Terra Nova 1x03 - 'Instinct' (Grade/Discuss) SPOILERS

[The Habs Fan]

Above Average

I enjoyed this episode.

It was your normal scifi plot-of-the week type of story, but I thought it was interesting enough. The character writing was much, much better than last week. Josh and Maddy were a lot less annoying. The soldier guy who likes Maddy was still kind of annoying but at least he was useless in protecting them and got knocked out right away.

I also liked the kind of love triangle involving new character Malcolm. Usually I hate love triangles, but I think this one actually makes sense.

 

[RAMA]

Hey, General Halftrack. You're living in an area around DINOSAURS! That's pretty much begging to be routinely attacked by large, mean, angry and hungry creatures!

Why is he all angry and surprised as if this is a big deal or something to even consider? Build a better fence, get some better guns and don't play with the huge carnivorous animals!

One of my pet peeves of many movies...you are fighting things that are not humans...designers would make better weapons...Starship Troopers was one of the biggest offenders.

RAMA

 

[timothy]

tonight's episode was awesome monster of the week. I all ways thought terra nova was to exposed from the air. and there are a lot of bird type dino's. some one brought up the subject of technology aircraft and what not. I would love to see an attack choper or some kinda small orbital craft be brought in to fight either the dino's or the sixers. I mean the people from the future are at the end of the 22nd century right. how about putting up sattelight survallince of some kind.

 

[JWD75]

The paint by the numbers plot reminded of a run of the mill Enterprise episode. I wasn't surprised to find out that Braga had a hand in writing this episode. I voted below average. I want to like this show, but I'm struggling to do so. Hopefully there are other writers on the staff who have something more to offer.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I voted Average. All the best action; the stuff they sometimes spent minutes worth of exposition setting up, happened offscreen. The trip to go retrieve the two live samples and the trip to distribute the pheromones were both described by the characters and by the wounds they bore in the second case as very exciting events, yet for some reason we never get to see them happen despite both scenes having a rather long set-up. Yet we get three repeats of the dinos diving at people from the woefully low-tech fence. That was inexcusable. They could have shown us those more exciting events for roughly the same budget.

Given the rate that they lose people or have people wounded in and outside the fence, it makes absolutely no sense that this nearly decade-old colony is not more well-prepared. Why don't they have futuristic helicopters and drones to perform better search and rescue operations? Electrified fences? Small cars with doors on them so a dinosaur can't just pluck you out the side? Run-flat tires? Heavier weapons that actually seem to have an effect? They're acting like they have to build entirely off the land and don't have a portal to a future Earth where they can request greater resources. The desperate need for the small batch of meteoric iron in the previous episode, for example. I know future Earth is in bad shape, but if they're desperately pinning their hopes on rebuilding humanity through Terra Nova, I think they can scrape up a few things.

Hopefully next week's disease episode isn't as by-the-numbers as it looks, because it's really starting to come across like Dino-Voyager already, and even Voyager already had a dinosaur episode.

 

[Agent Richard07]

This looked like their take on The Birds.

I voted 'below average'. It wasn't very exciting. The drama didn't grab me and the bird stuff was just a problem-of-the-week scenario.

 

[Forbin]

And next week - amnesia virus!!

It's like Braga is still writing Voyager episodes

 

[Shurik]

Hope he doesn't write "Threshold 2" episode ...

 

[DarKush]

I only saw the last half of this episode. Didn't care for it. I thought the FX were a step down from the pilot. I'm still not feeling the characters. It just seems so been there, done that, despite the intriguing premise and having Lang (who I know can deliver with better material).

 

[sagan]

The bland sets! The bland clothes! The lame writing! They all seem to have escaped from the suburbs, not from an ecological disaster.

 

[Chris_Johnston]

Ten minutes in, and my big question is: Where did the Slashers go?
These guys are toolin' around in the standard (i.e. unarmored) jeep at night, they get a flat tire (Don't we have self-sealing tires now?), and they're not the slightest bit worried about Slashers.
They get pounced on by the undocumented-species-of-the-week, and the first assumption when they don't report back to Home Base is... Sixers got 'em?
Then Taylor & Shannon find the mauled bodies: "Definitely not Sixers!"
What the hell, man?

