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Fox at TCA: Dino-Drama Terra Nova Is Still, Slowly, Evolving

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FOX

Friday afternoon, Fox held a panel for the new sci-fi series Terra Nova at the TCA TV critics’ convention. Unfortunately, they only had about half the session ready, and the CGI rendering still wasn’t done for most of the panelists.

I’m kidding! Friday afternoon, Fox held a panel for Terra Nova, about a family who time-travel to the age of dinosaurs to escape the year 2149, coincidentally the date when Terra Nova will finally premiere.

I’m kidding again! But it’s true that Terra Nova, announced well over a year ago by Fox and scheduled to appear last midseason–no, last May–no, September 26, we swear–has had some hitches in its tremendously elaborate production, including technical delays, behind-the-scenes shakeups and, apparently, weather on set in Australia. Critics have still seen only half the two-hour season premiere. Friday, three producers (project godfather Steven Spielberg not among them) and two stars assured critics and reporters all was on schedule. But will the characters be rendered as well as the dinosaurs?

That last is my big concern with what I’ve seen so far. Granted, I have only the first hour or so of the premiere to go on. And granted that I’m not immune to the whiz-bang buzz of seeing a giant predator dino chasing a futuristic jeep; the visuals are impressive down to the giant prehistoric bugs.

But the central characters (a family of five, in an overcrowded future society that limits families to two kids) are so far entirely generic and uncompelling. And a new version of the premiere–which adds a prologue explaining how cop Jim Shannon (Jason O’Mara) was jailed for violating the overpopulation law–actually manages to make the family less interesting (by writing out a relationship complication in the original version) while undercutting a dramatic reveal that was the most surprising part of the original. (One improvement in the new version: it nips concerns about the “butterfly effect” by making clear, albeit hamhandedly, that the colonists are traveling to an “alternative timestream,” so they can’t change the future Earth they came from.)

To give the producers credit, they said a lot Friday about the importance of character over special effects: “If you don’t love this family after the first hour, it really doesn’t matter how the dinosaurs look,” said Jon Cassar. And they seem to have thought through some interesting questions about the social implications of the premise, in which future colonists, who travel to an alternative prehistoric Earth through a rift in space-time–or something–have to form a new society from scratch. One early episode, said producer Brandon Braga, concerns the colony’s first murder. There are interesting developments early in the show about a subversive element in the colony that has a different, secret agenda. And Braga noted that the kids in Terra Nova have to grow up much faster than those in 2149 (or 2011); it’s essentially a pioneer society.

If they can actually deliver on some of that complexity, Terra Nova might have people as interesting as its dinosaurs. Which would be nice, because not only could TV use a good, swing-for-the-fences sci-fi show, but it could use a well-written show that appeals to both kids and parents, which Terra Nova aims to be.

Not that everything that Terra Nova does is exactly new under the sun, as O’Mara–who played a policeman who found himself transported to the 1970s in Life on Mars–wryly noted. “I told my family, ‘Guess what, I got a show. It’s about a cop who travels around in time,'” he said. “They said, ‘I think we’ve already seen that one.'”

Fantastical premise or no, though, the producers made clear that there are certain facts of science they won’t play with. When one reporter asked whether they would include any cavemen in the show, they said no, because of the small hitch that homo sapiens had not evolved at that point. But hey, if Terra Nova stays on the air for 84 million seasons, anything’s possible.