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Fox has not made a decision on a Terra Nova renewal, but the series’ producers are moving to secure key actors and beef up writer ranks to be ready for production on Season 2. The options on the cast of the prehistoric drama are up on December 31, and I’ve learned that pickups for stars Jason O’Mara and Stephen Lang are imminent. With the cast options’ expiration date looming, the network originally was expected to make a decision on the series last week, following a top-level meeting between the heads of 20th Century Fox, which produces Terra Nova, and Fox on December 16. That didn’t happen, but the pickup of sought-after actors O’Mara and Lang gives Fox a little bit of breathing room, and the network is now expected to make its decision in January. That would make for a very tight production schedule on Terra Nova, which has to begin filming in April to make a September premiere date because of the series’ extensive post-production, including visual effects.
The search is already underway for high-level writers to join executive producers Brannon Braga and Rene Echevarria in Season 2 as the network and studio are looking to elevate the writing on the show going forward. Last night’s two-hour season finale drew a 2.2 rating in adults 18-49 and 7.2 million viewers, a tad better than last week’s series low; it didn’t make Fox’s decision easier by making the case for a renewal one way or the other. And the network has to make the call on Terra Nova in a vacuum, before having seen its development for next season. (Fox faces similar pressure to rule on the future of veteran House next month to give the veteran series time for a proper sendoff should this be its final season.) Still, with strong DVR viewing, big international sales and Peter Chernin and Steven Spielberg behind it, Terra Nova at this point appears likely to be renewed.
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The show is horrible, absolutely wretched. Bad writing, worse acting; even the CGI dinos are bad actors. It’s an 8th-grader’s short story wrapped in a $20M set. Did I mention the bad writing?
How can AMC, for a song and a dance, continue to put out quality shows that have solid writing with compelling characters telling interesting stories and broadcast networks can’t. It’s a puzzle.
Yeah that 30 Million deal they gave Winer. Song… And… Dance… They’re so cheap at AMC!
Did Mad Men (or any AMC show) cost a lot in its first season?
Someone beat me to it, but I’ll add – How many Awards has Mad Men won before Weiner got paid? A show that is literally about flesh-eating zombies (filmed in GA, no less) is better than anything that is currently on broadcast television. Anything.
I’m not in the business, just a fan of quality entertainment. But, I’m absolutely amazed that AMC has managed to find a pretty good model for well-produced drama that has apparently escaped the grasp of every other network in Hollywood. What gives? Maybe everyone should move to Bethpage.
The actors are good, the problem is the writing. I hope there is a second season with a new writing staff that allows the cast to shine because I like most of them.
I couldn’t agree more. The show has great potential but it needs better writing to pull it off. Season finale was the best teaser of the whole first season. I do hope they can find some writers that can raise the bar to the level that the shows actors so sorely need.
Good writers don’t write for network TV anymore. And they certainly don’t work for Dana and Gary.
This show has got great potential. Terra Nova=New Earth=New Show=Next big thing. You need to be patient and wait for the next season. It only gets way better from here ladies and gentlemen and I, for one, am in for the long haul. Great ideas grow into great stories and great characters, you just have to let it happen.
“as the network and studio are looking to elevate the writing on the show going forward”….. that would be much appreciated. It’s halfway there but to be a show worth staying with it needs to do just that.
A new direction is what this series needs.
New blood. And that starts at the top…
It is cheesy, stilted sci-fi in the vein of Braga’s Star Trek: Voyager and Enterprise (the show itself is loaded with Trek references and plot elements recycled from Trek shows, Voyager being closest with the “Sixers” being a mix of the Kazon and the Maquis plus the recent “mole” subplot) with a family angle thrown in.
That being said, it’s not beyond redemption–Lang’s Taylor is far more interesting than Archer or Janeway–and bringing in some writers who are better at character development could take the show outside of live-action cartoon territory and into decent pop sci-fi along the lines of the first season of “Heroes” or “Lost.”
There is so much wrong with Terra Nova, from its paint-by-number stories, the bland characters and truly horrendous CGI dinosaurs, to the fact that it stole all of its ideas from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I mean, I loved DS9, but seriously Brannon Braga (and I expected more from Rene Echevarria)?
This show needs a vision, a direction that makes people want to watch it. After 13 episodes, all we know is that Taylor’s son is a cartoon villain and that -like Lost- if you watch it long enough, you’ll be disappointed.
David, thank you. ^^^This is so true.
I watched the pilot, a couple of the eps in between and then saw the finale, only to discover I hadn’t really missed anything.
If Fox does bring it back cut the budget(there is nothing in this show worth 4 mill per ep), stick to Shannon and Taylor and please, please, please less family and more action.
Give it a chance! The format is strong, the story is there, the actors are hungry. We just need one more season to really make this a hit!
No, the story is unoriginal crap, the actors are average at best, the cgi is really bad. This show had its chances, it’s over, cancel this turd. The ratings are weak too. For such a high budget project, this is unacceptable; it’s gonna drop more and more if they bring it back, kill it and forget this embarrasement.
