TV

I haven't seen any Terra Nova, at all, yet. I say "yet," with the assumption that I might never get around to it at all, of course. I haven't heard much buzz about it, and that's usually a bad thing. People talk about The Walking Dead and Homeland and Dexter and Sons of Anarchy on the messageboards that I frequent, but I haven't heard a peep about Terra Nova. That's a bad sign. It hasn't ever had more than 10 million viewers for any episode, which is kind of shitty when you have probably one of the larger budgets of any hour-long drama on television.

Anyway, it's the season finale of Terra Nova, which is as good a time as any to ask: do you care about this show? Is it something you watch week in and week out? Do you hope it'll be back next season, or do you not care so much?

	NFL Monday Night Football ESPN 5/8: It's the Steelers at the 49ers in a battle of 10-3 teams. Will an alleged rapist win a football game? We'll find out as Roman Polanski suits up for the Steelers!
	Fear Factor NBC 8 PM: "Couples face stunts that include being catapulted off a building towards a cargo net and transferring snakes off their partners with their mouths." Snakes...why'd it have to be transferring snakes off their partners with their mouths?
	Terra Nova FOX 8 PM: "Lucas, Mira and the mysterious Phoenix group try to pillage the past; Taylor and Jim team up to take a stand; a decision permanently changes life in Terra Nova." The two-hour season finale comes at last! I can't tell if it's good or bad that this has only had 13 episodes in its first season. It has not done spectacularly in the ratings, never breaking above 10 million viewers, so you would think that if FOX was interested in giving it a vote of confidence, it would've given it a whole network season. I somehow doubt we'll see another season of it.
	The Closer TNT 9 PM: "The Major Crimes Division investigates the hit-and-run murder of a girl on a bicycle; Brenda uncovers a scandal." I guess "the hit-and-run murder of a girl on a bicycle" is separate from "a scandal." Personally, I think it's pretty damn scandalous. Followed by Rizzoli & Isles at 10 PM.
	Who's Still Standing? NBC 8 PM: "A volleyball coach competes against 10 opponents in a trivia battle in hope of winning $1 million." As always, volleyball coaches are the one group of humans that everyone can root against. This is apparently going to be on every single day for like a week, so hope you like it!

I did watch Terra Nova to start with, it had a good pilot, but after six episodes of boring human 'drama' I just couldn't be bothered to watch it any more.

I watched about 10 minutes of Terra Nova and decided it deserved neither time nor patience. I've enjoyed plenty of slowburners (hell, I like the Walking Dead), but Terra Nova's mix of bullshit, network-family dynamics and CGI that'd make SyFy Originals blush sealed it for me. I hope Terra Nova goes away, and does so quietly.

I'm a little torn on Terra Nova. On the one hand, it's a bunch of space hippies who are apparently bound by some weird laws of robotics never to harm a dinosaur in any way that would leave a mark because Spielberg thought that should be a big deal when it happened, up to the point that they brought a special super vet with them to run down the dinosaur that ate their goddamn friend to sew it back up when they were done fishing the Murder Macguffin out of its gullet, but they'll declare open war on a bunch of smelly tree dwelling idiots because they might figure out a thing that would let bad people do bad things in the future, if they so chose, assuming, you know, that the primary actor isn't dead. Everything is made of glass that comes from nowhere that I can see, as there is neither an adequate supply of sand nor a conceivable method by which this material could be delivered through the portal.

On the other hand, it's very hard not to like Jason O'Mara. He's legitimately entertaining, and if you turn your brain off and approach the show like one of those nineties syndicated action programs, it's not the worst thing on television. It's hard to recommend, though, and I suspect that its renewal prospects are entirely out of its control. If Fringe experiences some sort of severe uptick or Alcatraz takes off in its two months of airtime or Touch turns out to be a banger, I wouldn't be surprised to see it get pulled.

Terra Nova grew on me. I thought the pilot was good but not amazing, the next couple episodes were just okay. I actually stopped watching after that but decided to go back a couple weeks ago and watched the episodes I missed, since I was DVRing the show. The show picks up in a big way in the later half of the season and steps away a bit from the mystery of the week format to deal more with the overarching narrative.

I'm genuinely looking forward to tonight's finale and hoping that it just barely does well enough for the Fox number crunchers to give it a second season. Its one of the few shows I bother keeping up with right now, Its not amazing but its good enough and episodes like Nightfall give me hope that it could turn into something much more interesting if given the chance.

Terra Nova is actually okay. There are a few likable characters in there, but even at this budget it still has some of that budget sci-fi series aroma to it. Perhaps it's just that the wife and the kids are so simple and clichéd characters.

I enjoy it more than a lot of much more popular shows out there. It's not great but it's a shame that there isn't a place for an 'okay' sci-fi show out there.

The past few episodes of Terra Nova have managed to deliver a really engaging main story but the side stories have been complete and utter shit. Last week we had a side story about the teenage daughter trying to find a wheel for the trader guys wheelchair so that she can get a new battery core thing for her holographic iPad clone. It went fucking nowhere.

Didn't really like Terra Nova but I still watched this season. The story just isn't very compelling and the dinosaurs just look terrible.

I watched the premier of Terra Nova. It didn't seem promising so I never watched again. I think that may be the case for many people. It might be a while before the "LOST" magic is captured on network TV again.

I got about half way into Terra Nova's first episode on the second attempt but decided to give up there. Maybe some terminal boredom over the holidays being locked in with family will give me a reason to give it a final shot before purging the DVR but I wasn't feeling it.

Just putting this out there: Who's Still Standing isn't nearly as bad as it appears in previews. Once the match-ups get rolling, the questions fly by at a reasonable pace, and the game's easy to play along with (though perhaps a bit too easy in difficulty). The dropping part seems unnecessary, but I suppose someone thought the game was too bland otherwise and decided to scavenge the drop zones from Russian Roulette.

Still, tempted to watch it again this week.

I've seen very little Terra nova, but it appears to have gotten to a good place after a rocky start. I assume Fox will greenlight it for a second season, because it DOES bring in (I believe) about 8 million-9 million viewers, which is a LITTLE shy of the 10 million goal they wanted for the budget they're spending on this thing. But, since Firefly, they've done a good job of giving genre shows TWO seasons to find their footing and audiences. Dollhouse got that treatment, Sarah Connor Chronicles got that treatment, and Fringe is STILL alive, so I don't think it'll get canceled. Not yet anyway. Terra Nova probably has, at least, another season in it. Although I expect less dinosaurs next year, for sure.

The Closer is fucking garbage. Fucking garbage with a cartoonish hillbilly accent. For fucks sake, STOP PUTTING IT ON THE LIST! We're not TNT's target demo of 70 year old, easily entertained morons into formulaic crime-stopping garbage. FOR FUCK'S SAKE, RORIE!

I caught about five minutes from "Who's Still Standing?" and was amazed how much of a "man-versus-man, future death-sports" vibe it had going on. You know, what with the "picking out the weakest-looking strangers and dueling them with questions until they fall screaming into a pit and you win money" thing.

And it's got the guy from Cash Cab!