New TV Review: Fox's Terra Nova

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Ever wonder what the future looks like... or the past?  I was intrigued when I saw the previews for Fox's new sci-fi Terra Nova series.

Description: The show begins in the year 2149, a time when all life on planet Earth is threatened with extinction due to dwindling worldwide air quality and overpopulation. Scientists discover a rift in space-time that allows people to travel 85 million years back in time to the Late Jurassic period on the prehistoric Earth of an alternate reality, offering a chance to save humanity. The Shannon family join the tenth pilgrimage of settlers to Terra Nova, the first human colony on the other side of the temporal doorway.

My Review:  The quality of production is pretty high, almost movie-quality.  That was impressive to me. I couldn't figure out how they picked who got to go to Terra Nova, but it seemed like they recruited people with skills, like surgeons and military.  (Later I learned it's recruitment or lottery.)  It's pretty clear the 'leader' of the colony is less than wholesome... it's like a military base in the past, essentially.  I was really engaged for the first half hour of the 2-hour premiere.  Then it slowed down as the family became oriented with their new home, giant bugs/dinosaurs, angsty teenage son, and whatnot.  Then it ramps up again... turns out that Utopia is just an idea, because there are renegade pilgrims in Terra Nova who are stirring up conflict.  Oh, and there are guns.  It's kind of Matrix meets Lost meets Avatar, in a TV show.  Yeah, definitely like Avatar.

I'm going to DVR it, because it's kind of cool to watch... but I may just keep it on the DVR to watch on weekends or something.

Although, I do wonder how they figured future generations would survive the Ice Age and what ended up killing the dinosaurs...

P.S.  In a geeky moment, I noticed they talked using the metric system... guess we are a bit smarter in 2149 than we are now!  Go metric!