I agree with Hoyagirl and disagree with Benn. Good sci fi is fundamentally about the writing, the story, and the characters…not the CGI. What’s needed is some better writing for the second season and they will see the ratings soar!
the show isn’t bad. Its a 6.Better writing would help a lot. They need to lose the kids. let them get eaten by something
Good call.
I think they actually have an opportunity to revamp the entire thing. They can fire the entire family as regular cast. Present it so that each new season they focus on a different group of Terra Nova citizens who have their own self-contained story arc. Lang would be the only returning regular to anchor each season together. And former cast members could always come back for guest appearances.
I LOVE THAT IDEA!
Lang is really great and would be a good anchor for your idea for the series. As soon as I saw the pilot I thought there have got to be more interesting people than the Shannons to focus on. They don’t have any chemistry and I find them mostly unlikeable. The teen romance sub-plots don’t help either!
Adios.
I’d rather just see FOX axe the show and roll the dice with a new concept next season. But if they got new writers and new actors on board (the whole Shannon family is a horrible drag on the show and the villains are pathetic), then they might have something. Time travel + dinos + Steven Lang. Just start over with S2 and forget about the first season debacle.
This show is astonishingly crappy. Far too often it’s just eye-rollingly dumb, cringe-inducingly cartoony, and (worst of all) boring. But it certainly still has potential. It needs a major creative shake-up, though.
As the other commenters have implied, Braga has to go. He’s literally just retreading lame Star Trek spin-off cliches from a decade ago and spinning his wheels. Heck, just compare it to Lost, and just imagine the AMC, Showtime or FX version of this show.
Unfortunately they copped out in the season finale when they had a chance to really turn the show on its ear, making the colonists “The Others” (I mean, the “Sixers”) and turning them into rebels-on-the-run next season. That might’ve been interesting. Why couldn’t they commit to that?
To its credit, the show does have a heart, but too often to its sappy detriment. What this show really needs is a brain, guts and a spine. I’d pay real money to see Fox bring someone in like Tim Minear or Howard Gordon (and elevate some of their better current writer/producers like Jose Molina).
I watched this all season and, while it definately wasn’t perfect, I really enjoyed myself for sheer escapism value. It’s tremendously fun to watch, and it improved a lot over the course of the season whenever it decided to focus on the core mythology/sci-fi rather than an excess of the cutesey or hormonal kids (but even they were not as bad as some other cute kids I’ve seen before on other shows.) Last night’s finale was terific and really upped the ante for the show to become a bettter version of itself for season 2, and I hope Fox decides to go for it. Sometimes shows need a little time to develop themselves, and I think Terra Nova is finally hitting its stride, so it would be too bad to pull the plug now when there is so much promise in it.
You nailed it on the head, Jake.
I am one of the 7+ Million viewers who watch this show every week, and I have to say that even though the writing and acting can be pretty wooden at times, I think this is definitely a show that can last a good few seasons. Bring on some better writers, keep the episode count to around 13 per season, add some more dinosaurs and we can have a really awesome show here.
It’s the writing, stupid. (Or I mean, it’s the stupid writing).
I’d give the cast a second chance but everybody needs some more smarts (cast, writers and producers). And you can’t be serious about the Deep Space Nine, Heroes and Lost references. This is purely John Mills, Dorothy McGuire, James McArthur stuff (look it up).
it’s spielberg who the Dino’s need to “gobble up”. He’s become full of himself. never had anything successful on TV. Is in name only on this show. And no one cares anymore what Chernin thinks. They’re just honoring an extremely lucrative deal when he wasn’t made president.
Amazing Stories was great.
So, Band Of Brothers was not successful???
So Band of Brothers, the highest rated drama, action, every genre rolled into one tv show, was a waste of time and not successful. To me, you’re the kind of person who would reply, ” BoB was only one season so how can’t it be successful?” Well sir, if my suspicions are correct, don’t bother saying anything
given how low its ratings were and how its the most expensive series to make surprise fox is even thinking of renewing it for a second season when they should just cut their losses and say no to a second season
I really wanted to like this show, it’s premise and style promised to be reminiscent of shows I grew up loving back in the day, but boy oh boy is this thing terrible! The writing is shockingly sophomoric, and I just want those dinosaurs (as bad as they do look) to just come along and eat most of the godawful cast that manage to make already poorly written dialog sound even worse than you could ever imagine. This program showcases some of the worst child and young adult casting on television. That “teenage” son brings new meaning to the word bland, and the other kids act like they are in a talent showcase on “Toddlers & Tiaras”! And frankly Frieda Pinto-esque Mom and Accent guy with a beard science dude are impossible to watch and listen to as well. I’ve seen almost all the episodes and still don’t know their character’s names. Seems beyond saving, but if they choose to bring it back it’s gonna require a bloodbath in the writers room and amongst the cast!
Yeah, I totally agree about the (lack of) talent of the kids/young adults. They’re wooden, cliche and unnecessary. And that little kid putting on a Taylor costume and doing her “play” ranks as an all-time low for sci-fi television!
