Topic: Intermission 009 - Terra Nova time.
I still haven't seen most of the pilot. Fortunately, Trey's been on tour with his Terra Nova schpiel.
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Friends In Your Head | Forums → Episodes → Intermission 009 - Terra Nova time.
I still haven't seen most of the pilot. Fortunately, Trey's been on tour with his Terra Nova schpiel.
We'll be in Dallas Texas for three days and then it's on to Charleston.
Don't tease me like that, Trey! I live in Fort Worth! I'm one hour away from Dallas by train! ![]()
I wish.
From what I remember of the pilot, the Sixers came over on the Sixth Pilgrimage to Terra Nova. I have no clue why they all became evil.
For whatever reason, this episode showed up in the feed with a date of 12/31/10. Not a big deal, but it means iTunes felt it was an old episode and thus didn't automatically download it.
Weekly Battle doesnt quite do it justice.
I have to tread VERY carefully here...but I do have a friend who is on the writing staff of that show, and I can say that there is a unified front on the Terra Nova side in terms of what they want to do story wise, and it often lies in direct opposition with what the Network mandates. What Trey describes as the more traditional aspect of Sci Fi is what many on the writing staff are trying to do. But when the numbers are large, folks on the side of the network actually want to see MORE things like fence building, ditch digging, and other meaningless chores. The people who write the show actually want it to be a, y'know, SHOW.
I was about to post a link to "Pan Am for Dummies" - a great xtranormal.com video created by an anonymous Pan Am staffer, but it seems to have been pulled offline. Which isn't surprising, it was pretty scathing.
Basically it was a satirical conversation between a Pan Am writer and an ABC network exec. The writer is arguing that Pan Am is supposed to be a highbrow show about international intrigue, and the network exec argues that it should focus more on the stewardesses and their shoes. At one point the writer says (I'm paraphasing) "I didn't realize sodomy was part of my contract" and the exec answers "Yes, and if you don't bend over, we'll hire writers who will".
Deadline.com featured the video, and I'm sure a lot of phones were ringing as a result. But it was freakin' funny, so if anyone stumbles on a copy, plz post.
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Anyway, I suspect that it's pretty much the same story over at Terra Nova.
I feel like I'm going to totally disagree with Trey when I listen to this. I *loved* the pilot.
I've felt the show be a little shakey in the first few episodes, as all shows except LOST and Twin Peaks are, but it's REALLY picked up now, especially as Elizabeth's old flame has joined the cast. It's *not* about dinosaurs attacking every week. It's about human drama and starting a new civilization.
It is, sure, basically the original concept for LOST, before they brought in JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof and made it a sci-fi mystery, but, then, I kinda have always wanted to see that show.
I gave up on Terra Nova after the episode with the Newt from Aliens clone in it......
Outside all of the stupid logic issues, the show fails utterly and completely because the characters are insanely unlikable. This might be the least interesting/sympathetic batch of protagonists I've ever seen in a show. They all look like ass-hole supermodels who in no way are real human beings or have ever lived together as a family. If they just made the show entirely about Stephen Lang's character I'd be on board, but all this teen bullshit is unwatchably bad. Imagine the new Battlestar Galactica reboot if you took out every badass/han-solo type character, then dumb the writing down by several orders of magnitude, and make the effects shittier, and you get Terra Nova.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one that caught the "they only come out at night" line in the pilot.
It annoyed me enough that I tweeted the following:
"Wow, they just called back to one of the iconic lines from Aliens....you don't deserve to use that line Terra Nova"
That show never interested me at all. In fact, Falling Skies did interest me until I watched about ten minutes of it. There would appear to be a trend in trying to make these crazy high-budget shows where people are trying to survive in some post apocalyptic or otherwise harsh environment now that Lost is over. You've got TN, Falling Skies, Walking Dead and then you had that Flash Forward, Invasion and a bunch of other little shows that lasted one season or less.
All of those shows suck. Hell, Lost sucked. I didn't like it, at least. Half of my problem is that I don't watch TV anymore, so whenever I try to catch one of these shows I'm reminded why I stopped watching TV in the first place. Some people have said that TV is where all of the good dramatic writing happens now, and I would have to disagree. Prime time TV looks to me like subdued soap operas with decent effects budgets.
But I probably shouldn't even have an opinion. I don't think I've seen a full episode of any of these shows, only caught 15 or 20 minutes here and there. What I've seen of them is largely people standing around arguing about stuff, and one of those people is usually the bad guy who always causes the problems. Ever seen Lost in Space? That show had stuff happening, not just people arguing about shit or talking about shit.
I've not actually seen Walking Dead, but it's a zombie show. This latest zombie craze has been going on since friggin 28 Days Later. That's almost a solid decade of zombie shit. This trend needs to have it's brain destroyed. I hate zombies.
Squiggly_P: The best dramatic writing is on TV, but only on cable networks like amc and hbo. Prime Time tv is a cess-pool of horrible ideas dunked in terrible dialogue
I'll just add that I've come to hate story arcs. Oh, they were great at the beginning. Loved the continuing story lines on the NBC dramas like LA Law, Babylon 5's 5 year arc was a great experiment, etc. But, now? EVERYTHING has story arcs! You can't turn on a drama seemingly without it expecting you to catch every episode. Even the new Doctor Who has been infected. Can't we just have ONE season of the Doctor where each episode stands on its own? It would be so refreshing!
(My sister over the years has stopped watching all TV dramas, as she'd always be behind. Now, unless it's on Netflix she won't see it)
Ahh, see, I've never had more than just basic cable. I don't need 50 billion channels. I rarely even watch the news anymore. So I never had HBO or showtime or anything.
I'm pretty sure AMC is on basic cable - since it started life as "American Movie Classics" and just ran old movies, before it started making original shows about zombies and middle-aged drug dealers. Ditto for the FX Network, another basic cable channel that's become known for doing shows that broadcast networks would never touch.
bullet3's exactly right - if you wanna make the big money, you make network tv or big-studio features. But most likely everything you do will have to be completely mainstream and "safe", for the widest possible audience. So hopefully that money is enough to make you feel okay about the crap you may end up putting out. (And I, for one, am willing to find out - hello, ABC, are you listening? Call me!)
But lately cable, even basic cable, has become the place to go to do something niche, or edgy or challenging. The tradeoff is you'll take a smaller paycheck (and it's not a BAD paycheck at all, just nowhere near what you'd get from a broadcast network.)
Friends In Your Head | Forums → Episodes → Intermission 009 - Terra Nova time.
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