Friday Fall Preview: Terra Nova

For the past few years, I’ve wanted to do a summer feature where I took a look at one upcoming show each week. Come back every Friday for a new Fall Preview, and suggest an upcoming show to be featured if you’re looking forward to it!

Terra Nova – Mondays at 8pm (FOX)



What could be more exciting than this, honestly? Sure, there’s plenty of potential for it to be a huge, exhaustingly expensive disaster, but consider the possibilities if it’s actually as awesome as it looks and sounds. The first few moments of the trailer, which show the dystopian state of society in 2149, could make up a stellar show all by themselves. Still, going back eighty-five million years to the land before time isn’t a bad idea. In fact, it’s an incredible one. This is also a two-part show, half calm exploration of a deserted and prehistoric era and half action epic, which should mostly involve humans running from and shooting at terrifyingly violent and giant dinosaurs. That of course reminds immediately of “Lost,” with the isolated factor and the Smoke Monster factor, but the shows are plenty divergent enough for them to be different. This also reminds me of “Monsters,” the small film from last year about an “infected zone” between the U.S. and Mexico where tentacled aliens are kept and wreak havoc. Jason O’Mara is in full-on intense mode, and that’s a good thing, considering how creepy he was in his guest spot on “The Closer.” Stephen Lang was perfect in a similar colonialist role in “Avatar,” and so I think he’s going to be great here. This is certainly one of the most ambitious network television projects ever, and the payoff could be huge if it’s not awful. Just how excited are you?