wmldswlxh's blog: "wmldswlxh"

In the circle of life, certain plot points go 'round and 'round, and Fox's brand-new "Terra Nova" is the latest incarnation of the action drama about a family stranded in a strange world. It even opens with a similar premise to 1965's "Lost in Space" series, in which a couple and their three children are sent from an overpopulated earth to establish a new human colony on a distant planet. But that was then, and this is now, and "Terra Nova" leaves ye olde cheap-set series in the dust with production values that make each episode look cinematic. And not just like "Jurassic Park," although Steven Spielberg is co-executive producing the Fox show, which features dinos, father-son conflicts and a soup?on of preachiness. "Terra Nova" stakes out its own universe, burberry outlet and the fact that we have been on such journeys before may enhance the experience of this one. It's like getting on a roller coaster and waiting as it climbs to the top of that first hill again. The series begins in 2149, when Earth's environment is so polluted that it's permanent midnight outside apart from a vile orange glow in the toxic cloud above. In the small apartment of ex-cop Jim Shannon (Jason O'Mara), there's another problem. He and his wife have two teenagers but they also have a 3-year-old daughter—an illegal offspring in a society where the earth is deemed full and breeding above replacement rate is banned. The punishment stemming from this violation will be harsh. The only bright spot is that at some point—you knew this was coming, right?—there was a "fracture in the fabric of time and space" and this opened a sparkly portal through which selected people are transported back 85 million years. Terra Nova, as the new colony is called, is laid out in the middle of a prehistoric jungle wilderness. There's a huge stockade around the settlement and this is where the memory of "Jurassic Park" is useful, because that stockade can only mean one, T-Rexish, thing. But inside it seems nice. The Shannons' new house looks like an eco-bungalow you'd find at an expensive fat-farm in Vanuatu. As for the colonists, Mrs. Elisabeth Shannon (Shelley Conn) was recruited as a top-notch physician. But the main qualification for residency would seem to be youthful good looks. Within minutes of arrival, both of the teenage Shannons have met attractive members of the opposite sex. And soon some of them are drinking moonshine at a still they've erected outside the stockade. Until they are interrupted by a roaring pack of bloodthirsty dinosaurs with chicken cockades on their heads and lethal blades on their tails. The "slashers," as these creatures are called, are only one among many scary things running wild outside the colony. Some are even human, former colonists known as Sixers, who broke away to establish a rival settlement. Who these people are, and why they were sent to Terra Nova will be one of the great mysteries of the series. The man who worries most about the Sixers is Cmdr. Nathaniel Taylor (Stephen Lang), who was Terra Nova's first settler and is now its leading defender. Not only from cold-blooded prehistoric killers. Unlike the brutish commander he played in "Avatar," Mr. Lang is a good guy here, dedicated to giving greedy, despoiling mankind a second chance to get things right. Or is he, too, caught in a web of deceit that may prove deadlier than all the raptors in the world?