Terra Nova Review - 1.10 'Within'
Posted by Jeremy Wilson on 12.12.2011
Jim and Commander Taylor finally uncover the Sixer spy, while Lucas finally finishes his work, leading to the colony preparing for war.
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. Last week we learned that Skye is the Sixers' mole inside Terra Nova and that Lucas is putting the finishing touches on his portal device. As we head into next week's 2-hour season finale, Terra Nova readies for war as the 11th Pilgrimage journeys through the portal and control for the colony is up for grabs.
Episode 1.10 – Within
RECAP: Brilliant...this week's episode has some brief technical difficulties as we miss perhaps the first 30-60 seconds. Taylor is explaining to Jim how the Stargate portal works. Jim begins to question those who had access to the infirmary in his hunt for the spy. Jim asks Riley and a few others before questioning Skye, who lies and tells him she was with Josh on her porch the night of the infirmary breakin. Josh and Maddy have some sibling bickering when Maddy loses what she's doing due to a core breaking (or something). Maddy tracks down Josh and asks him to cover for her if his dad asks him to verify her story. Skye sneaks out of Terra Nova to check on her mom and deliver intel to the Sixers. While visiting with her mother, Lucas introduces himself to Skye and tells her he wants to be friends. Lucas tells Skye he has a job for her to do; he wants Skye to feed his equation (that will make the portal go both ways) into the Eye located in Terra Nova. She has a day to get it done; if she doesn't do it, he'll toss her mother off the side of the Sixers camp high up in the trees.
Jim tells Wash to put a camera and increase patrols around the colony. He catches his son and asks him where he was the night of the breakin. Josh replies that he was with Skye playing chess at her place; that seems to be enough for Jim, but he does give a momen'ts pause. Skye plugs Lucas' equation into the Eye. Maddy attempts to barter for a core at the market, but can't manage to trade her junk. Skye heads back to the Sixers camp and returns Lucas' equation. We learn that the troubles between Lucas and Commander Taylor started in August 2138 (quite an exact date). Wash shows Jim security footage of Skye sneaking out of the colony. Jim goes back and double-checks with his son, but this time Josh admits the truth that he wasn't with Skye. Jim grounds him and goes to inform Taylor about Skye. Jim is a bit stunned; Jim wants to bring her in, but Taylor says he has a better idea and wants confirmation from “his man” inside the Sixers camp (Curran) before confronting her.
Commander Taylor and Skye are playing a game of chess. Reynolds checks in with him and they make sure that Skye hears about a convoy that Taylor is going to lead personally. Maddy asks Reynolds for helping in finding a wheel. Jim and Taylor head out with the convoy, but Mira and the Sixers never show. Taylor believes they may have spotted Jim and his team, but Jim believes – conveniently enough – that they must be holding something over Skye's head, something she cares about! It's the only explanation; she hasn't given the rebels anything that could really hurt the colony, such as information about weapons caches or such. Skye makes her way once again to the Sixers, but Mira is waiting for her. She tells the girl that they know about a convoy that made its way earlier; she tells Skye it's her job to know and inform them. If her intel doesn't get better, her mother's medication may magically blow away. Skye promises she'll do better and have something for them next time.
Maddy goes back to the market and tries once again to trade for the core, but the vender says he already traded for the last one he had. We find out a very busy Boylan was the one who got the core. Maddy attempts to trade for it with Boylan, even offering her services to help organize his books. When the bartender learns she is Jim Shannon's daughter, he freaks out a bit and simply gives her the core to simply go away. He also wants her to make sure she tells her father what a great guy he is and the nice thing he did for her. Lucas tells Skye that his equation worked and his device is ready. The portal is about to be opened; he tells her to not go back to Terra Nova, because his employers will burn the colony to the ground with or without people still in it if Taylor resists. Jim tells Taylor he searched her quarters and found hacked access cards. Evidently she's been using them to gain access to Outpost 9 for some unknown reason. Once again, Jim cautions Taylor that there must be a good reason for the girl's actions and not to rush to judgment. Skye is crying at her mother's bedside, telling her what has resulted because of her actions. Her mother tells her she doesn't – she isn't – going to do this anymore. She tells her to run back to Terra Nova, tell Commander Taylor everything and never come back. She's been sick a long time and she's tired. Skye heads back to Terra Nova.
Jim and Taylor head to Outpost 9, where they run into Skye. Skye tells them the truth and about Lucas' plan. Jim and Taylor then rush out to the Stargate portal. As they are on their way, the portal starts to activate; Lucas manipulates it and takes out the guards that Taylor posted there. Lucas expresses how happy he is that his father is there to see this moment. He'll see his father on his knees, begging for mercy as his employers burn Terra Nova to the ground and strip this place for everything it's worth. Nathaniel tells his son "over my dead body". Lucas activates the portal and goes back through it as he tells his father “the next time you see me, I won't be alone.”
We see Skye's mother coughing but a pair of ominous boots approaches her bed. Skye talks to Josh and tells him she can't believe she just left her mother there to die. He consoles her, but before long Skye is called to the infirmary where she finds her mother being examined by Elisabeth. They explain that Curran carried her mother from the camp back to Terra Nova. Taylor tells the newly returned Curran to report to his office first thing in the morning and tells Skye's mother it's good to see her again. Skye makes like she wants to go to Nathaniel as he heads out of the infirmary, but Jim and Elisabeth caution against it and tell her to give it time. Jim tells Taylor he has a problem with allowing a known murderer back into the colony, but the Commander rebuts that he also saved a woman's life, which gives him a second chance. We learn that August 2138 is when Lucas' mother (Nathaniel's wife) died and Taylor couldn't save her. Lucas blames his father for this. Jim asks what they do now. Taylor tells them they'll fight and be ready by the time the 11th Pilgrimage arrives in a few days. The Shannon family talks about whether Lucas will have made it back; Jim says Lucas is smart and they have to expect he'll be successful. The citizens of Terra Nova stand together in the colony as Commander Taylor tells them they are preparing for a fight. He has seen their tenacity and strength and he knows they can save their way of life.
