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Terra Nova Star Jason O’Mara Admits The Show Had Problems

Date: Jul 29, 2012 | Author: Rudie Obias | Category: Sci-Fi

terra NovaLast year, Fox debuted Terra Nova, a TV drama produced by Steven Spielberg. It took place in a dystopian future where the Earth was dying. To survive the decay of civilization the government sent its citizens back in time to a prehistoric era when dinosaurs ruled the world. Once there, they had to re-build society and learn how to survive in this new world. It sounds awesome, right? Well, you’re wrong.

Terra Nova was a flop. It was the biggest and most expensive TV show of all-time. It premiered to a large audience but as time went on, their number and quality dwindled. It was eventually canceled as the show was just finding its identity.

The star of Terra Nova, Jason O’Mara, while doing press for his new show on CBS, Vegas, talked about what went wrong with the dinosaur show. The series had a strong international following but failed to live up to expectations in the States. But when a TV series becomes the most expensive TV series ever made, then a series has a responsibility to be profitable. O’Mara complains,

We were just finding our feet and I think we just proved that by the season finale,” he said. “There was a lot more story to tell and I think there was an audience to watch it, certainly internationally, the show went down extremely well, huge numbers. Just domestically I couldn’t quite get there.


Terra Nova was set up to be a show like ABC’s Lost or NBC’s Heroes, it was suppose to have a rich mythology with deep and likeable characters. But something is missing when you can’t get a genre audience excited about a show with dinosaurs, time travel and Stephen Lang. Terra Nova quickly became too cliché and riddled with TV tropes, namely with O’Mara’s on-screen angst filled, whiny teenage son, Josh (Landon Liboiron). O’Mara admits…

“I think there was a lack of clarity in terms of when the mythology needed to kick in. The first few episodes were strangely standalone and I think the mythology needed to kick in right from that second episode and onwards,” confessed O’Mara. “We needed to commit to the fact that it was going to be a LOST-like mythological series and not apologize for it.”

Even with a cool premise, Steven Spielberg and dinosaurs, Terra Nova was deeply flawed when it came to its storylines and characters. Maybe if the producers spent their money on a solid writing staff rather than special effects, then maybe Terra Nova wouldn’t have gone extinct.

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Comments

  • Digitalman

    I thought it was worth watching.Like Terminater,Dollhouse,Lies,Alcatraz…just when you get into a show they boot it.I can tell you I DONT watch American Idol,Hells Kitchen,or any of those stupid reality shows.They are as dumb as sports.

    • Sporticus

      Pardon? What exactly is wrong with Sport?! So called “reality television” is an abomination, aiming for the lowest common denominator I’ll give you that, but Sport is great.

      • http://awordinthewoods.com Mike Zimmermann

        Sport is fine, but it’s celebrity hero-worship (in sports and elsewhere) that I just don’t get. Btw, Digitalman, I think you may have missed something in your list of shows cancelled before their time. Unless Alcatraz is alternate spelling for Firefly, that is.

  • Mr Slappy

    “We were just finding our feet ” is not a comment you expect to hear about the most expensive TV show ever. For that amount of dosh you expect “We had it all wrapped up from the start and that’s why we won tons of awards and became the most watched TV show ever”.

  • PClines

    ”
    Maybe if the producers spent their money on a solid writing staff rather than special effects, then maybe Terra Nova wouldn’t have gone extinct.”

    This. Like so many others, this show was trying to copy the mythological sense LOST had without really understanding why and how it worked on that show. Terra Nova was making clumsy mistakes in the first episode, and that’s a bad sign for a show with so much money behind it…

  • http://www.facebook.com/eternity336 Joshua Ochsankehl

    I loved this show is hate that they stopped it. Kept you on your toes. All the great shows get canceled.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Peter-White/100000284241265 Peter White

    The problem with this show is because it was too much like “LOST”. I wanted more Jurassic Park and less “Lost”. Explore the dinosaurs, not the evil side of humanity. Be more like Star Trek……show the hope and greatness of humanity, with evil doers thrown into the mix. Don’t basically show us that we’re going to make the same mistakes in the prehistoric era, and so we will die off as a species in another time line.