It took an entire season, a lot of up and down episodes and a few moments where I wanted to put my foot through the TV, for Terra Nova to finally hit its stride. Unfortunately, it may have been too little too late to garner a second season for what started out as a really promising Sci-fi breath of fresh air.
The Terra Nova finale ‘Occupation/Resistance’ saw not just the big war that has been building between the forces behind the Sixers and the Terra Nova colony, but also between Taylor and his estranged psychotic son Lucas. Thrown into the mix is a very unnerving relationship Lucas is trying to have with Skye, Jim and Josh reconciling their issue that started in the pilot episode, and some nice time jumping courtesy of Mr. Shannon.
There were some surprises, such as having Lucas’ crew actually succeeding in their invasion of Terra Nova. That was an unexpected wrinkle if you kept your mindset in the Terra Nova universe. The quickness of Kara’s death was the real shocker, though. I get that it will probably set up Josh’s character depth should there be a second season. It did seem odd that they built up this whole subplot of Josh trying to get Kara over, only to have her taken out real quickly. Still, it was a nice surprise.
Then there were some things that were supposed to be surprises that weren’t, but still fun to watch like Lucas betraying Taylor and stabbing him. Battle-hardened, tough as nails, always one step ahead Taylor fell for the alligator tears? It seemed a little forced, but still enjoyable to see.
The series’ top moment thus far was Jim Shannon not only traveling the time-stream to take out the bad guys and close the portal, but taking a dinosaur with him to help in the process. The use of dinosaurs as weapons in this series was a little lame for the most part, but this was executed really well and made sense within the scope of the episode.
I do have to say that while her GI Joe persona wavered from time to time and her decision-making was a little suspect, Washington’s last heroic stand gave me thoughts of Blue Beetle Ted Kord right before Maxwell Lord put a bullet in his noggin.
The writers crammed a lot in this two-hour Terra Nova finale, about as much as they crammed into the pilot episode. The execution and quality makes me think the show would do better as an ongoing television film series on TNT akin to The Librarian series. It seemed that when they transitioned to writing hour-long episodes they went for a standard family show, almost trying to bring back The Land of the Lost or Lost In Space, but with a little more contemporary feel which, by almost all accounts, was a failure.
Still, I do hope Fox gives Terra Nova another go. The characters are there and the plot potential is endless. If the quality found in the pilot and finale can be carried over to the hour-long episodes, Terra Nova fans have a lot to look forward to.
– James Zappie
