Contributor: Gregg Wright
I did have some rough expectations for the season 1 finale of “Terra Nova”. I’ve sensed a gradual, overall improvement in the show over the past several episodes, so I hoped that the finale might be somewhat representative of the show’s increasing ability to play to its strengths. At the very least, I expected it to fall roughly in line with the quality of most past episodes. But I never could have predicted that the finale would be so bad. In fact, I feel pretty confident in calling it the lowest quality episode of the entire season. It’s disappointing to see the season end on such a sour note, given the improvements it seemed to be making.
“Occupation” and “Resistance” are both examples of good spectacle, with plenty of explosions, fight scenes, and visual effects; all accompanied by Brian Tyler’s propulsive orchestral music (which still, unfortunately, borders on the generic for much of the time). In this respect, the finale is a lot like the pilot. But like the pilot, the writing is absolutely atrocious. Actually, I found it to be a good deal worse than the pilot. The acting is generally acceptable, but the writing, particularly in regards to the dialog and characterization, is at its worst. I really didn’t expect this, because I thought that this was one area where the show was improving.
From looking at the titles for both parts of the finale, the basic story of the finale becomes fairly obvious. For some reason, I didn’t even think about how the titles might relate to the content until after getting a few minutes into the episode. And from that point, the direction for the finale becomes pretty clear. Actually, my lack of foreknowledge about the finale made the first few minutes surprisingly effective. The fake-out with the civilians coming through, the explosion, and the subsequent scene with a dazed Jim Shannon stumbling around in the aftermath were probably the most effective scenes of the entire finale. “Terra Nova” can be an overly tame, family-friendly TV show, so it can be unintentionally funny or impressive whenever it unexpectedly shows some teeth.
Unfortunately, the finale just goes downhill from there and never really recovers. It seems like the show falls back on all of is old, bad habits from the pilot episode and the earlier episodes. The finale is so overflowing with cringe-worthy moments, I’m not even sure where to start. I suppose I’ll start with the most obvious example. I’d started to worry about Lucas’s characterization after the previous episode, because I didn’t like the direction they were heading with the character. In the finale, my fears are fully realized and magnified tenfold.
Lucas has become a ridiculously cartoonish, over-the-top villain who might be a brilliant creation if the intent was to parody cartoonish, over-the-top villains. He has this weakness for the resident hot chick that reduces his intelligence, his attempt to play on Taylor’s emotions is laughably transparent, and there’s even a hilarious “muwahaha, I’ll be back” moment at the end where his bullet-ridden body mysteriously disappears. For a while there, I actually thought that Lucas was going to be a great villain, but he’s become completely silly in only a very short space of time. And I don’t blame the actor. I blame the material he has to work with.
A person could probably write an entire book about how derivative, uninspired, and clichéd this finale was, as well as the many ways in which it fails at basic storytelling. It’s rather staggering to see so much of it in one place, and I really didn’t expect to see so much blatant cheesiness at this point in the show. It’s really baffling to see the show take such an unexpected turn for the worse after all the progress it seemed to be making. The finale seems so representative of the show’s weaknesses.
It still retains some of what I enjoy about the show, but in this case it’s severely overwhelmed by the negatives. The somewhat darker nature of the situation in the finale presents a lot of opportunity for drama, and a genuine attempt is made to keep things edgy and intense. Lt. Washington’s death comes to mind as one example of this. But it almost never works, either simply falling flat or being unintentionally humorous. (To be fair, there are a couple of brief moments that do work, like Zoe hugging Taylor after Washington’s death.)
Kara’s death, simply put, seems odd and pointless. Josh spent the whole first season trying to get her to Terra Nova, only for her to be killed in the initial blast. It seems like just a death the writers thought they could get away with so they could add a sense of danger to the proceedings, and they’re right. We don’t know her well enough to really be affected by her death, so it kind of makes sense. But it also seems like something of a cop out. Her death doesn’t seem to have any real effect on Josh. I suppose now the writers are free to pair up Josh and Skye, which is just boringly predictable. I preferred the idea of having a new character around so Skye can remain in the friend role. With Kara dead, it’s just business as usual in Terra Nova.
The entire occupation and resistance plotline felt like something that should have been spread out over a whole season. The finale feels overly packed. This plotline actually had some decent potential. There was a lot that could have been interesting about it, but we’ve seen this type of story before, done far better than it’s done here. There’s just too much unrealized potential, and the approach is so juvenile in so many ways. It literally seems as though they hired a 12-year-old to write this, gave him/her a basic outline of the story, said “make it mature and epic” and let him/her have at it, and then hurriedly tried to salvage the script at the last minute. There are pieces here and there that work, and the overall intent behind it seems sound, but the writing is simply of too poor a quality to do justice to any of the good ideas behind the episode.
The bow of the ship was probably the most interesting part of the finale, but I’m still trying to decide if my curiosity about that, and the show in general, will be enough to bring me back for another season. I really don’t understand how this could have happened. The finale seems to have taken almost everything I hated about the show and smashed it all together into “a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. That’s probably a slight exaggeration, but I think the quote pretty accurately describes my feelings about the problems with the finale. I can’t bring myself to completely condemn the show for having such a poor finale, but the problems in the finale were definitely present from the beginning of the show, to varying extents from episode to episode. The finale just took all those problems and exaggerated them.
Rating: 5/10
(Season 1 Final Average: 6.4)
