Terra Nova

Season 1, Episode 6, Aired
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Episode Summary

The Enterprise crew alters course to investigate the mystery of Terra Nova, a legendary Earth colony whose inhabitants mysteriously disappeared decades ago. However, when they arrive, they are confronted by descendants of the colonists, who have become more alien than anyone could ever have imagined.
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Fan Episode Reviews (3)

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  • Terra Nova One of the weakest episodes in this first season. It is kind of hard to know where to begin. Terra Nova, "the great experiment," was a patchy episode at best.moreless

    2.0
    "Terrible"
    By the_cyberleader, May 30, 2010 Report Abuse
    Terra Nova

    One of the weakest episodes in this first season. It is kind of hard to know where to begin. Terra Nova, "the great experiment," was a patchy episode at best. First off, I find the explanation of why Earth never sent a follow-up mission to the planet to hard to believe. To me, it seems that another trip would be needed to ascertain what happened to the original colonists.

    Also there were only two hundred colonists in the first ship, and surely, Terra Nova could support millions if not billions. So why all the anger at a second ship? Simply for the plot. The writers weren't willing to think things through. Without well thought out ideas, this story becomes a meaningless series of episodes that drive an underpowered plot.
    Secondly, why exactly would the colonists blame Earth for the asteroid strike. Also wouldn't they have some knowledge of what they might face on the planet. It seems to me that colonization would have an impact assessment for meteoroids and the like. But the colonist have no warning and then jump to the wrong conclusions.

    Thirdly, Archer's initial actions make it hard for him to make any peaceful solution. You wouldn't go armed into someone home, would you? The drawn phase pistols really limits what Archer can so. It was as if Archer and crew were itching for a fight, but this goes against why they came here.

    Lastly, Tucker from the ship is able to map the tunnel system. But then Mayweather lands the shuttle pod on top of a tunnel? What's going on here? Just more useless plot to get humans and Novans working together. The sad thing is that I know Erick Avari, Jaymin, is a good actor but he was so underused. This whole episode is really sad because it could have been so much better.
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  • great episode

    10
    "Perfect"
    By sfviewer, May 20, 2010 Report Abuse
    The crew of the enterprise investigates a planet that has the same characteristics as Earth. When Archer sends a crew down to the planet surface, they discover that there might be a colony of intelligent lifeforms residing on the planet. It's a good concept to explore. It works well for the episode, it's really interesting. The writers really came up with a very good episode. The human evolution might looked far fetched, but with a touch of star trek, this idea could be made into something really entertaining. It works so well for this episode. I can't wait for the next one.moreless

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  • Concept of first gallactic human settlement interesting....poorly executed and carried through.

    7.0
    "Good"
    By fifth_dimension, May 20, 2010 Report Abuse
    Very average episode, but that is par for the course as most season 1 Star Trek episodes fail to become enthralling until the writers work themselves into a groove.

    The concept of exploring Earth's first settlement outside our own solar system is an interesting one, but the way it is developed here falls short of it's promise and actually seems to drift into the implausible at points. One of the biggest things that screamed "flaw" at me and took me out of the episode was the degree to which the settlers physically evolved and at the same time intelectually regressed within the short time frame of two to three generations. It's possible that radiation from the "attack" could have hastened the physical change of developing facial scales and pigment but it is even more plausible that radiation at that high a level would have killed them; even if they fled underground since it is apparent that enough radiation reached them even underground to cause the above mentioned changes. The bigger flaw though is how the decendants of a society technologically advanced enough to send them 20 light years aways would within three generations just FORGET all the concepts, ideas and knowledge that enabled them to reach their new home. We are told that the radiation killed all the grown ups and left just the children (who have the greater ability to develop immunity to environmental threats), but you would think that some of the children were old enough to remember some of their lives up till that point. It seems unlikely that children that were up till that point raised with advanced technology such as computers, warp drives, scanners etc would just forget all about them and what they existed for and then revert to such simplistic concepts as "overside" and "underside", "shale", "cloud your tracks" when referring to the world around them.moreless

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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  • Trivia

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    • While Mayweather is pleased that Enterprise solved the mystery of Terra Nova, he mentions Amelia Earhart's famous disappearance. Amelia's disappearance would be solved by Voyager 220 years later in the episode "The 37's".

      Edit
    • Nitpick: Archer says that the colonists have been on the planet for two generations. However, T'Pol later says that it's been three generations. Edit

  • Notes

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    • International Airdates United Kingdom: 04 February 2002 on Sky One Edit

  • Quotes

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    • T'Pol: My experience with Humans is limited, but I've come to learn that they are quite resourceful.
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    • Trip: Really? Every school kid on Earth had to learn about the famous Vulcan expeditions. T'Pol: Name one. Trip: History was never my best subject. Edit

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