'Terra Nova' Season 1, Episodes 11/12 (Finale) Recap - 'Occupation; Resistance'

Let's get one thing straight: It's pretty unlikely that "Terra Nova" will be renewed. The show is one of the most expensive in history, clearly in an attempt to recreate the magic that "Lost" captured by making its mega-expensive pilot.

For the show to continue, it will have to take a huge budget cut... and when all of your establishing shots require CGI, that's not so easy.

So it's a shame, then, that the show just got good in its final episode.

Don't look at me like that. It's true! Something got into the writers and this two-hour finale (technically two separate episodes, "Occupation" and "Resistance") were actually really entertaining. And there was very little Ridiculous Tech, even! Or if there was, I was too busy enjoying things to notice.

Here's why this finale worked, where the rest of the season failed: we finally met our bad guys, and finally saw some real danger. Lucas and Mira joined up with the (until now) nameless and faceless threat from the future, which it turns out is the Phoenix Group, led by the rather weasely Weaver. Taylor and the Terra Novans thought they had them beat at the beginning of the episode, locking down the portal and ensuring that they would know where the army was coming from.

What they didn't expect was a civilian suicide bomber. It was a good twist, the consequences of which were cleanly (if not a little obviously) explained earlier on: destroy the portal, and the rift will re-open anywhere within a fairly large radius of it.

So once Jim wakes up from a three-day coma brought on by the explosion at the portal, he finds himself in a very different setting. Terra Nova has been attacked and subsequently occupied by the Phoenix Group, and Taylor is on the run with a small squad out in the wilderness.

What follows is a rather riveting tale of resistance, guerilla warfare, and a lot of trickery that's rather clever coming from these often rather thick characters. There's a lot to cover, so let's just go with what worked and what didn't.

The Good:

-There was real danger here. For once our protagonists all had something to fight for, rather than dodging a swarm of dino-birds or participating in a month-long hunt for spy. They had a clear goal, and clear opposition, and it was fun to watch, because we had someone to root for. Heck, even Josh managed to do some cool stuff.

-The various tricks. Jim's disoriented act with the crutches was a smart move, Elizabeth's bluff with Weaver was quite clever, and the whole deal with sneaking Jim into Hope Plaza was pretty slick, especially with packing a carno in a crate. Not sure how they accomplished that last one, but it was fun.

-Lucas. Why didn't we get him involved earlier? Turns out this guy is just the right amount of nuts to be a truly intimidating and dangerous bad guy, so much more so than Mira, who is so insignificant even in this stage of the game that I practically forgot she existed. Lucas' creepiness with Sky was an added touch that made him even badder, and that's the key to getting us to root for the normally lame Shannons: make the bad guys really bad.

-Wash's sacrifice. What is it with sci-fi shows and killing characters named Wash? In any case, it showed us that "Terra Nova" isn't afraid to kill a character every once in a while, which means it's not as fluffy and happy as it sometimes seems to be.

-Everything Taylor. Finally this character was in his proper element. He's a soldier with strong beliefs in protecting his people, and now he finally had a purpose. That made Taylor, who has been the most interesting character by far this season, more fun to watch. Heck, he even had a great scene with Zoe. You know the writers are on a roll when they can actually make Zoe cute and not just annoyingly forced-cute.

-The ear-ringing scene when Jim wakes up. Very nice sound design. The jump-cut editing was a little hacky, but it was still one of the better, more cinematic scenes we've seen from this show. And I think that's what "Terra Nova" has been lacking: the scale of it should have it looking more like a movie on the TV screen than just a very expensive TV show. Give it some style.

The Bad:

-Maddie and Reynolds. What is the deal here? I guess they're cute sometimes, but then you remember that she's like sixteen years old and they're exchanging I love you's and it's all a little weird. Or forced. Or both. At least Maddie didn't talk much otherwise.

-Convenience. Things were, at times, a bit too easy. Jim breaking into Hope Plaza and blowing it up was a breeze. Plans went off with barely a hitch. Same with the bomb, which was made to look challenging by having like, ten wires to cut! And she had to cut them so slowly! And how come nobody ever fixed that hole in the gate that the Shannons escaped through?

-Dumb decisions. For such a smart guy, Lucas is incredibly gullible: to fall for Jim's act is one thing, but then to fall for Sky's even more obvious one? Yeesh. Not that the good guys were any better... for what reason did Reynolds and the other guy leave Lucas alive, bind him with some straps, and then leave him alone with Sky?

-Kara. Ridiculous. First we had to all pretend like Josh still cared about her being there, and then she had literally 10 seconds of screen time before she was blown to smithereens by the bomber. It was almost comical.

-Too little, too late. All of the good stuff showed up at the end of the season in a series that is unlikely to continue, even with the tease.

And speaking of that tease, it's such a clear attempt to "Lost" up this show that the container might as well have had Hurley walk out of it, say "Dude," and then cut to the "Lost" title while they were at it.

The prow of the ship isn't even that much of a mystery: It seems pretty clear that the Badlands are the site of a second rift, one that is probably at sea, which explains why it could have been there since the 18th century without being noticed. Bermuda Triangle, anyone? That's my bet.

Interesting as that proposition is, it might have been even more interesting to see what things would be like for these people actually being cut off from the future and having had to live off the land. Heck, that might have been a good idea from the beginning. So many problems in this show are so easily solved by shining a little blue flashlight at them.

That's it for "Terra Nova," folks. We'll keep you updated as to the renewal/cancellation status of the show as it breaks.