'Terra Nova' Season 1, Episode 1 Recap - 'Genesis' (Premiere)

After long delays that pushed it back by half a year (and behind that other Stephen Spielberg sci-fi show), "Terra Nova" finally arrived on Fox last night and delivered the much-anticipated pilot episode. So did it have bite like a velociraptor or did it flop like Wayne Knight with a face full of dino spit? Read on to find out.

The episode opens with what looks like a rather expensive zoom in on a ruined city on a ruined planet (see what happens when we don't control our fossil fuel consumption?). Already the show is using a lot of special effects, so the $5 million price tag on this pilot is starting to make sense.

We find the Shannon family, as patriarch Jim comes home to his wife Elizabeth, son Josh, and daughters Maddy and Zoe.

We also learn pretty quickly that the air outside is so bad that people have to wear "rebreathers," that oranges are a pretty rare thing to find, and that this cute little family of five is supposed to be a family of four. Three population control officers bust in and search the place to uncover Zoe, at which our hotheaded hero Jim pounces and knocks the cops around a bit.

That lands Jim in prison for two years, after which time Elizabeth goes to visit him and informs him that she has been recruited to go to Terra Nova, but she can only take Josh and Maddy...not Zoe. But she manages to slip Jim a rebreather with a laser cutter inside for a futuristic jailbreak.

So Jim manages to make his way to the portal that sends people to Terra Nova, and we learn that the portal actually sends people on a one-way trip back in time by about 85 million years and that this "pilgrimage" is the tenth one so far. With a little trickery and a lot of shoving, he sneaks Zoe through the portal with him, and the Shannons have found their way to the prehistoric land.

The new recruits/lottery winners are greeted by Nathaniel Taylor (played by "Avatar" star Stephen Lang), who gives them a welcome speech and gives Jim a bit of attitude about his trustworthiness. Jim, who was a cop back in the future (that's going to be confusing) is now relegated to agricultural duty.

But Jim proves himself to Taylor by saving his life from an attacker, a "Sixer" who broke out of the hospital. It would seem that the sixth pilgrimage was full of people who decided that Taylor's little Terra Nova commune wasn't a great idea, and that they should...do something else. It's not quite clear yet.

The rest of the episode is dedicated to finding Jim's rather obnoxious son, who snuck off OTG (outside the gate) with a rag-tag gang of teenagers who then get stranded without power (thanks Sixers) and end up under attack from some rather nasty dinos called slashers.

But while they have their little excursion, the kids come across some strange markings on the rocks near the falls, and a mystery is introduced: what are these markings, and why doesn't Taylor, who now looks after the orphaned teen Sky, want them to be discovered?

There was a lot to like here. Sure, the action can be fun what with the CGI dinosaurs and whatnot, but price tag aside, there's a pretty good attention to detail in "Terra Nova." The fact that the oxygen-rich atmosphere causes shock to the pilgrims was a nice touch, and there was time spent attempting to repair the family dynamic after Jim had been locked up for two years. With all of the other stuff going on, it would have been easy to just have the family be all lovey-dovey and forget about the fact that their dad landed himself in prison for two years for overreacting.

There's also a reasonable attempt to explain some of the logistics. Maddy gives us a speech about the time probe, and how the fact that it was never found in the future shows that Terra Nova exists in a different timeline. So, their actions in the past shouldn't affect the future we saw at the beginning of the episode.

But there are still some holes that need to be resolved. Like, for example, why did Jim and Elizabeth decide to have a third child? It can't have been an accident...this civilization of 2149 can make a time portal to the past, so I would assume that they have some pretty solid birth control.

And speaking of questions, it seems that "Terra Nova" isn't satisfied to simply be a show about living in a prehistoric era. Those markings are apparently not only a link between Taylor and his son, but their also some kind of key to some big secret: "Control the past, control the future," as Mira, the leader of the Sixers, states. Is "Terra Nova" trying to be "Lost" as well? We have some "Others" and a mystery of the land...so we could be heading for something even more complicated than time portals and dinosaurs.

So far, "Terra Nova" seems to be a step up from "Falling Skies" in terms of dialogue and character. Everyone was a little daft and overly sentimental in "Falling Skies," and things seem to be a little more down to earth in this one, despite the even less believable premise.

As for performances, Jason O'Mara does a good job as our lead and seems to be able to handle the lighter moments well enough (and convince us what a good dad he is when Zoe doesn't recognize him). Stephen Lang is the most fun to watch, and his opening speech had us liking him right off the bat, even though you get the feeling he might be a bit of a jerk down the road.

Unfortunately, "Terra Nova" was doing best when it was focusing on living in this new society, adapting to surroundings, and mending family bonds. That will soon wear off, and we'll be left with the plot between the Sixers and Terra Nova, which looks to be the main conflict of this season. Let's hope that facet of the show picks up a bit and becomes more fun to watch...after all, they can't afford to give us dino chase scenes every week.