When Sci-Fi loses the plot – Terra Nova

I’ve been watching a couple of ‘new’ programs. “Person of interest” and “Terra Nova”

Terra Nova – an ordinary family from 2149 when the planet is dying who are transported back 85 million years to prehistoric Earth where they join Terra Nova, a colony of humans with a second chance to build a civilization. Yes indeed it’s the Flintstones.

Couple of issues with this series, no really, and they are not of the “living with Dinosaurs” type.

• The time travel device “the ring” allows travel back into an alternate past, so that things that happen can’t have any effect on the future. There is a “renegade” band of people who seem to be able to communicate with the current Earth. It’s not clear how they are doing this, or indeed why.
• The ring deposits people in the middle of nowhere, and they have to march, under an armed escort, to the main camp. They have vehicles, but no it’s a march. No reason is given why one is so far from the other, or why, given that Terra Nova is a new hope for Earth that more resources haven’t been given to establishing a better, safer, community.
• Terra Nova appears to be under the sole command of an army commander. No council of elders, no quorum, a sole charge position of establishing a new civilisation. And this appears to be going badly because there is a breakaway group of renegades.
• The plot is centered on a group of new arrivals, a migration as they are referred to, and these are referred to as a number, they have issues with “sixers”, it’s not clear what number of migration the new members are, but the timeline is a bit fuzzy about how long it takes to get from “current” Earth to “Old Earth”

My favourite plot disaster though is the one about the mysterious runes that are carved into some “forbidden zone” rocks. They had to invent a dinosaur to establish why it’s a forbidden zone, and of course the “kids” have discovered these runes and are keeping quiet about them, to the point to visiting them regularly and making hooch. Adults though – oblivious! Not however the Commander, and I’d be confident quite a few of his “troops”

It’s also full of all the clichés you can imagine, teen angst, parental angst, moral angst, and is almost devoid of any plot. It’s already descended into “monster of the week” with all new dinosaurs being discovered.

So a bit unsatisfactory and shallow on many levels and in many places. It’s like watching a train wreck, you know it’s coming and it’s bad enough to want to keep watching so you can affirm your own sense of superiority in seeing the holes that they’ve created.