What happened?
A small girl, Leah,was seen around the perimeter of Terra Nova, an apparent escapee from the Sixer camp. Whilst she claims to want to remain in Terra Nova it turns out she was sent to retrieve a strange box from the house that Sixer-leader Mira used to live in.
Whilst Taylor manages to prevent the girl escaping with the box (she was doing so believing that her brother would be hurt) Jim is captured for a brief period by the Sixers and told that Terra Nova is not what he thinks it is. Unable to open the box, Taylor has it kept safe until they can figure it out. The Sixers do reunite Leah and her brother and they remain in Terra Nova as permanent residents.
Thoughts
Almost symbolically, the penultimate scene of this episode pretty much encapsulated what the whole thing had been about. The box containing an unknown thing was unopened and locked away in a safe. A mystery presented and then left unresolved. That was pretty much the nature of this episode, from the unopened box to Mira saying to Jim that he didn’t know the truth about Terra Nova but that he’d eventually find out. . .
OK, I don’t expect Terra Nova to reveal all its secrets but let’s hope a few things get let out of the bag before the show gets cancelled! It’s a fine line between building a mystery that fuels audience anticipation and annoying the viewers by dangling secrets with no answers. Lost successfully walked this tightrope very well (especially in the early seasons) but that was because it reeked of quality and grabbed interest. Terra Nova, for me, hasn’t earned those credentials, that seal of quality, and so it dangling intrigue is more irksome than intriguing.
What most struck me about this episode, when it ended, was a sense of, Is that it? It actually felt like it was an episode that was dealing with a deeper, dramatic thrust and yet came out feeling more insubstantial than the previous standalone episodes had done. Weird.
So in the main it was disappointing, but at least it has generated some mystery and questions to make tuning in weekly more essential (because if it had kept up the standalone format for much longer I think it would have been far worse than the drip-feeding of intrigue presented here). The question of what is in the box is certainly interesting (and suggests that the Sixers departed Terra Nova in such a hurry they couldn’t collect all their things). My best guess would be that it is some means of communication, or potentially even travelling back, to the ‘present’ day of 2149. Or else it's a key of some fashion, something that Sixers needs to enable whatever it is they are out in the jungle getting up to!
Mira stated that there were people from their original world that were not happy about Taylor, but then if that’s the case why not send someone through the portal when it’s next opened that has the might or the authority to overturn Taylor’s rule? Is it because Taylor is running things in a way that was not intended (presumably so, he was the first guy through and must have been tasked with something but perhaps disregarded that)? Maybe the Sixers were the means to overturn what Taylor had disregarded and they are out in the jungle getting stuff done – Leah did mention they travel around a lot. It’s definitely got mileage, when written out and considered like this, the trouble with Terra Nova is communicating this sense of fascination on screen.
More tangible is the mystery of who the spy in camp is. Since there’s only a few key characters outside of the Shannon family and Taylor then the suspects rapidly dwindle. It’s surely not the female Lieutenant Washington, since she had a fairly rough battle with the Sixers at the start of this episode (maybe that was a staged bluff but it didn’t look like it). More likely is the young man attempting to woo Maddy, Mark Reynolds, since he does seem improbably involved in everything that goes on.
The other major candidate is the scientist Malcolm, whose manner and quick opposition to Taylor’s dictatorship certainly mark him out. Outside bet falls to the guy with no legs being the spy, though how he gets messages outside of the compound is anyone’s guess (why is the idea that the spy could be using telecommunications not taken more seriously as opposed to them having to be someone physically meeting the Sixers?). There’s always Skye, not present this episode, but there’s literally nothing about her to lend credence to that as presented so far.
Right now I’d plump for Mark Reynolds to be the spy. It would at least make his sappy romance with Maddy have some edge to it.
Strangely deflated episode, then, considering it’s the one that’s generated the most for me to discuss. The best scene in it, for me, was the moment where Jim Shannon got caught in a trap and was left dangling whilst a dinosaur (I’m tempted to say Raptor but I think the species presented in this show aren’t quite sticking to known dino breeds) attack him. It was an eye-catching situation to be clipped into a trailer and I felt like they really could have tacked on an extra minute or two and made it a truly nasty, desperate predicament for Jim to hopelessly try and extricate himself from before it looked like he was done for.
Instead the Sixers arrived and ended the scene and took Jim away, diffusing the tension and moving things along to a more ‘safer’ vibe. Shame. Sometimes a show doesn’t realise when it’s onto a good thing, and a scene like that could have been really protracted and eked the most out of to deliver a properly memorable, tense sequence. Missed opportunity for that scene, but in general this is a step in the right direction for the show.
What was the best part?
As stated, Jim in the booby trap. Despite it not quite reaching the potential I could have imagined for it, it was still the best part in an episode otherwise laden with mystery and mawkishness but little in the way of visceral thrill. (Kudos for the smackdown at the start with Washington and the Sixers, though – more of that and she’ll become a cooler character.)
What do I think will happen next?
Hopefully they’ll get to work on opening that box and not just leave it in the safe. And also they’ll dig further into the Sixers (rapidly assuming a vibe not dis-similar to The Others in Lost as an enemy tribe that hold more answers than our heroes) and quite what it is they’re about. Right now I’d be happy to ditch the Shannons and Terra Nova for an episode and hang out with the Sixers, but I doubt that’ll happen.