REVIEW: If you skipped over all of this week's recap and spotted the score before reading the review, you'll see this is one of the better grades I've given out for an episode of Terra Nova. I'm not entirely sure if it's because I actually think it was a good episode or that I'm simply happy to have moved on from the weekly spy storyline and progressed to some larger-scale action. Don't get me wrong: I'm still not sure the scripts for Terra Nova are going to be any better once the “war” starts and all hell breaks loose, but at least now the stakes feel (somewhat) important. “Within” feels like the story this show has wanted to tell since its premiere, but because of a 13-episode commitment on network primetime, they had to lay some easy-to-digest groundwork (and filler) before they got to it. As Jim Ross would say: “business is about to pick up.”
And that's a good thing. I (and others) have mentioned before that the time-line in which Terra Nova started was actually one of the least interesting they could have begun in. Everything has felt safe, with the colony feeling more like a high-end, “green” suburban enclave, rather than humanity's second chance at survival. The dinosaurs and Sixers have been kept at bay literally (via the fence) and figuratively (by the show's writers) for months. For every hint at something sinister or of a creeping danger, there was always a storyline involving a baby dinosaur or school play or bartering for a guitar to cancel it out and remind you this was a FAMILY DRAMA, not smart and edgy science fiction. The difference? The former is much easier to sell than the latter for network primetime. The fact is that there was still some of this in “Within,” but for the first time the “A” storyline seemed to trump everything else and actually instill an element of fear and the unknown into this pristine and safe setting.
I don't think we've got a good beat on Lucas as a character yet. He's definitely got the whole “mad scientist” thing down pretty good, but at times it was a bit whiny for my taste. I like the Daddy issues, but it's a lot easier to fear a crazed (but intelligent) man, as opposed to a whiny, temper-tantrum throwing boy. He needs to be careful not to cross that line. I also thought Skye did good work this week and I'm glad they involved her mom more. The problem, of course, is why didn't she come clean sooner, especially if it was that easy to get her mother back home and healed. I did really like how Nathaniel used Curran and how the consequences of a previous episode (from weeks ago) came back full circle now. That is one of the better things the writers have done all season.
Another example of Terra Nova writers taking the easy way out was the utterly laughable way they had Officer Jim suddenly channeling Colombo in regards to Skye's motives. It would be a lot easier to accept Jim as the greatest investigative mind of his generation if it hadn't taken him six weeks to uncover the mole, continue to be lied to by his son or think to put security cameras up and about to monitor the fence. Seriously...how were those not already in place? Anyway, the action looks to be increased big-time as Lucas and his army are coming back through the portal for next week's two-part season finale, which looks to kick the action up and maybe even bring the dinosaurs back into play. Much of the season has struggled to get to this point, but now that they're finally here, maybe Terra Nova can rally and go out on an interesting note. “Within” was a decent start toward that.
Stray / Random Observations:
~ Do we think the people behind Stargate are going to get royalties for this? Because that sure looked like a mini Stargate.
~ Maddy blew her core...and can't do her homework!
~ "You blew your core," Josh says.
"I have everything on my Plex!" she cries.
* If I had a nickel for every time I heard that...
~ Evidently, Terra Nova is the easiest locked-down camp to sneak out of in all of film & television.
~ So THAT'S why the Eye was introduced a few episodes ago. I knew it wasn't simply a way to babysit Zoe.
~ Speaking of Zoe, am I the only one who is hoping they pull a '90's sitcom manuever and simply phase her out, never to speak of her again. Then sometime around season five, you find yourself asking “Wait, wasn't there another daughter? Yeah the little one...”. She could be like Judy Winslow on Family Matters.
~ So why exactly does Terra Nova not already have security video cameras covering the fence? This hunt for the mole has lasted how long? They only just thought of this?
~ Poor, teenage angst-ridden Josh...NO MORE GUITAR FOR YOU.
~ Boy, that Officer Jim...he's a crack detective. Takes him weeks and week to find the mole (and put cameras on the fence) but mere seconds to discern that Skye is being blackmailed into spying on the camp.
~ Inopportune dinosaur cameo! (Does this count as meeting their quota for the week?)
~ Boylan is by far my favorite character. His three minutes in this episode were better than anything Jason O'Mara and Shelley Conn have done in the entire series.
~ Part of me really hopes the dinosaurs take part in the “war” coming next week. I don't necessarily care whose side they're on, I just want them to check out what's going on around them, form a posse and take as many humans out as possible.
~ Was there a clip of The Lost World in that preview for next week's episode? That T-Rex looked like he hopped on into the portal and paid a visit to a very dinosaur-less Earth 2149.
Jeremy Wilson can be reached via email at Jpwilson1984@gmail.com and on Twitter @Jpwilson1984
The 411: A pretty decent episode this week as the stakes are finally beginning to become more real and tangible on Terra Nova. The writing is still lazy and sloppy as hell at times (Detective Jim's uncanny spidey-sense comes to mind), but freeing itself from the spy storyline and moving onto the "war" seems like it may allow the show some breathing room. It may give the show a chance to put the mediocre family drama on the back-burner and instill a bit more action and sci-fi into the mix, which this show desperately needs. A fairly good way to build up next week's two-part season finale, especially coming from a show that has been consistently mediocre for the majority of the season.
