Terra Nova Review - 1.09 'Now You See Me'
Posted by Jeremy Wilson on 11.29.2011
The spy is revealed and Commander Taylor must work with Mira in order to survive on this week's episode of Terra Nova.
Welcome back everyone to 411mania's weekly review/recap of Fox's highly anticipated and majorly expensive science fiction drama Terra Nova. Make sure to check out my previous recaps for the show if you've missed anything.
Episode 1.09 – Now You See Me
RECAP: Commander Taylor and Skye open the show reminiscing about her parents and the annivesary of their death as he prepares to leave the colony by himself. Taylor leaves Jim in charge while he's away since Wash is out at Outpost 9. Taylor heads to The Drawings at the Falls, where he finds an old campsite. He is inspecting the drawings when Mira sneaks up behind him, catching him off-guard. She says they are both out their for the same reason – to see if Lucas is any closer to getting closer to figuring it out. Meanwhile, back at the camp, Jim and Malcolm tangle over communication protocol, while Jim asks Reynolds about how the guards are reacting to a non-military person being in charge. He says they are taking it like an order, to which Jim responds, “Good.” While looking for the spy, they discover flashing lights from within the compound; they believing it's the spy and not random. When Jim and Reynolds go to inspect it, they find what look to be chemical compounds with a droplet of blood in one of them. We see Skye hiding; it's her blood and apparently she's the spy.
Mira marches Taylor back to her camp. Josh catches up with Skye, who is hiding her cut. He apologizes for stealing the medicine and for getting her involved in his mess. Malcolm tells Elisabeth that the ankylosaurus needs to be released back into the wild soon. Skye hides her cut from Elisabeth. Jim attempts to retrieve the drop of blood, but screws up. He asks Elisabeth to help him retrieve and analyze it, but she says it is nearly impossible. She's a doctor, not a chemist. (Sure sounded like a McCoy reference to me) He's going to have to ask Malcolm to help. Taylor and Mira continue to walk and argue. Mira says she would have been back on Earth 2149 with her daughter if he hadn't caught on to their plan. She tells him she had to make the decision she did; she was never going to get recruited since she was an ex-con. When a dinosaur falling from above distracts them, Taylor takes the opportunity to slip away and sneak behind her. As they fight, he finally gets the upper-hand, restraining her and then pointing her own gun at her head. He tells her it's her turn to wear the cuffs and that they'll be heading back to his rover so they can head back to Terra Nova and he can put her in his brig. As they start to walk back, a nasty-looking dinosaur (turns out to be a Slasher) – who has been hiding in the bushes next to them – slowly coming out and following them.
The Sixers are in the jungle waiting for Skye, but because Terra Nova is on lockdown she can't directly communicate with them. Skye gets Josh to help her get out of the camp under the pretense of accompanying him on field labor. Mira and Taylor continue to argue, this time about his son. Malcolm asks her how he is; she tells him he's crazy and lost to him forever. She says he thinks that she controls Lucas, but its the other way around. Malcolm tells Jim what he wants with the blood can't be done, so Jim starts to mess around with the lab until Malcolm agrees to help. Jim catches Zoe sneaking out of the infirmary/lab with the baby ankylosaurus, but he and Elisabeth once again tell her she can't keep it. Skye finally manages to sneak away from Josh and the workers; she gets back to the waiting Sixers and heads to their camp. We discover she is giving intel to the Sixers because they have her mother, who is extremely ill.
Skye tells her mother she has to go back before she's missed and says goodbye before taking her leave. Jim takes the clean blood sample to Elisabeth so she can analyze it, but she tells him they won't know the results until the morning. Skye shows up at the lab for her shift, expressing her apologies to Elisabeth for being late. She spots the blood sample out of the corner of eye and looks concerned. Having stopped, Mira tells Taylor that Lucas looks pretty good, to which he expresses gratitude and says that's “good to hear.” They once again get the feeling they are being watched and are soon confronted by two large slashers. Taylor shoots the slashers so that Mira can run (she's still restrained), until both are forced to jump down a waterfall to escape. When they resurface, the gun is lost and they realize they have to stay together if they are going to survive (with only their knives). “We can fight each other, or we can fight them,” Taylor emphatically states. Taylor says they'll stay where the are and fight. Skye sneaks back into the lab in the middle of the night and destroys the blood sample.
