Notes for Episode 15: "Terra Nova"

Hey everyone! Hannah here with our first set of show notes for season 2 - apologies for the lateness, we've been in and out of travel a lot over the last couple weeks. As an apology, this set is vicious and punchy, just how you guys like it. Also, the arc word for this set of notes is "ROMULUS." Puzzle that one out for the next month, if that's what you're into. Till our next bonus episode drops, take care!

• Plot / Structure Stuff:

  • This conceptually feels like very Obama era. Everything’s kinda okay in the present by lib standards, so let’s wring our hands about an invisible future

    • Post-Avatar Television

  • They’re hiding the baby, this must be a two-child policy society

    • Again, the worst thing a lib can imagine

    • Frankly a deeply conservative idea. Quiet Place type shit

  • The villains’ plan is to go back in time and smuggle pollution over there

    • This started out as a joke but it’s kinda just true

  • It’s so funny to start your show with the final action beat of Argo where the stakes are “can someone walk across a little area”

  • They REALLY did not have the follow through for a 2-part pilot. If it’d been half of this and they could’ve ended on a real hook

  • They introduced an actual mystery box… that’s desperate

    • This is what JJ and Damon lied and said season 1 of Lost would be

  • This show is such an Assemblage - why does the access hatch only fit children? Bc they needed this specific b-plot to happen

  • Episode 12 is so weird… after a whole bunch of episodic shit with no momentum, we get a completely different feel. This could’ve been the start of season two, no? Season two is about dealing with the Phoenix Group?

  • All these setups and payoffs are way too close to each other. There was absolutely no way that Skye was gonna betray the good guys. Let’s be real

  • Ohhh there’s another time portal. Essie wants it to be the Bermuda Triangle

  • I think they forgot to write a climax. They killed three guys with one dinosaur and got Lucas to run away and then the ending was just a shot of the Earth
    
    

• Character / Performance Stuff:

  • Stephen Lang is just playing Woke Col. Quaritch

    • But I do like his dinosaur skull desk

    • Yeah who’d have predicted that he’d be easily the most compelling part of this show

  • I love that there’s zero indication that the son is mad at the dad until the exact moment there needs to be a bit of narrative tension

    • It’s INSANELY hacky and really does just appear and disappear based on what they need in any given scene

  • Romulus

  • This is SHOCKINGLY Disney Channel in its comedic sensibilities

    • Lost was already a family show! Kids can watch slightly violent stuff

  • The backstory where Taylor came through the portal first and there was a 118 day gap before the next person came through… it’s good

  • They retooled the show after the pilot and they decided what they were really missing was the cuck doctor

  • Honestly this is a very minor thing, but some of the worst fake sneezes of all time

  • Mira is just written to say the most evil thing at any given moment even if it conflicts with what she said ten seconds prior

    • I hate the way the Sixers are styled like post apocalyptic punks. It’s not like they have some kind of nativist ideology. They came from Terra Nova! They should just look like normal guys!

  • Like what IS their ideology. We’ve gotten a bit of motivation from Mira, but it was “they have my family” i.e. not an ideology that can extend to other people. Do they ALL have family hostages back in the future?

  • Lucas can’t be the main villain. It has to be like. A dinosaur. The biggest dinosaur. With a scar over its eye. And bloodflame abilities

  • Maddy the older daughter can’t be a nerd about EVERYTHING

  • I gotta say these last couple episodes are really robbing us of what works about Stephen’s character. He was very good as the slightly sinister ruthless leader type, now he’s just a generic good guy with a sad backstory
    
    

• Technical / Aesthetic Stuff: 

  • The first shot is of the moon, leading into the ultra-polluted Earth… the moon’s like, why am I in this. What’d I do

  • They lost the technology to do jungle photography between 2004-2011 huh

    • Why shoot the jungle in such cool colors? Obviously network TV was aesthetically cooked by 2011 but… this is such a CHOICE and such a bad one. It’s not just something you passively suck at

  • This pilot is really a testament to how you cannot skimp on good direction. A good director might have made any of this intriguing or exciting. It’s not totally worthless on paper

  • This set really looks like if they did a Star Wars Hotel for Jurassic Park

    • That would be at Universal Islands of Adventure… it’d be right next to Jurassic World Velocicoaster 😏

  • Their breathtaking vision of future tech is just some shit you’d see at the Cincinnati Science Museum

  • Romulus

  • The fight CHOREOGRAPHY in this is surprisingly solid but the ACTING in the fights is always dogshit, even from Stephen! Everyone’s always just going NYAGH! Like middle-aged Power Rangers
    
    

• Notable Quotes:

  • “They’re coming for us! They’re coming for us!” 

    • They mean the guys who are doing the pollution. They have some Koffings with them

  • They said “a new world!!” Like in our show!

  • “What is it? It looks like some sort of geometry or something”

    • “It looks like some sort of equations, but I can’t be sure”

  • “I guess we know why they call em slashers, huh!”

  • “I never catch colds… only crooks!” is like the first smile-inducing moment

  • “I’m so old…” “Noyourenotyourebeautiful” is actually good
    
    

• Cute Things We Said:

  • “Golad Prison” is such an Israeli guy name

  • “I was contacted by recruiters for Terra Nova. They said now that you’re in prison I have to marry a dinosaur. Oh I DO hope it’s a plant-eater!”

    • People only say plant-eater when they’re talking about dinosaurs. When’s the last time you heard someone call a current animal that

  • LMAO they’re injecting him with pollution bc he’s too used to pollution

    • “This man needs 50 ccs of garbage!”

    • “We need Grimer! We need GRIMER!

    • Romulus

  • The bad guys being Sixers......... we're getting a lot of mileage out of that

    • “The Sixers… they’ve only penetrated the FIRST layer of our defenses so far… never the SECOND. And believe me, we have FOUR”

  • “Then where’s my WIFE??” “She was too big, she couldn’t fit in the portal. You made her get that BBL”

  • HIDEOUS pterosaur with a fat ass to start of episode 11