Terra Nova

Season 1 Episode 6

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EPISODE REVIEWS
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Episode Summary

Terra Nova has its first murder, and Jim and Taylor must determine who is guilty of the crime. Meanwhile, Skye continues to help Josh figure out how to get Kira to Terra Nova from 2149. Elisabeth is determined to save an unborn Ankylosaurus after Zoe sees the egg in the hospital and asks if she is going to help it.

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FAN RECAP

Fan Episode Reviews (9)

SUBMIT REVIEW

  • Rubbissh episode

    6.0
    By danny7277, Jul 26, 2012
    I really didnt like this episode of terra nova it was just so boring the premise itself was ok and something only terra nova could do i mean law and order couldent have a dinosaur as a weapon its just the way the writers execute it, with bad writing, bad characters and silly plotting, the sub plot with the dinosaur egg was boring and the whole josh thing had some intrest at the end with the sixers but did nothing to make the character of josh more likeable, so overall this was another stinker of and episode that sufferd from the troubles as the other episodes,moreless

  • Bylaw

    6.0
    By arkanitoo, Jul 17, 2012
    Welcome to "CSI: New Land". Murrrderrr! If there was something that was missing quite a lot so fast that already dropped a formula is no doubt leave now dragging to another, the typical cases of officers who meet weekly for much of the programming of CBS (and almost all other channels, albeit at lower doses).



    I must say that with all the rebellion of the Sixers, and the problems they have raised, stay a bit incredulous that so far has never been a murder in "Terra Nova", but if the Commander Taylor (Stephen Lang) says so, who am I to contradict him?



    So here is the story of the first murder in "Terra Nova": four characters never before seen and which, consequently, there is no sentimental attachment, are the protagonists. One uses a dinosaur to kill the other (of course, this could only be the weapon of choice!) Because of money, but who wrote this episode, as any mystery should be written, is the time to divert our attention to the other two players (a couple), and the possibility that it is a crime of passion. The problem is that not everyone who does not know already the structure of this kind of story I knew almost from the beginning that the couple had nothing to do with the crime, then the successive plans camera to reveal the identity of the criminal over episode were more than enough clues to unravel this intrincadssimo (!) case.



    Behind all this banality, I recognize that there is a good intention to try to explore what the feeling would create a society that tries to start again and ends up dropping into old habits (*). The big problem is that the way the episode was conducted which resulted in the same let the feeling yet another episode of "CSI" last in the jungle of what exactly a case study on the human condition (and zero impact to the scene of funeral took is a good example).



    (*) The scene closer to achieving this is the one that Taylor decides that the sentence to give the alleged murderer is basically the death (the way of Newfoundland, of course, that is cast into the jungle at the mercy of all the dangers that exist out there). However, implementation of the scene takes you up and feeling is strange when one sees, for example, Maddy (Naomi Scott) almost compulsively to cry because it is hard to see / feel through the scene why is she crying ( It is concerned with the offender? Newfoundland is sad because he fell into old habits?).



    However, the episode also features two other secondary storylines, one involving the birth of a baby dinosaur (a la "Jurassic park") and another that comes from previous episodes and joined Josh (Landon Liboiron) to Mira (Christine Adams ), which gave some impetus to the episode but it was so late in even if they never could have an impact sufficient to prevent this tragedy ...moreless

  • After a soldier gets killed by a small dinosaur everyone thinks it was an accident. But Jim suspects foul play... contains spoilers.

    6.0
    By Daniel-Jackson, Dec 13, 2011
    At yet another small outpost a lonely soldier opens the door to a small station and gets killed by a small raptor-like dinosaur that has been waiting inside.

    The first think that comes to my mind is the question of what the hell he was doing far out all alone. I mean this is supposed to be dangerous territory and there is no one to back him up!?

    When the Terra Nova team investigates the scene everyone believes the guy had forgoten to close the door behind him and the dinosaur dropped in on him, but Jim, the ex-cop finds evidence that the dinosaur had been in the station before and suspects murder.

    After some CGI-dinosaur hunting and some CSI-style investigation that looks cool with 22nd century gadgets but feels very set-up more clues come up that the dinosaur had been planted there intentionally and after some short "asking questions" a scapegoat is found fast and banned from the colony.

    Of course that guy later turns out to be innocent and another soldier who owed money to the victim had been the murderer. Taylor beats the guy up and bans him from the colony.

    Then there are those other secondary stories. Josh once again does foolish stuff trying to bring his girl friend from the 22nd century in and ends up making a deal with the supposed bad guys, the sixers.

    Zoe once again finds something to keep that any sane adult would probably deem to dangerous for a small child.

    Overall this episode was very predictable and fits in perfectly with the rest of this show's mediocrity. In the condition the show is in and remains in for now it is watchable as one of the few sci-fi-shows around but I'm pretty sure that the show wouldn't be missed if it got axed or even remembered for very long.

    Actually this is very sad since the original trailers and announcements looked so good. The whole set up has so much potential but it fails to live up to that in every single episode so far. Even the dinosaur-interactions are kept to a minimum - the british show Primeval did that much better altough their creatures looked a bit more like CGI then the ones on Terra Nova. I hope they do get things going soon - most sci-fi shows need about 2 seasons to really get good.

