Terra Nova

The premise of Terra Nova is quite a good one. A colony, lost in space & time, separated from Earth and forced to fend for itself for a 75 year span. The beginning had me very excited to see what was in store. Unfortunately, this script quickly stalled and finished as a lackluster episode at best. The ending left a lot to be desired but I hope we see these Novans occasionally in the future. At it's core, I like the idea of Novans being out there. However, now that they have accepted that they are humans and are okay with Earth's assistance, their novelty may wear off quickly.

I disagree with those that argue that 75 years is not a long enough time period for the Novans to disassociate themselves from the humans. 75 years is 3 generations. We know that only the children survived. We know that these children heard their parents tell tales of how the Earthlings are bad and are out to get the Novans. After the meteor crashed and wiped out the adults, do you think these young Novans would want to identify themselves as this terrible species that just killed their parents? If the incident didn't cause repressed memories, then these children definitely buried this knowledge deep and refused to tell their own children about the fact that Novans are indeed humans. They most likely told ghost stories of these terrible humans to their kids, ignoring the fact that they are all humans themselves. Receiving this doctrine for years, the new generations could easily despise humans with all their might and refuse to look at evidence and admit to themselves that they are indeed humans.

The end of this episode, the old "see? we are all alike" trope as the two leaders work together didn't do much for me. I rolled my eyes as they asked for trust from one another. Still, I like the premise and the episode went by fairly fast. Definitely not the worst episode thus far, but not the best either.

Apparently, many decades ago, a group of pioneers left our solar system and set out to found a new colony. 'Terra Nova' was a failed experiment and Earth lost contact with them. Enterprise is thrilled when they discover the place--but it ain't what they expected! It turns out that the colony was practically wiped out and what remained went underground.

So far, this all was interesting and had the makings of a cool episode. Unfortunately, what follows seemed kind of dumb and didn't make a lot of sense. It turns out that the descendants of the colonists are amazingly stupid. They THINK that they aren't human and they think humans caused their catastrophe and since then they created some weird primitive tribal society. The problem is that they are also very suspicious and have taken one of the crew prisoner. What's next?

My problem is that to see a group of reasonable and intelligent colonists creating a new generation of folks who VERY quickly forgot they were human and created such a complex alien society made little sense. 73 years and this? It just seemed that such a plot MIGHT have made sense after 1000 years but not 73. Additionally, how did these people ALSO become so annoying and stupid as well?!

Enterprise checks up on the Terra Nova colony after it has been left alone for 75 years.

I'd rather not go into too much depth on this one other than to say it is very similar to episodes seen in other Star Trek incarnations. Enterprise/Voyager shuttle/beam crew members to a location, they meet locals who distrust humans/outsiders and through a series of poorly written cliches they eventually earn their trust. Fairly annoying characters placed within an unoriginal and predictable story.

There are some decent character moments which are encouraging for future episodes. I think I'm going to like Dr Phlox and Lt. Malcolm Reed as the actors seem natural and enjoyable to watch. The jury still out on the others but Trip Tucker is pretty entertaining.

Star Trek has done this formula to death.

A fairly pedestrian, Trekkean story about a lost colony of the earliest settlers that has reverted to a primitive existence in underground caves after an unforeseen catastrophe wiped out their parents' village.

That's about it, really.

The main Enterprise crew are seen beginning to get on together as a team but certain tropes are already established: such as the Captain going on every away mission and T'Pol's facial expressions ranging all the way from disinterest to distaste.

Despite sound performances by guest actors Eric Avari and Mary Carver as the luckless offspring of the original colonists, this is starting to look very much like something we've seen too many times before.

After more than three decades someone actually talks about needing to go to the bathroom (only he's British so he says "lavatory") but, when the real -life mysteries mentioned in the opening scene turn out to be more interesting than the one presented on screen, there isn't much to hold the attention. Yes, I did look up Judge Crater and Amelia Earhart and, yes, I admit it, I did so before the end of Terra Nova.

Senior Trekker scores every episode with a 5.

I think after watching this episode, I must have bailed out from any more episodes of Enterprise. To think I'm a Star Trek fan and thought enough is enough.

It really is full of problematic issues and the the producers should had jettisoned the script into deep space.

The Enterprise is going to the planet of Terra Nova. The place where the first Earth colony went outside the Earth's solar system, before warp technology was used.

However Earth lost contact with the colonists some 70 years earlier. Their fate has remained a mystery. Although T'Pol wisly asks why no starship from Earth ever went there to clear the mystery up or ask the Vulcans for help.

Eventually Captain Archer discovers that the descendants of the colonists are living underground in caves. Something happened on the surface and they hold humans from Earth responsible.

The Novans themselves have forgotten they too are humans who arrived from Earth. Having seemingly regressed.

It turns out that an asteroid hit the planet some decades earlier which caused the atmosphere to be full of radiation. It was this that disrupted the Novan's lives.

With an injured Malcolm Reed held captive by the Novans. Captain Archer tries to gain the Novan's trust by treating one of them who has cancer.

This is such a low rent and silly episode. It reminded me of something Roddenberry tried to do when ST:TNG started. It comes across as unintentionally hilarious. With a disturbing subtext of colonialism by a more advanced race.