 

[The Wormhole]

No, not particularly impressed with this one. But then week 2 of any series usually is less than impressive.

Okay, so some weird pteradactyl/seagull hybrid is sitting outside the house making noises that are killing the moment between Mom and Dad. So Dad goes outside and says "shoo!"? Okay.

The episode suffers from bland and generic storytelling conventions. The colony's chief scientist is an old boyfiend of Mom's, causing Dad to be jealous and starts acting like a jerk. Meanwhile, dinoseagulls are threatening the colony are dealt with using pheromones. I could have done without the teenage love stories too.

I can't help but wondering, if you're going to build a colony among dinosaurs, wouldn't you have some sort of protection to try to keep dinosaurs away? Like an electric fence, perhaps? Also thought it funny, seeing the security forces in bulky armour that makes them look like Colonial Marines, and yet, all it takes is a vent cover to fly at one to knock him out. Also, Son is pretty good hitting a faast moving small target with a rifle despite presumably never firing one before.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I voted 'Average', and that's being generous. This show's just not grabbing me. I'd like to think it'll improve, but I've got my doubts.

Same for me. The characters aren't good enough to rise above the plodding writing. Maybe when they get back to the mystery of the stuff written on the rocks, something will emerge that will hold my interest.

The paint by the numbers plot reminded of a run of the mill Enterprise episode.

Next week looks even moreso. The only thing worse than a bad, recycled Star Trek episode is a bad, recycled Star Trek episode that doesn't even have the fun of being in space!

 

[Kytee]

I quite enjoyed this weeks episode. Not so much because the story really grabbed me, but because it helped alleviate some concerns I had from last week's episode. I did not like the family interactions in the first two episodes, they felt a bit forced. Also, the seeds of teen drama planted last week worried me because, for me at least, they were the least enjoyable part of the first episode.

This week felt like both issues were well handled. I was surprised at how much better the family stuff felt. ( It was so different imo that I wonder how much time passed between filming episode 1/2 and filming episode 3. It seemed to me like the cast had more time to bond and get to know each other which made the on screen scenes much better )
A few family scenes that I felt came together really nicely.

- The scene with the Josh coming home smelly from work, trying to hug Maddy, and her pushing him away. I know this wasn't very long, but it felt very genuine to me.

- The husband and wife together in their room before the dino interrupted them . I saw comments about last week's episode that pointed out that the mom and dad didn't seem all that eager to spend time together considering they had been apart so long; I thought this scene addressed that well

- The scene where Maddy ask's her dad how she can tell if a boy likes her. His fumbling reply was awesome and felt very natural to me. Not just his choice of words, the whole pacing of the way he delivered the line was bang on.

Can't wait for next week,

Kytee

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Ratings are remarkably stable.

No second week drop is very good news for the show. Sci fi shows (all shows, really) almost always show some kind of drop. The international ratings are also strong, which is expected for a show like this.

So this may bode well for more spectacular eye-candy style shows with big budgets on broadcast TV. If warmed-over Star Trek scripts plus SFX = ratings, then why wouldn't Star Trek plus SFX do just as well? Apparently the characters and writing can suck, just as long as there's something cool to look at. Star Trek just needs fancier/more threatening aliens.

 

[stj]

Echevarria and Braga improved the dialogue considerably.

The story hit the character beats strongly. As in, it's third time's the charm for getting laid.

The characters duly engaged in appropriate actions, without ludicrous emo. They seem more or less like people.

The weak point was the CGI menace was really hard to sell as scary. The pheromone synthesizing tech was way out of proportion in sophistication to what we've seen so far, and seemed like a magical save, an easy ending that devalued the menace.

Still enough interest to take in a third episode.

 

[Gepard]

It's like Braga is still writing Voyager episodes

Worse – Enterprise episodes! I'm literally four minutes in and it feels exactly like one, down to the cinematography and the "acting" from the extras. Those security guys in the opening scene were interchangeable with MACOs. Ugh.

 

[John O.]

It's like Braga is still writing Voyager episodes

Worse – Enterprise episodes! I'm literally four minutes in and it feels exactly like one, down to the cinematography and the "acting" from the extras. Those security guys in the opening scene were interchangeable with MACOs. Ugh.

