Fans of the Steven Spielberg-produced time travel drama, your days at Terra Nova are now over. Today FOX pulled the plug on the special effects heavy prehistoric sci-fi series, despite all the speculation that the show was tipping towards renewal. With House out of the way next year, there will be at least one vacant spot left open on Monday nights next season. But due to moderate ratings and a lack of creative focus, FOX prez Kevin Reilly made the final decision to close Terra Nova for good.
Back at the Winter TCAs, Reilly foreshadowed this decision. “There were a lot of chefs in the kitchen. The show was hunting for itself creatively through the season. I loved some of the episodes. If this is all we make [of Terra Nova], we made money on it, the studio made money on it, and it seems to have resonated with the family audience. If we had more holes in our network, we’d be thrilled to lock that right in.” I suppose the subtraction of House wasn’t enough to keep Terra Nova afloat on the schedule.
Am I surprised Terra Nova was erased from TV? No, not really. Though the thirteen episode first season managed to output a handful of exciting hours, overall the series disappointed due to poor writing, character development, and acting, plus the dino CGI was mostly lackluster. Props to Stephen Lange (Nathaniel Taylor) for commanding this show on his tired back. It’s certainly sad to see a show that started with so much buzz, potential, and pedigree lose its way so early on.
Can we lay Terra Nova to rest forever? Not quite yet. Backing studio 20th Century Fox TV has plans to shop the show to other networks to see if anyone else will bite. Unfortunately for fans, in all likelihood networks will not show much interest in resurrecting the show simply because it is extremely expensive to make. The question remains: is Terra Nova worth saving?
[Via Deadline]
Unfortunately we’re seeing all too much of this lately… Instead of shows lasting only 3 seasons – which would provide phenomenal entertainment – we’re stretching them to 7 or 8 and they very often just don’t have the legs for it.
Terra Nova felt like it had an average household family writing different episodes. Sometimes it was adult, other times it was child-like and then sometimes just plain teen-soppy. Some of the actors were great, while most were at best – and excuse the tautology here – mildly average.
Coupled with the extremely lacklustre CGI you refer to, there was no doubt in my mind that the plug would be pulled.
I can’t help thinking that if the writers had simply compacted the storyline over a possible 3 seasons as opposed to the usual “we’ll push it as far as we can” strategy, the show might still be alive…
Yes it is worth saving, at the very least to close it out if nothing more. Like Flash Forward and The Event, it needs to shake out the loose ends and tie everything together with a proper denoument. I wish any of those networks who cancelled these shows would at least show some cojones and provide proper endings to these decent shows.