Friday, November 11, 2011

What I’m Watching: Terra Nova


Terra Nova: Season 1, Episode 6 “Nightfall” (B)

Here we have a hearty improvement over the previous, highly unfortunate episode, and while it’s not perfect, it’s much better in terms of its utilization of its surroundings and positive emphasis on character plot rather than just silly drama. The arrival of a meteor is a completely understandable event, and there’s nothing like knocking out the power to return a civilization to the prehistoric age, using such weapons as bows and arrows instead of electric-powered guns, and extracting parasites by hand. Jim being trapped in the Eye with Zoe both took away Terra Nova’s security chief and also didn’t permit Jim from realizing exactly what was going on above ground. Fortunately, things proceeded along just fine without him as Mark trained Maddy in the art of pungent camouflage as she demonstrated her knowledge of all things extremely useful, and the couple had their first kiss without her family knowing a thing about it. If this show doesn’t make it to a second season, Dean Geyer should definitely try to score a gig on a new sci-fi series playing a lunar accountant. Mira and her people sure took advantage of the power outage to send a large and intimidating dinosaur towards Terra Nova as a distraction so that her people could get the box. I was impressed that Taylor figured out her ruse by noting that the dinosaur had been abused. I’m sure it came as a surprise to almost no one that the mystery scientist Mira handed over the box contents to is none other than Taylor’s son, whose hatred of his father elevates him to the status of one of the show’s most intriguing characters.

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