Yes, uselessly disposable inciting circumstances are the annoying hallmarks of a lazy writer, and naturally they are STREWN ALL OVER Star Trek. Never a one in BSG episode

There's a few reasons that this show is nothing like Enterprise, Voyager, or Trek in general - with respect to questions about "maybe Trek could do better with fancier/scarier aliens". First of all, I think it's a community lesson that's been learned in the Sci-Fi writing world that even if you have flashy sciency things and cool sounding words, your characters still have to develop if you want to keep your job. Then again, maybe I'm being unfair to shows like Farscape and Firefly by generalizing to Sci-Fi. What i mean is, writers other than Brannon Braga, while working on Star Trek franchises like Voyager and Enterprise did not feel particularly compelled to evolve the characters in meaningful ways - at least not universally. You had hits here and there - Seven of Nine, B'Elanna Torres, Trip, T'Pol, - who underwent noticeable character development from the Pilot to the Finale. But the nail in those shows' coffins (well Voyager chugged along on name recognition, but by time Enterprise rolled around people were tired of it and wanted results - which were not imminent until it was too late in Season 4), was the fact that the characters were the same at the end as they were at the beginning. Harry Kim got laid, bucked authority like once and made a speech in the 11th hour - but for the most part he was the same old Travis Mayweather - er, I mean Harry Kim.

But I've digressed, my point is that since then I think it's been pretty conclusively demonstrated in shows like BSG, Lost, and even to some degree in the Stargate franchise that the cast that changes together, stays together.

We have only seen 3 hours of TV out of this show but so far, the teenage son Josh has grown up considerably. I would encourage this show to introduce more mainline characters - for instance, the hispanic Lt that reminds us of Jo Lupo from Eureka - other than being incredibly hot, she could use some more screen time. There's something in her that gives her some good presence, she's not just a place holder. But they're going to need a deeper bench to keep this thing interesting for more than a season, character-wise.

In a series like "The X-Files" that has an overarching theme the weaves throughout the series there were a number of throwaway monster eps that didn't really advance the plot. This was kind of one of those with a minor spin - and that's the fact that since this is a show with an encore cast that we are intended to care about, it's useful to have something relatively simple and uncomplicated going on as a backdrop for developing character interactions. I'm not sure if the "Malcolm/DadCop" interaction was the intended target for development, or maybe the husband/wife, but it struck me as one of those episodes.

 

[Gepard]

Yes, uselessly disposable inciting circumstances are the annoying hallmarks of a lazy writer, and naturally they are STREWN ALL OVER Star Trek. Never a one in BSG episode
.....
But I've digressed, my point is that since then I think it's been pretty conclusively demonstrated in shows like BSG, Lost, and even to some degree in the Stargate franchise that the cast that changes together, stays together.

The security guys at the beginning were bland, undifferentiated and poorly acted grunts. I don't know what you're on about, but it has nothing to with what I took issue with.

 

[The Green Mushroom]

Things I Like:

• Techno-Primitive, some things they bring back, some things they do not.
• If nothing else, the fact that they can recruit people proves that they can send messages back to the future. They just don't have a giant dohicky to send people back.

Things I Don't Like (aka the Spectacular Flying Idiot Bomb):

• Techno-Primitive is good. Not bringing back planes (even ultralights) or bringing back enough electricity to secure the fence is scary dumb. I can't wait until they do the episode where Jurassic Park style raptors simply crawl under the fence for the all you can eat buffet.
• Maybe I don't know instinct very well, but will moving the colony once really overcome generations of instinct?
• Why is a guy who has been there a week suddenly trusted to investigate for a spy. He doesn't know anyone, has no leads, barely can find his way around the place, knows nothing about the system, etc. etc. Its like asking a Chicago cop to fly to Hong Kong to infiltrate the Russian Mob.
• Looks like next week Mom and Dad are both going to be deliberately exposed to the Virus of the Week. Does the Commander like creating orphans? (Thank you Commander Avatar Guy for setting up your own failure by saying something is a bad thing and then doing it twice in three episodes)