A small girl, Leah,was seen around the perimeter of Terra Nova, an apparent escapee from the Sixer camp. Whilst she claims to want to remain in Terra Nova it turns out she was sent to retrieve a strange box from the house that Sixer-leader Mira used to live in.
Whilst Taylor manages to prevent the girl escaping with the box (she was doing so believing that her brother would be hurt) Jim is captured for a brief period by the Sixers and told that Terra Nova is not what he thinks it is. Unable to open the box, Taylor has it kept safe until they can figure it out. The Sixers do reunite Leah and her brother and they remain in Terra Nova as permanent residents.
Thoughts
Almost symbolically, the penultimate scene of this episode pretty much encapsulated what the whole thing had been about. The box containing an unknown thing was unopened and locked away in a safe. A mystery presented and then left unresolved. That was pretty much the nature of this episode, from the unopened box to Mira saying to Jim that he didn’t know the truth about Terra Nova but that he’d eventually find out. . .
OK, I don’t expect Terra Nova to reveal all its secrets but let’s hope a few things get let out of the bag before the show gets cancelled! It’s a fine line between building a mystery that fuels audience anticipation and annoying the viewers by dangling secrets with no answers. Lost successfully walked this tightrope very well (especially in the early seasons) but that was because it reeked of quality and grabbed interest. Terra Nova, for me, hasn’t earned those credentials, that seal of quality, and so it dangling intrigue is more irksome than intriguing.
What most struck me about this episode, when it ended, was a sense of, Is that it? It actually felt like it was an episode that was dealing with a deeper, dramatic thrust and yet came out feeling more insubstantial than the previous standalone episodes had done. Weird.
So in the main it was disappointing, but at least it has generated some mystery and questions to make tuning in weekly more essential (because if it had kept up the standalone format for much longer I think it would have been far worse than the drip-feeding of intrigue presented here). The question of what is in the box is certainly interesting (and suggests that the Sixers departed Terra Nova in such a hurry they couldn’t collect all their things). My best guess would be that it is some means of communication, or potentially even travelling back, to the ‘present’ day of 2149. Or else it's a key of some fashion, something that Sixers needs to enable whatever it is they are out in the jungle getting up to!
Mira stated that there were people from their original world that were not happy about Taylor, but then if that’s the case why not send someone through the portal when it’s next opened that has the might or the authority to overturn Taylor’s rule? Is it because Taylor is running things in a way that was not intended (presumably so, he was the first guy through and must have been tasked with something but perhaps disregarded that)? Maybe the Sixers were the means to overturn what Taylor had disregarded and they are out in the jungle getting stuff done – Leah did mention they travel around a lot. It’s definitely got mileage, when written out and considered like this, the trouble with Terra Nova is communicating this sense of fascination on screen.
More tangible is the mystery of who the spy in camp is. Since there’s only a few key characters outside of the Shannon family and Taylor then the suspects rapidly dwindle. It’s surely not the female Lieutenant Washington, since she had a fairly rough battle with the Sixers at the start of this episode (maybe that was a staged bluff but it didn’t look like it). More likely is the young man attempting to woo Maddy, Mark Reynolds, since he does seem improbably involved in everything that goes on.
The other major candidate is the scientist Malcolm, whose manner and quick opposition to Taylor’s dictatorship certainly mark him out. Outside bet falls to the guy with no legs being the spy, though how he gets messages outside of the compound is anyone’s guess (why is the idea that the spy could be using telecommunications not taken more seriously as opposed to them having to be someone physically meeting the Sixers?). There’s always Skye, not present this episode, but there’s literally nothing about her to lend credence to that as presented so far.
Right now I’d plump for Mark Reynolds to be the spy. It would at least make his sappy romance with Maddy have some edge to it.
Strangely deflated episode, then, considering it’s the one that’s generated the most for me to discuss. The best scene in it, for me, was the moment where Jim Shannon got caught in a trap and was left dangling whilst a dinosaur (I’m tempted to say Raptor but I think the species presented in this show aren’t quite sticking to known dino breeds) attack him. It was an eye-catching situation to be clipped into a trailer and I felt like they really could have tacked on an extra minute or two and made it a truly nasty, desperate predicament for Jim to hopelessly try and extricate himself from before it looked like he was done for.
Instead the Sixers arrived and ended the scene and took Jim away, diffusing the tension and moving things along to a more ‘safer’ vibe. Shame. Sometimes a show doesn’t realise when it’s onto a good thing, and a scene like that could have been really protracted and eked the most out of to deliver a properly memorable, tense sequence. Missed opportunity for that scene, but in general this is a step in the right direction for the show.
What was the best part?
As stated, Jim in the booby trap. Despite it not quite reaching the potential I could have imagined for it, it was still the best part in an episode otherwise laden with mystery and mawkishness but little in the way of visceral thrill. (Kudos for the smackdown at the start with Washington and the Sixers, though – more of that and she’ll become a cooler character.)
What do I think will happen next?
Hopefully they’ll get to work on opening that box and not just leave it in the safe. And also they’ll dig further into the Sixers (rapidly assuming a vibe not dis-similar to The Others in Lost as an enemy tribe that hold more answers than our heroes) and quite what it is they’re about. Right now I’d be happy to ditch the Shannons and Terra Nova for an episode and hang out with the Sixers, but I doubt that’ll happen.
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