Terra Nova Vs. The Identity of the Series

Could Terra Nova be finally finding its way? It’s amazing  for a series to be near the end of its first season and starting to gel together. In this episode, “Vs.”  builds further upon the potential strengths of this series. In the aftermath of the last episode Boylan reveals to Jim Shannon about a body underneath Pilgrim’s Tree, Commander Taylor being the prime suspect behind what happened to the body. While in the background the colony of Terra Nova is setting up for the Harvest Festival celebrating Commander Taylor’s arrival to Terra Nova. In the midst of all this Taylor is closer to finding out who the spy for the Sixers is and with that making this show a bit more interesting.

This is an overall solid episode for Terra Nova though the weakest parts lie within the Harvest Festival. The sequences are sweet and the last scenes of it relate to revealing some plot points but they don’t entirely work for me. Yes I know this is a family science fiction series but it can be a bit off putting when in the midst of the more serious story of Commander Taylor, his son, the spy, and the murder and your plot gets revealed like that? Doesn’t totally click for me. Probably that’s my only major quibble with the episode and even then it didn’t bother me entirely that much but struck me as an off point for this episode.

I do like seeing that the spy is closer to being revealed and learning more about Taylor’s son Lucas. We’re finally getting more insight about the larger story of Terra Nova, yet it took us a long time to get to this point. I find myself liking the series more in these latter episodes than I did in the early stages of it. I did like the ending of this episode setting the stage fairly well for the next episode. I can’t say that I’m a fan of how long it’s been taking the show to finally come together yet at the same time I give the team behind Terra Nova credit for working towards ending the first season on a high note.

We’re now heading in to the last episodes of the season. This is the final push for Terra Nova at this point, if they screw this up, this could mean game over for the second season. We’ll see, at this point since the series seems to be slowly but surely turning around for the better. In my own opinion though, others disagree and that’s fine. I’m hopeful that the show keeps a nice balance between the family aspect of the show and still showing that there’s a strong story within this series. Terra Nova, you’re on the right path and if you keep it up I can easily see a second season in your future.