Terra Nova s1 and Fringe s4 bring back scifi/adventure:fall 2011

I think there's something wrong with me, because the second I saw the trailer for Terra Nova, the first thing I thought was "This looks like Tabula Rasa". After seeing the first episodes, I can say that it sort of does remind me of that old style of adventure that TR had back in the day. So far it's been OK, the characters aren't annoying, and the plot is nice so far. I just hope that whole missing son/scribbled stuff in the rocks, doesn't turn into some convoluted mystery that will never coherently explained.

Watching both of these and they are OK, TN is a bit stereotypical. Another "blockbuster" scifi modeled after Lost.

TN looks great so far (big budget, good actors), but I'm wondering if they can keep it interesting. It doesn't really have its own flavour, so yeah, very stereotypical. Fringe is starting to feel like its run its course, there's been almost no plot development in season four so far (we get it, you're dreaming about that guy... don't need 3 episodes to tell us).

Terra Nova is bad. I really hope it gets better but so far it looks like it will be another Falling Skies.

TN is 'ok.'   Nothing partictularly interesting in the overarching plot, etc.  basically its a western frontier drama wearing some future-jargon.  Wish it were more.

On the other hand, Fringe is still cool.  I like Terra Nova too--the big budget actually helps a lot.

For having such little budget to work with, I thought Falling Skies did alright.

None of these shows are sufficient for my tastes. I wish that science fiction could become the next trend after vampires. There are so many great science fiction ideas that get rejected at agencies because they aren't seen as selling right now. 

I love how the old cliche about scifi soldiers aim and weapons is so embedded in TN. The whole our guns are futuristic but apparently can't hit anything or pierce dinosaur skin is ridiculous. Why is it in every scifi gun technology actually gets worse...

Even Firefly was guilty of this.

In the 2005 movie King Kong, dinosaurs go down to a few bullets. A refreshing change.

I'm on the fence with TN.  Loved the world they setup (the ruined, technologically advanced world they left).  I'm not super into where they are starting to take this, but I'm going to keep watching for a bit.  I hoping they play up alot more intrigue with people coming from the future.  The sixers concept is just a bit boring and not well done imo.  Anyway, they can still take it anywhere they want.  I'd love it if they had an episode that went "back to the future" where they covered a back story there or brought in some new characters. 

I really hope they can throw some curve balls with TN. It's got dinosaurs, it's got some rebel faction, and there's a time rift. It just feels like it could get old very quickly. They really need to bring the time rift into the equation, because it's the only thing that keeps the show interesting imho. Maybe an army comes through the next time, or people from another timeline, or another future, or another world.

I just want the story to progress somewhere. All these sci-fi shows develop a working concept and then try to milk it with fillers. The audience abandons them, and the show is cancelled with the story not having gone anywhere because they filled it with fillers. Just do a story from the start, and you'll get a loyal audience - even if the story changes shape after a while, or is very long. See Lost. See Battlestar Galactica. 20 episodes with 15 being fillers isn't an epic sci-fi adventure. It's a 5 episode mini-series.

tl:dr; fuck fillers.

No kidding.  Lots of potential... just a question of whether or not they squander it. 

The epic question every time a television network airs something SciFi with promise--will they screw it up?

It's Fox... They will kill it, the question is when and will it have a good finale or be cut short before it hits that point.

Pretty sure the answer is yes.  They didn't screw up firefly (outside of cancelling it). 

Its definitely Fox's M.O. on this sort of thing, they canceled Dark Angel for Firefly, and so forth, so its definitely a matter of when at this point, until I see otherwise.

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TN had so much potential ... and really ... it's just crappier version of Lost mixed in with some Stargate Universe drama. Seriously, they are in the middle of no where  with DINOSAURS and they wander around in the middle of the night, with hardly any protection, with bullets that can't even hurt a dinosaur (shoot the dang things in the eyes if you can't hurt them anywhere else), and some wierd convoluted story that's just going to ruin the whole thing.

Seirously ... is there only like one dinosaur per every five square miles? Ugh ... I was hoping people would be getting eaten EVERYWHERE and that there WOULDN'T be a crud ton of stupid teenagers doing stupid teenager stuff without ANY reprecusions!

I mean, the 'slashers' were ridiculous! The kid gets 'empaled' and sent flying like 100ft by a tail covered in 7 inch spikes ... and he only has a 'small' gash ... no ... he would be cut very nearly in two. More over than that however is the fact that the Dinosaurs are apparently dumb. They sneak around and wait for you to shoot at them with innefective bullets and then run away. Seriously!? They would run up on you, savagely attack you and you would be dead, none of this 'tip-toe' Barnny the Dinosaur style of stuff ...

This isn't science-fiction. It's just a well setup show that is falling flat on it's face. It's the reason Sci-Fi just isn't going anywhere these days. (which is frustrating all on it's own)

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I blame it on lost and Battle Star Galactica... Everyone is trying to basically copy those shows' over the top drama. As a consequence they play fast and loose with consistency, realism, and believability .

Thanks for saving me the time of trying out TN. I will stick with Fringe and the good old series that I own. 

We are seeing more scifi dramas than the inter-galactic war stories we were use to. I miss them.. tired of people and there screwed up lives- i want space ships and space pony's terrorizing the universe. 

So terra nova just finished the first season, and the season finale, a double-episode, actually didn't suck. It wasn't good, but it was better than the rest of the show barring the first two episodes. It pushed every character out of their comfort zone, which is what I really like.

The characters feel extremely silly. The most important characters mostly have family, and they're pretty much falling over each other trying to save the families from each other. Ie, one bad guy has had her daughter taken hostage. So she captures someone's mom, and forces that mom's daughter to do some shady stuff. So that daughter endangers the next kid. It's just so... one-dimensional. It's like there's a list of important character aspects, and at the first place comes family. And family also comes at 2nd, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh place. And aaaaall the way down on the list you'll find other things such as loyalty, greed or ideology.

The show is also horribly black and white, morally speaking. Sure, you have some people betraying each other, but it never has any real impact on the story and everyone's forgiven and hugs in the end. And that's the problem. The people doing shady shit are doing it for the same reason - someone's kid or parent has been taken hostage. And yet, for some reason, that makes some people unforgivable, enemies to mankind. And others who started out in the good-guy camp just get a pat on the back and cry about it for 3 episodes.

I like TN final episodes and hope for a new season.

But i watch too many TV shows : Fringe, Chuck, Misfits, Mentalist, Suits, White Collar, Dexter etc ...

The TN final episodes had some good moments and a good overall plot but they where full of plot holes, cliches , and unrealistic decisions that tarnished the show. Seriously people in the future must be pretty suicidal/stupid.