn't live up to some crazy standard you have created for yourself. I did not watch BSG's last season, b/c I thought the show had gotten really, really bad by the,. But I loved, and still do, the first few seasons. In fact, BSG is the type of show I could watch despite the mythos b/c the shows themselves had more going on - the "mysteries" were more add-on then central. I'm talking about shows where the mythos is the central focal point of the show - many shows were created in this vein after x-files, and few survived longer than a season or so. And if it isn't well thought out it makes it a crappy show. Sorry if somehow this opinion offends you and makes you fly into a spittle-filled rage as it did here. Didn't mean to make you go crazy.

I tend to read comments on Pajiba more than other websites because they are often intelligent and bring up interesting points not mentioned in the main article. Many of the comments here, however, are some of the most disappointing and ridiculous comments I've ever come across.

If you're going to gripe on the show don't complain about "why did they choose this time period" (they didn't, don't comment if you didn't even watch). Don't complain about the freaking dinosaurs, if you can't get over that why are you bothering in the first place. Most of all though, I can't believe people are complaining that there is going to be a catastrophic event that will kill mankind in TWENTY MILLION YEARS.

Can we please try to keep the discourse just a bit more intelligent than that? There are plenty of things to dislike about this show, but those aren't them.