Terra Nova: Next Great Drama, or Next Cheesy Sci-Fi?

This past week Terra Nova debuted with a 2 hour pilot on Fox. The show promoted itself with dinosaurs and jungles, making it look somewhat like maybe it was the next copy of Lost. As we have seen every year since Lost hit it big we are getting all kinds of sci-fi shows that try to be "mysterious". While these serve their low level purpose, most of them tend to be on the level of SyFy Channel movies that are just made with little regard to quality writing.

We see shows like this a lot now. The Event, Flash Forward, and even the remake of "V". What all of these shows seem to be are trying to catch the magic that Lost had. The problem is that every one of them miss the point entirely of what made Lost so great. It had very little to do with the mysteries. It was about the good to great writing, and character development that made the show have the right mix of ingredients. Lost is closer to a cable drama than a broadcast one. It may not be on the level of say Breaking Bad, but it clearly was leaps and bounds above any other broadcast television dramas. Especially ones that are mystery sorts that have followed since.

This is one thing that makes me less likely to watch shows now. That they try to coat tail off of Lost by claiming they are the "next Lost". I don't want the next Lost. I have LOST. I want the next something good. None of these shows are that sort. They don't know the formula. At least they don't have the talent to pull it off anyways. Their characters always suck. I can find better written characters by download a youtube video of one of the top Youtubers.

So, now we have Terra Nova. Is it any different? Not really. IF you have watched such shows as The Event, you know exactly what I'm talking about here. Terra Nova has the same problems. The characters just aren't that good, and unfortunately neither is the CGI for the dinosaurs. This is another cheeseball sci-fi show that is enjoyable, but not a "must see". It's a time waster, and not much more.

Honestly, I don't have a lot good to say about it. I may watch it again, but I have the same feeling I had after the pilot of The Event. It was just OK, but not something that grabbed me and made me a fan. The depth of the characters, the dialogue, and the writing are all pure low level talent made for broadcast TV. The kind that takes the users for idiots, and basically tells us that there is a school somewhere that teaches writers how to churn out mediocrity.