    But right now, even I as a die-hard sci-fi-fan wouldn't miss this show if it went away. I would only be sad about all the wasted potential of a really great idea.

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  • The big question I have with Terra Nova is whether it's a dumb show or a smart series.

    7.0
    By colten97, Nov 13, 2011
    I want it to be a smart show, of course, because it's not fun enough to be a successful dumb show, and it has a lot of the pieces that would make it a really good smart show if it went that way. Based on tonight's episode, I feel confident in declaring: Terra Nova is a dumb show.

    Here's why: we've heard some rumblings about how Commander Taylor has created a justice system on Terra Nova that doesn't fit with our American, classical liberal ideals of fair trials, juries of peers, and so on. Tonight's episode took that head on, becoming, as a few people Tweeting about it noted, Law & Order: Terra Nova. This isn't actually a bad thing.I havetheories about "procedural world-building", where a show uses traditional one-episode forms to create a dense setting from which it can build fantastic stories. So Terra Nova's uninspiring first few episodes can maybe be seen as part of that school of thought. And tonight's episode would seem to fit in with them, but here's the thing: the world it helps to build isn't very good, and doesn't stand up at all to scrutiny.

    Specifically, I'm talking about Terra Nova and Commander Taylor's discussion of "law". A man is accused of murder, and confesses to the crime. So Taylor, according to the laws of Terra Nova, banishes him from the colony. Which is fine, except that Taylor proceeds to give a speech about how there are laws, and people have to follow those laws, otherwise the punishments are clear. And here's what makes it dumb: this isn't how laws work in our society. Laws exist, yes, but laws are balanced by rights, responsibilities, and traditions. They aren't simply "if you do a bad thing someone casts judgment upon you." They are "we have a set of rules which exist to protect the accused and give all sides a chance to exist within the system fairly." Now, obviously this doesn't work all of the time in the real world, let alone the fictional world. But when the show has Jim and Elisabeth Shannon get into an argument about the judicial process in Terra Nova without actually saying the words "jury of his peers"? There's something seriously wrong here.

    What makes it worse is that such discussions are often at the heart of great science fiction television. On Star Trek: The Next Generation, Captain Picard often had conflicts where his commitment to classical liberalism was tested, and it was almost universally proved correct in the end. Alternately, a show like Battlestar Galactica had its authority figures, Adama and Roslin, wrestle with the issues of the flaws in process versus the dangers of authoritarianism, and make their decision with full knowledge that they could be wrong. On Terra Nova, Taylor and Shannon basically decide that having a strong, wise authoritarian patriarch is ideal...and that's it. There's an argument, yes, but it's entirely surface-level. It's simply two people who disagree with each other. They don't cite the Constitution, they don't cite political philosophy or theory. It's like someone yelling at someone they disagree with about a link on Facebook. It is, in a word, dumb.

    With that dumbness acknowledged, there's still something that works about Terra Nova. It doesn't work well, but if you want to turn something on in the background while you drink beer and play browser games, hey, this is damn adequate! I don't know if the ratings are adequate. I don't know if the word-of-mouth are adequate to gather more viewers to improve those ratings. And I really don't think adequate is good enough for a show with this much potential on the artistic end, and this high of a budget on the business end. Terra Nova: do better.moreless

  • Coolest show with the dumbest scripts / characters!

    8.0
    By Darkflame2006, Nov 11, 2011
    I like this show, despite its silly and stupid scripts, bad acting and terribly dumb characters, i would like to see it survive a few series purely for the sci-fi side of things.

    Ever since the Star Trek series finished years ago, apart from Fringe, just not enough good sci-fi and it really sucks.

    I could go into great depth into why this episode was so dumb but i'm sure it's already been covered by the reviews below.

    Interestingly enough, I think the character stupidity actually adds comedy value for me so i'll keep watching until the bitter end, lolmoreless
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Cast & Crew: STARS

Jason O'Mara

Jason O'Mara

Jim Shannon
Shelley Conn

Shelley Conn

Elisabeth Shannon
Landon Liboiron

Landon Liboiron

Josh Shannon
Alana Mansour

Alana Mansour

Zoe Shannon
Naomi Scott

Naomi Scott

Maddy Shannon
Christine Adams

Christine Adams

Mira
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Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

Simone Kissell

Simone Kissell

Lt. Alicia Washington

Guest Star

Dean Geyer

Dean Geyer

Mark Reynolds

Guest Star

Jay Ryan

Jay Ryan

Curran

Guest Star

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Season 1 Episodes

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Ep 13
Resistance
Ep 12
Occupation
Ep 11
Within
Ep 10
Now You See Me
Ep 9
Vs.
Ep 8
Proof
Ep 7
Nightfall
Ep 6
Bylaw
Ep 5
The Runaway
Ep 4
What Remains
Ep 3
Instinct
Ep 2
Genesis - Part 2
Ep 1
Genesis - Part 1

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