'Terra Nova' aims to be a dinosaur-sized hit
By Bill Keveney, USA TODAY
Sep 25, 2011 05:56 PM
Dinosaurs are far from the only big thing about Fox's Terra Nova.
With one of the most expensive TV pilots ever (roughly $15 million), Steven Spielberg as an executive producer, location shooting in Australia and state-of-the-art special effects so complex that they delayed production, the prehistoric drama is one of the most anticipated new shows of the fall season, with a two-hour premiere Monday (8 p.m. ET/PT).
Fox is taking an expensive gamble that viewers will take a shine to the Shannons, a 22nd-century family that time-travels to a dinosaur-age colony designed to give errant mankind a second chance on Earth.
Could it become television's Avatar— or perhaps the next Lost? Or will it become the next Lone Star, last season's hoped-for hit that quickly got lost?
Avatar's Stephen Lang, who plays Terra Nova's colony leader Nathaniel Taylor, likes the fact that Fox is going big. "I do have a special affection for stories with sprawl. I like sagas. I like epics," he says. "I'll take a symphony over a minuet as a rule."
As Terra Nova begins, the Shannons — parents Jim (Jason O'Mara) and Elisabeth (Shelley Conn) and their three children — are caught violating the two-child maximum of polluted, overcrowded, dying 2149 Earth, resulting in prison time for Jim. After escaping, he joins his family as they travel 85 million years into the past via a "time fracture" as part of the 10th pilgrimage to the heavily fortified Terra Nova settlement — a huge zoo, in essence, where the animals live on the outside.
"They're trying to establish a new world and, in that sense, save humanity," says executive producer René Echevarria, a veteran of two Star Trek series. "It has something of Star Trek in its DNA. The Star Trek world rose out of the ashes of a terrible world war and it was about a second chance for humanity. In some way, Terra Nova is, too. Even though these are trying times, there's a sense of hope."
Crazed dinosaurs
Forging a new society proves to be far from a simple task.
The Shannons and their fellow time-travelers encounter members of a rogue sixth pilgrimage, the Sixers; a spy in the colony; a murder; and, in an upcoming episode, a meteor strike. Jim Shannon, a Chicago narcotics cop in 2149, becomes part of the settlement's security force, putting him in constant contact with the mysterious Taylor.
Then, of course, there are the dinosaurs, some benign and others not. Although producers and stars say the show is more about the family than the dinosaurs, the giant reptiles are drawing a proportionate share of the attention. During a screening of the series' first hour at Comic-Con in July, fans responded loudest when a rampaging Carnotaurus ripped a man from a moving vehicle.
Spielberg influenced the dinosaur selection, with reptiles hailing from the Cretaceous Period, not the earlier era seen in his big-screen epic Jurassic Park.
O'Mara marvels at the special-effects creations, "which have taken some chunks out of me."
"Slashers are a different kind of raptor. They're kind of like the crazed, methadone addicts of the dinosaur world," he says. "These raptors are like mangy, smelly creatures. Some of them have feathers sticking out of them in funny, weird angles, nasty rows of teeth and unexpected colors. Pretty cool stuff."
Spielberg's presence has been felt in other ways as well. The filmmaker was involved in casting, the decision to shoot in Australia and the special effects. He suggested certain scenes, such as when a Shannon daughter feeds a branch to a friendly Brachiosaurus, which inadvertently lifts her into the air as it takes the leaves in its mouth.
In Australia Terra Nova has found an exotic locale that producers and actors hope will suggest a primitive environment. One reason Australia was chosen was to get away from a Hawaii that had become familiar-looking via such productions as Lost.
"There's something about the Australian jungle that feels prehistoric. It feels uncolonized, which is the environment we want for the show," says O'Mara, who was born in Ireland. "It helps me as an actor to walk onto the set and feel the size of it. There's something of an epic scale, both to Australia and to the show, that seems to marry quite well."
Australia "gives us a great look for the show. Even the light there seems different somehow, and the vegetation. It's an exotic feel that works for our story," Echevarria says.
But in the end, it comes down to the Shannons and their fellow pilgrims, says executive producer Jon Cassar, a 24 veteran.
"We didn't last eight years on 24 because we did really cool helicopter crashes and fantastic gunfights. We lasted because television is about people you want to see every week. It's about those people and how they interact with each other," he says. "It's a huge puzzle. Everything has to fit."
The series, including the expensive pilot, represents a sizable investment for Fox. The network and its sister studio, 20th Century Fox Television, have succeeded before by taking genre-breaking chances, notably with 24 and Glee, while risking the occasional failure, as with Lone Star.
"It's a very big bet on a lot of fronts. We really would like it to work," Fox entertainment chief Kevin Reilly says. "We're in the business of trying to entertain people and offer something fresh and fun and exciting."
Many network launches are "never going to differentiate themselves," he says. "They're going to come and go quickly. This is a show where I feel like people will want to sample it. It's original."
By ordering 13 episodes from the get-go, rather than just a pilot, the network and studio were able to amortize some of the initial costs, reducing the financial risk to a degree. The program also has sold well internationally and has been sought after by U.S. advertisers.
"Among the new shows, I would say it's one of the easiest sells and one of the most desirable new programs to be in," says Todd Gordon, senior vice president of ad firm Initiative. "You never know with a new show, no matter who's doing it or what it looks like or even how good the pilot looks."
Premiere delayed
Terra Nova has a sprawling behind-the-scenes story to go along with its big-screen look. It has been in development and production for a couple of years before its premiere, an eternity — or perhaps 85 million years — in TV terms.
Torrential rains made an already-challenging pilot more difficult to film, and new writers and producers meant changes to the story. A Shannon back story was added to the pilot to flesh out the family so the audience might become more engaged with them, Echevarria says. Terra Nova now has 12 executive producers, a large number even by TV standards.
Special-effects challenges delayed a premiere that was planned for May, a scheduling ploy that proved successful when Glee was launched in 2009. "I don't know how supposedly that could have been on the air last May. I don't know how," says Reilly, who is pleased with how the effects ultimately turned out. "We would have had, like, sock puppets in some of the scenes."
Ultimately, however, delays and other production matters won't matter to the TV audience, says Sam Armando of ad buyer SMGx. "They've been touting it to the ad community for so long, they have a lot riding on it (there). Viewers will treat it as another show."
Although the show has strong science-fiction elements, the network and studio are emphasizing the family-drama aspect, which would appeal to a wider audience. "I don't think there have been a lot of shows over the past five to 10 years that could collect an entire family in the same room," 20th chairman Dana Walden says. "I think the fact that they're telling traditional coming-of-age stories and family scenarios makes it very relatable and accessible."
Actress Conn hopes that the mix of genres will give the show broad appeal. "It's creating its own identity. You can't pin it down as a sci-fi show. You can't pin it down as a romantic drama or family drama or teen show or kids' show. It's all of those."
For Lang, Terra Nova is ultimately a universal story of rebirth. "Who doesn't have regrets? Who wouldn't value a second chance? Who wouldn't like to visit the Garden of Eden?"
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