Night has fallen and Mira stokes a fire while Taylor carves and strings a bow. They squabble over who knows more about fighting the dinosaurs. He says he knows how to fight these “bastards” – he spent 118 days when he first came through the portal. Mira brushes it off; she's working on “1000 days and counting.” Reynolds wishes to “declare his intentions” for Maddy. Again. Jim asks him if this is really the best time to be discussing this and that his daughter is SIXTEEN. The big dumb sap says he knows, and he'll wait. (I feel like I'm watching a paid advertisement of the PTC sometimes) Elisabeth breaks it to Jim that the blood sample has been destroyed; he asks for a list of people with access to the lab. Taylor discovers a tattoo and realizes that Mira was a secessionist back on Earth 2149. He says she must have been at the dome the day they stormed it. Soon though, one of the Slashers is on them and they take the fight to it, eventually driving it off. After the fight, Taylor tells Mira they could have been a hell of a team; she's smart and a good fighter and in a parallel universe they could even be strong allies. Jim gets the list of everyone who has access to the lab; it has 80-some names on it. Elisabeth eventually enters to tell them that much of the damage was done, but they were able to get a bit of data off of the sample. She tells Jim they are looking for a female, which gets the list down to 47 potential persons who could be the spy.
Back at the falls, Mira tells Taylor it's been good fighting with him; he returns the compliment. Mira tells him that Lucas really is close to figuring out how to make the portal go both ways and that this is almost all over; Taylor wonders how it is all going to end. The Shannons return the baby Ankylosaurus to the wild and watch as it calls out to its mother, who comes. Reynolds and Jim talk as the Shannon patriarch tells him that he's not so bad compared to his father-in-law and that he's a good kid. Taylor makes it back to the camp and asks Jim how the search for the spy is going. Jim tells they've got the list down to 47 names and that it is definitely a female. Taylor tells him good work and to keep looking; he asks him how he liked being in charge of Terra Nova while he was away. Jim responds, “I wouldn't want to do it everyday.” As Jim walks out of Taylor's office, Skye walks in. Taylor asks if they are still going on their walk to Memorial Field and she says yes. Taylor tells her he meant what he said earlier; her parents would be proud of the fine young woman she has become. Taylor catches that Skye looks anxious and asks if everything is okay. Skye tells him everything is fine (although we know better), as the episode ends.
REVIEW: “Now You See Me” is the perfect encapsulation of everything that is wrong with Terra Nova. If “Genesis” was Terra Nova's declaration of ambition, then this week's episode was it's white flag of defeat. Or maybe that is the audience's white flag. Perhaps this is the episode where everyone simply gives up on this show and moves on to shows that are better, artistically and entertainment-wise. At the very least, consider this my white flag.
So Skye is the spy. I shouldn't be all that surprised...but I am. There were really only a handful of possible candidates – Skye, Reynolds, Malcolm, Wash, all of whom have been featured just enough for us to care, but not too much for it to cripple the show or the oh-so-important Shannon family dynamic. I'm not “surprised” because I think it's a great twist or an effective way at revealing it. It's not. It feels rushed and manipulative, as the writers have once again revealed one of the show's mysteries in the most casual and anti-climatic way possible. For weeks, the one thing that has been driving Terra Nova forward from a narrative perspective has been “the search for the spy.” To reveal that it is Skye in the first dozen minutes or so of this week's episode, is simply anti-climatic in my opinion. The one word that kept popping in my head as I watched this week's episode was this:
Undeserved.
That may be a strange word, but here's the thing; this show hasn't earned the right to have Skye be the spy and to have us know without letting the rest of the characters on to that fact. We BARELY know Skye. She was somewhat interesting in the pilot, presented as a strong, independent, free-spirited woman, but since the first couple episodes, she's been reduced to Josh's conscience and hanger-on, a girl who seems to be conflicted about her own feelings for the boy and the fact that he continues to wish Kara was there with him. We know she is close to Commander Taylor, as he took her in after her parents died. Other than that, we haven't really spent much time with her. We sure as hell had no idea her mother was still alive. That is just such a weak cop-out, only there to be done with this part of the story, but not really have us hate Skye for what she's done.
The revelation of the spy's identity should have been a BIG DEAL, built up over many episodes and causing a lot more trouble for Taylor, Jim and the colony. That reveal should have had a major impact on the show and its characters. It also presented Terra Nova with a chance to install a real, tangible villain into the series, someone who could counter the unknown, faceless forces in Earth 2149 who are stirring up trouble for Taylor and bankrolling the Sixers. That's not what happened, and when everyone finds out it's her, the show will act like it's a big deal, but why should we care? We barely know Skye; she's not a Shannon or Taylor, who the show have been pushing as the “big” characters for months.
