It always frustrates me when people say things like, "Oh, people don't like this show because it was disappointing"-- i.e., they expected one thing and got another.
That's a lot of hogwash. Plenty of shows and movies turned out to be the opposite of what everyone expected them to be and became hits. A great example is The Matrix. Everyone thought that it was going to be some martial arts sci fi flick with cool action sequences where the characters are superhuman-like beings who fly around in Asian outfits when in reality the "kung fu" scenes that were in the trailer only comprised maybe 20% of the movie; the rest takes place in Zion with helpless human beings living in a horrible dystopian future. No one was disappointed, because the writing was so excellent that no one cared that The Matrix wound up being totally different than from what was in the trailer.
People are criticizing Terra Nova because bottom line, the writing is abysmal. If people are disappointed, it's not because they "got one thing" and "expected another;" it's because the writing is flat out lazy. It's even lazy by Highlander/ Xena: Princess Warrior/V.I.P. standards, and those were shows that cost nothing to produce. The writers aren't even trying to produce scripts that have any intelligence, suspense, or real drama in them. They're just coasting. Look at "Inception." They basically just copied The Birds. That's all they did. Didn't add any new twists or turns in the story to update it. They just copied the story. The writers even copied the scenes from the movie where the main character is sitting in some location minding her own business and the birds slowly start gathering nearby on a structure before they launch a full on attack.
"What Remains" was even lazier. The writers created "suspense" and "drama" over... wait for it... Elisabeth losing her memory and remembering Malcolm. Wow, I was practically on the edge of my seat with that one. I mean, who knew that Elisabeth would remember Jim??? And when it turned out that Jim's cold was the "cure" to the virus, you could've knocked me over with a feather! No, but seriously--I've seen more suspense-filled episodes on Land of the Lost and no, I am not being sarcastic. Watch one episode of that program (they're on YouTube) and you'll see the difference between writing that tries to create drama and suspense and writing that just doesn't care one way or the other to.
) but it would've shown that these characters aren't invincible and that there actually could be a chance for a main or secondary character to be seriously hurt in each episode. It hurts that surprise and dramatic factor when you know that somehow this person's going to be saved. Nevertheless, I am liking the Sixer involvement and interested in the whole connection with the future.
