GENESIS I & II--Terra Nova #1 & 2/Season I 2011

[rangerjohn]

Well we know what happened to the dinosaurs in that time line.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Six, I'm thinking. Not a full season, anyway, with mediocre pilot ratings and mediocre reviews for a two-hour episode.

They did 13 episodes, I believe, for cost-savings reason. Cheaper to do a half season all at once, than do 6-7 episodes, wait until given the green light several weeks later, and then do the remaining 6-7 episodes. I think they figured with Spielberg & dinosaurs, it was a can't miss.

i did find it somewhat odd that the lead actor was a disgraced cop, while his wife is a very pretty and very accomplished doctor/scientist (top of her class at Northwestern). (I'm not good at judging if men are good looking or not, but I assume he's at least decent looking on that scale?) They seem like quite the odd couple, though kudos to Fox for portraying an inter-racial couple on screen.

it was kind of predictable with the kids at the end.

 

[Fast Learner]

They did 13 episodes, I believe, for cost-savings reason. Cheaper to do a half season all at once, than do 6-7 episodes, wait until given the green light several weeks later, and then do the remaining 6-7 episodes. I think they figured with Spielberg & dinosaurs, it was a can't miss.

Ah, good to know. They may well not air them, though at that price the ratings would have to be pretty bad.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Ah, good to know. They may well not air them, though at that price the ratings would have to be pretty bad.

True - if the ratings sucked that badly (didn't check them), then they'll be out the reported $4/million episode cost over 13 episodes, or $52 million.

If they had done 6 episodes at (maybe) $4.5 million/episode and it tanked, they'd only be out $29 million. However, if the show ran 13 episodes, the production costs might have been $58.5 million if my example was correct.

(no idea if my example was right on the difference in cost - just threw a number out there)

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Meh. Watched the premiere, and have just enough interest in the follow-on mysteries that I haven't cut it from the DVR yet, but not interested enough to actually commit to watching it.

Which is a shame, because a good "alien world" exploration movie could be a lot of fun. Frankly, I'd prefer they do something like make Niven & Pournelle's Heorot series. All the fun of exploration without the time travel and dinosaur cliches.

 

[Gronin]

Meh. Watched the premiere, and have just enough interest in the follow-on mysteries that I haven't cut it from the DVR yet, but not interested enough to actually commit to watching it.

Which is a shame, because a good "alien world" exploration movie could be a lot of fun. Frankly, I'd prefer they do something like make Niven & Pournelle's Heorot series. All the fun of exploration without the time travel and dinosaur cliches.

At the risk of taking it off topic --- series? really? gonna have to check that out ...I read what I guess was the first book and enjoyed it very much. Wasn't Steven Barnes one of the co=authors as well?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Meh. Watched the premiere, and have just enough interest in the follow-on mysteries that I haven't cut it from the DVR yet, but not interested enough to actually commit to watching it.

Which is a shame, because a good "alien world" exploration movie could be a lot of fun.

That's about how I feel.

Frankly, I'd prefer they do something like make Niven & Pournelle's Heorot series. All the fun of exploration without the time travel and dinosaur cliches.

At the risk of taking it off topic --- series? really? gonna have to check that out ...I read what I guess was the first book and enjoyed it very much. Wasn't Steven Barnes one of the co=authors as well?

From the Bibliography in Niven's Wiki covering the Heorot series (with Steven Barnes and Jerry Pournelle):

The Legacy of Heorot (1987)
Beowulf's Children (1995, UK: The Dragons of Heorot)
Destiny's Road (1997, by Niven alone; not precisely a continuation of the Heorot series: located in the same universe, events from the first two novels are briefly mentioned)

Personally, I think Harry Turtledove's Darkness, C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner, Ben Bova's Grand Tour and S.M. Stirling's Emberverse and Lords of Creation books would also make fine fodder for TV.

And Terra Nova itself might be better if it were based on Julian May's Saga of Pliocene Exile novels. And that's not my favorite series in the world, either.

 

[SkidAce]

And Terra Nova itself might be better if it were based on Julian May's Saga of Pliocene Exile novels.

Someone XP Dannyalcatraz for mentioning this superb series, please.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Someone XP Dannyalcatraz for mentioning this superb series, please.

oops, I double-XP'd him. I could swear there was none there when I hit the XP box.

 

[MarkB]

I just watched it and I think it is pretty good. It has a few minor issues like if it is a different timeline how are they going to control the future since it is going to be a different future.

The clear implication, I thought, was that the whole "different timeline" thing was just propaganda to make the colonists believe they were getting a fresh start. The Sixers, and the commander, clearly know differently.

If it were truly a different timeline, that would mean the government of the crapsack future were basically pouring thousands of people and loads of equipment and technology down a wormhole, with no evidence that they're actually going anywhere or surviving when they arrive. That seems unlikely.