The reason I like Boylan is that he's one of the few people on this show who we aren't supposed to like and doesn't do everything for the kumbaya reasons the others do. He's in it for himself. I thought Malcolm would be a good choice for the spy (although perhaps a bit predictable) since he's fairly unlikeable as well and has had numerous arguments with the colony leadership (Taylor and Jim); plus, he has a history with Elisabeth, which could have made from some epic confrontations between him and Jim. Instead, Skye is portrayed not as a spy or rat, but as a victim. Her mother is sick...but why is she with the Sixers? Why didn't Skye tell Taylor from the beginning? Skye isn't a big enough character and hasn't been fleshed out enough to really have the impact that the writers probably wanted it to have.
Plus, once again, Terra Nova can't seem to find a true “villain.” There are lots of “quasi-villains” and anti-heroes, but no one or nothing yet that would cause us to really get behind Jim, Taylor and Terra Nova as the show build to its inevitable war. Everybody has valid reasons for what they are doing. I suppose the forces from Earth 2149 are supposed to fill that role, but...well, we don't know them yet. Lucas is the closest we've come to learning more about that group, however, he's been more of a bogeyman than a real character at this point. Terra Nova is blowing through its stories and mythology, expecting everyone to try to keep up and care without ever getting us to invest in what's going on and in the big “reveals.”
The Taylor/Mira scenes were pretty good, although once again crappy CGI and cliched dialogue bring it down a notch. Their more intimate conversations, however, were enlightening and intriguing in concept. It may not be the most original story device, but I liked the idea of the two enemies joining forces simply to survive. That seems like something you would need to do in that world and time period. Plus, I loved the line where Taylor was beginning to lecture Mira about how he knows how to fight these things, telling her he was out here for 118 days by himself. Her retort – “I've been doing it for 1000 days and counting” – pretty much knocked him for a loss and was a nice zinger to shut him up. I will give Terra Nova some credit – this week's show felt like the first time that the stories felt integral to the series and important in the context of the show's setting. No murder mystery of the week. No gimmicky dinosaur battle. Very little scientific hoodoo that doesn't make sense. However, when your “A” storyline doesn't make sense – we've had NO inkling that Skye could be the spy or that her mother was alive – it is hard to stay invested. Trust between a viewer and a show is a tenuous thing, something that can be lost overnight or over the course of numerous episodes. It can come down to one huge story going off the rails or a million little details coming undone.
It doesn't help that another problem that has arisen is the show's bad habit of having a lot of important action occurring off-screen. I know they want to appeal to families, but did we really have to deal with that hideously cute minor story with Zoe and the baby Ankylosaurs? I like children, I really do. Terra Nova is backing me into a corner where I want to hurl things at the television at the sight of an innocent-looking six year old (Zoe). Josh has been the preferred target for most of Terra Nova's detractors; Zoe is gaining on him. It's such saccharine-sweet garbage; she serves little to no purpose and it completely takes you out of the moment. You keep hoping against hope that some big dinosaur will come along and snatch her up. Yes, that may make me a bad person, but it doesn't make it any less true. Anyway, I would have much rather watched Skye's return back to Terra Nova, where she apparently was able to slip away unnoticed, staying outside of a Terra Nova that was in lockdown mode for hours until magically she just shows up back at the lab. But it's okay, that's not the interesting stuff. She's doing it for her mom...WHO IS BACK FROM THE GRAVE (even though we don't care).
Terra Nova is bad science fiction. That's okay though, because it doesn't really want to be great speculative fiction. What is truly sad though is that it is an even worse family drama...which it desperately wants to be. This failure comes at the expense of every discarded spark of possibility or moment of entertainment. It feels rushed and plodding all at the same time, which is not something you see very often. Much like the residents of Terra Nova, this show is running out of time – whether it knows it yet or not. The clock is ticking and the endgame is coming. It's been a pretty mediocre nine episodes to this point. They have a few more to salvage the season and maybe the series. See you all in two weeks.
Jeremy Wilson can be reached via email at Jpwilson1984@gmail.com and on Twitter@Jpwilson1984
The 411: Terra Nova is bad science fiction, but it's an even worse family drama. The latter is really what this show wants to be, but it has turned the Shannons into the most boring, vanilla main characters in recent memory. We learn this week that Skye is the Sixer spy, but she's only doing it for her sickly mother. Yes, we all thought she was dead, but apparently, the writers of Terra Nova had other ideas! Some of the stuff between Taylor and Mira was good (the best of the episode overall) but still felt lacking. The less said about Zoe and the baby ankylosaurus, the better. "Now You See Me" is simply not a good episode by any measure. Try as he might, Stephen Lang cannot carry this show single-handed to being good. Not a great way to head into a two week break before the home stretch of what is looking more and more like Terra Nova's first and only season.
