TERRA NO

Who is not a sucker for a wilderness survival sci-fi story? That is what hooked many on LOST.

So when Fox touted its new prime time offering, Terra Nova, it hit an immediate dud here. Not to get sucked into another multi-year commitment of tele-viewing, one looked to the Big Premise.

And it had a major flaw. If you have a time portal and need to save mankind, why set it to go back the land of dinosaurs? Even first graders have the basic knowledge that the dinosaurs became extinct by a massive global upheaval. Why teleport to a time line which will lead to mass extinction? Would it not been better to set the portal to a post-dinosaur era? (Yes, but what about the dramatic fun of being hunted down by T-Rex in Jurassic Park overset film footage reels?)

In LOST, the Frozen Donkey Wheel spit out its turner to the North African desert approximately five months in the past. One could handle re-living five months off-island, but not millions of years into the past. What about immunities? Modern man has lost many of its hunter-gatherer environmental balances. The distant past would have virus and bacteria strains harsher than today. What about the environment itself? It was hotter, volcanic and its plant life could be more toxic (non-domesticated) in a sulfur rich environment.

The lesson learned from LOST is not to get hooked on the pilot trailer without thinking about the main story premise to see if you can really suspend belief for more than a season.