What happened?
As Jim’s investigation leads him closer to revealing that Skye is the spy in camp, Skye herself is under pressure from Lucas to supply him with information he needs to complete his work on making the portal work both ways. With her mother’s life under threat, Skye gives Lucas what he needs. Jim and Taylor work out what Skye has been doing but they are unable to stop Lucas from using the portal to venture back to the future, threatening to return with an army to wipe out Terra Nova.
Skye’s mother is recovered from the Sixer camp by Taylor’s previous banished soldier, Curran, and Taylor himself addresses the entire colony to inform them they must prepare for the oncoming enemy that threatens to destroy their entire way of life.
Thoughts
The steadily-improving Terra Nova doles out another decent episode, and sets the stage for what feels like could be an almighty showdown. And you know, the optimist in me holds a candle of hope that the show has got it in it to deliver the goods, to end this first season with a stunning climax that will validate it as one that has been getting better and better with every episode.
Everyone loves an underdog story. Terra Nova feels like that underdog, and all it needs to do is come good for the finish.
I’ll tell you what I noticed and thought was good this episode that I can’t say I’ve noticed before: the music. It really seemed to stand out and grab my attention (previously I thought it sounded rather dreary – here it had a bit more edge to it). Just like the show, it’s like the music has been struggling to figure out its identity but now is on the right track and all the better for it.
This episode couldn’t help itself entirely – no episode of Terra Nova is complete without some truly terrible dialogue and/or patient-testing plotting. Here we had Maddy’s subplot where she got all stressed out because her computer “Plex” core had burned out and she needed a new one so she could read and do homework. (Again, the script tells us she’s incredibly geeky but her performance really doesn’t sell it.) And so this peripheral froth of a subplot saw her bartering with the wheelchair trader and then turning to Boylan – and just when you thought it wasn’t bad enough he then had a sudden character transplant and was jittery and fearful of Jim so much so he gave Maddy what she wanted for absolutely nothing.
Awful. It’s better to pretend that whole part of the episode didn’t happen. Along with the terrible opening shots of bad-CGI pterodactyls (or whatever they call flying dinosaurs in Terra Nova); pointless and poor and all the more maddening by being completely unnecessary.
Skye took a fair share of the limelight here and it was probably her strongest episode for it. I particularly liked the detail that her mother called her ‘Bucket’ because she used to wear a bucket on her head as a child when she had dreams of being a soldier. That detail shed more light and depth to her character than anything else I can think of, humanising her in an instant.
Whilst more could have been made of the dramatic conflict inherent in her being rumbled as the spy (Jim far too easily reached the conclusion that she was behaving as a double agent against her will and I’d have liked to think Josh’s sense of betrayal would be pretty acute) it was better that it wasn’t dragged out. But Terra Nova, soft-hearted soul that it is, wasn’t quite prepared to have Skye live with the guilt of walking away to leave her mother to die. Up she popped at the end of the episode, conveniently rescued off-camera by Taylor’s once-banished soldier.
It’s not that I begrudge convenient, happy event plotting – it’s just that sometimes it can feel altogether too unbelievable if not handled right. The rescue of Skye’s mother fell on that side of disbelief for me.
Bad dialogue of the episode fell to Taylor, when he encountered Skye and demanded she tell him something that would make him believe what she was saying about Lucas. Of course, Lucas had previously provided her with enough backstory information of a date when it all went sour between him and Taylor, and so she could use that to prove herself. Again, that’s just really too convenient; so clumsy and heavy-handed it lands with a clunk.
Further criticism for Lucas, too. His character here came off worse than it has before. Instead of sounding like some righteous genius with a genuine viewpoint that runs contrary to his father’s he just came across as a petulant little brat that was prepared to cut off his nose to spite his face just so long as he could get one over on his dad. For someone so smart those daddy issues are provoking him towards a mass murder and destruction of a new world – and he doesn’t even seem to particularly care if it’s right or wrong.
If his hatred for Taylor was simply colouring his judgment that would be fine – but it’s actually dictating his behaviour beyond rational morals and that, for me, needs better justification. If I thought he was going to make a proper villain I would be more in-line for rooting against him, however this being Terra Nova I still expect a father-son, feelgood reunion is on the horizon.
With all this criticism it doesn’t sound like there was anything good to report about this episode, but that’s not the case. Despite all these detractors it went about its business briskly and wasted no time in getting the plot moving towards some serious action. In its own way, it’s made me care about the Shannon family. The image of Jim at the end, holding on to his family with a grim foreboding at what was coming, of what he and everyone was being called on to do to save themselves, brought home the stakes and made me realise that I do hope for the best for these cheesy, goofy Shannons!
What was the best part?
Despite Lucas sounding like a whiney teenager, his capture of the portal – blasting the conveniently positioned all on one side soldier guards – and then his confrontation and declaration of intent to Taylor really put a line in the sand between them. His stepping into the machine with a full-blooded promise that he would be back felt like a genuine threat. I didn’t doubt for a second, after seeing and hearing him, that when he came back he was going to be bringing some serious shit back with him.
What do I think will happen next?
Camp Terra Nova is going to have to conjure some serious defence strategies to protect themselves from the imminent onslaught. I fully suspect it to be a major battle (although the question of just destroying the portal ought to be raised, surely!?). I expect the Sixers to side with Terra Nova when it counts, too. And, furthermore, I anticipate Lucas and Taylor finding some kind of resolve between them. Mostly, though, I am just hoping for something spectacular and climactic.
No comments:
Post a Comment