I’d love to see that set used for some quality written television, something we haven’t seen. But the show has more problems than just the writing. Having it center around a family with 3 kids takes any edge away and ensures this will never be anything like Lost, BSG, etc. It’s a shameful attempt to be a four-quadrant show but it ends up pleasing no one.
I have tried to watch whole episodes of this show, since I really enjoy sci-fi programming, but I can never get past about ten minutes because of how un-engaging it is. The foundational idea that people would deliberately go backward in time and mess around with nature and human history (possibly erasing themselves and everyone they love) seems unbelievable. I loved Jason O’Mara in Life On Mars, but his character here is like a cardboard figure. I wish the story was something like O’Mara, Lang, and a motley group accidentally being flung to an alternative world where the dinosaur world somehow revived and took over the modern world.
Had you payed attention you would know that they went back to an alternate time stream so nothing they do can alter their time line.
How would any casual viewer (spelled paid, by the way, not payed) know a geeky little factoid like that, when we only tune in to see if the show is worth bothering with? Give us the good old days of the 1970s and 80s, where the title sequence got the new viewer up-to-speed on what was basically going on. In any event, I tried it three times, and all three times I saw some a scene in which: the same young guy was hanging around with the same family daughter; a group of people were trapped in the presumably dino-infested jungle because of some sort of broken vehicle; and the bearded camp-commandant was acting “tough” toward someone. All three times! The only differences between the three sets of scenes were the settings. The characters on No Ordinary Family were more engaging, and that wasn’t even such a great show.
This show makes the old “Land of the Lost” look like “The Wire.”
I think the show rocks ! I hope they do make season 2 . The actors are awsome . There’s so many new avenues for a story line. I hOPE they explore the bad lands , the story of the people who drew the carvings in the boulders ,and who built the ship.
They should renew House instead. Terra Nova was a major letdown. I really tried to like it but it is just horrible and not worth the big money to produce the show.
If they improve the writing this show could be a hit. They have a good cast and characters that could be interesting. The show is different from anything else being aired right now and it has potential. They have a breakout star in Dean Geyer who they have badly underused. I hope they get another shot.
Old topic a day later, I know, but here goes anyway: I think it would be great to see the dinosaurs and the environment be much more of a legit threat to these people. It can’t always be people against people. Lost did an awesome job (for a while anyway) balancing the big story items with the small story items. It gave the show longevity. Why not throw in some flashbacks even? It would have been pretty awesome seeing Taylor in Somalia or watching Jim fighting to survive in prison. People would have thrown out the obvious Lost-jacking gripes, but who cares if it’s done in service of better storylines and drama? Everything being told in exposition can only go so far. It’s a television show. Show us a little bit.
Wow if they are even considering renewing this show with its poor ratings, high production costs and slim chances of ever doing enough episodes for syndication, then HOUSE should be a shoo in even with Hugh Laurie’s high salary.
The only thing keeping House from being renewed is Hugh Laurie. There have been rumors that Hugh Laurie no longer wants to act in TV anymore, but they have not been substantiated by mainstream news outlets. However, assuming that what these other outlets claimed Hugh Laurie said were true, if these statements were just a negotiating ploy with the network for more money or credits, then I would expect a renewal very soon, though I would expect there to be some kind of pay cut or cost cutting along the way. But if Hugh Laurie is truly burnt out, then I would expect FOX to announce that this season will be the final season by February sweeps.
You know, there are programs that have won more awards than anyone can count, and have been simply gushed over by critics and fans alike, that I thought stunk and bored me to tears when I was forced to watch them. I hated the writing, the characters, the acting, and couldn’t understand for a moment how some of these horrendous programs have stayed around for years. And years. And years. So everyone’s entitled to their opinions. I really don’t care what the naysayers have to say, it falls on deaf ears when I enjoy something personally.
So, I love Terra Nova. Bad writing? Sure, some episodes could be better, but the concept is amazing and they can capitalize on that. Bad acting? I haven’t seen anyone so bad they shouldn’t be there, and Stephen Lang, and his character, are AWESOME. I don’t have any problems understanding British or Australian accents. I agree the storylines about the kids drag it down a few notches, but they were trying to make it a family program. Giving it a harder edge, and not trying so hard to appeal specifically to teens, would be an improvement. I think with the Phoenix group now in the picture, that can happen.
Terra Nova is not great literature. It is escapism, and good escapism at that. I don’t care if the CGI isn’t up to the standards of some nitpickers. My untrained eye doesn’t see the difference, in fact, the dinosaurs look great to me. I don’t care if the bartender’s a goof, so is the one at my local pub. I don’t care if Elisabeth Shannon is “Frieda Pinto-esque”, I think they have done a good job of showing people of all kinds of backgrounds.
I definitely feel Terra Nova should be renewed. Tweak it a bit, get the budget down, maybe even try a different evening. It looks like they are already seeking better writing, having listened to the main complaint. But it deserves another chance.