1.6 : Terra Nova.

[Neo]

First 'Terra Nova' & 'Andorian Incident' Spoilers

While Captain Archer and his crew are set to encounter several all-new races over the coming weeks, in two episodes airing late October they will return to more familiar territory, dealing with Vulcans, Andorians, and even plain humans.

Sources suggest that in the fourth regular episode after the premiere, 'Terra Nova,' the Enterprise encounters an old Earth settlement of that name. Terra Nova was one of the first long-distance colonies established by humanity, in the years before interstellar space travel was possible. The journey took the colonists several years, and upon arrival they disassembled the ship to have ground materials for the colony.

After the colony was established, Earth wanted to send a second wave of colonists, but the inhabitants of Terra Nova refused. Earth threatened to send in more people anyway, but the colonists bluntly told them there'd be some serious trouble if they did. Shortly thereafter, communications with the colony ended, and with the planet nine years travel away, no one ever went to investigate. Terra Nova was never heard from again.

By the time of Captain Archer, Starfleet of course has a ship capable of making that journey in far less time - the Enterprise. The crew is sent to investigate what happened, and see if any humans are still alive on Terra Nova.

'Terra Nova' was directed by Trek veteran LeVar Burton (Geordi LaForge), and is currently expected to air on the 24th of October.

 

[Neo]

Episode 1:6 Tera Nova (spoliers inside)

'TERRA NOVA '
Episode Number: 106
Production Number: ENT 40358-106
Original US Airdate: 24.10.01
Original UK Airdate: 26.03.02
Mission Date: Unknown

The Enterprise encounters an old Earth settlement named Terra Nova. Terra Nova was one of the first long-distance colonies established by humanity, in the years before interstellar space travel was possible. The journey took the colonists several years, and upon arrival they disassembled the ship to have ground materials for the colony.

After the colony was established, Earth wanted to send a second wave of colonists, but the inhabitants of Terra Nova refused. Earth threatened to send in more people anyway, but the colonists bluntly told them there'd be some serious trouble if they did. Shortly thereafter, communications with the colony ended, and with the planet nine years travel away, no one ever went to investigate. Terra Nova was never heard from again.

By the time of Captain Archer, Starfleet of course has a ship capable of making that journey in far less time - the Enterprise. The crew is sent to investigate what happened, and see if any humans are still alive on Terra Nova.

 

[Dave]

This was made into a whole series -- "Earth 2"!

 

[Neo]

ooooooo u could be right.....

 

[Highlander II]

okay - my viewing of this ep was a little disjointed - had to tape it while watching a hockey game, then was watching it during the play-stoppages of the 2nd period, then had to stop watching this to watch L&O (Which is the ONLY thing that beats out hockey!) - then back to this ep --

okay - 1st - Erick Avari was in this ep! (He's Kasuf from both the Stargate movie and the tv show Stargate SG-1) - he was pretty cool!

2nd - all i can say is HUH? this was an odd episode - a bunch of people who hate humans, but are really human, but don't wanna believe Archer when he tells them they are human -- basically - needed more background --

all-in-all it was pretty good and i got what they were doing, but i think we needed more back-story on the Novans (i like 'history' of the ppl) - esp since these were supposed to be decendants of the group that landed on the planet 70 yrs ago --

(um - is it just me or was this ep *really* similar to "Insurrection"?)

i like the show, i just want the writers to be more 'thorough' w/ the storylines, or it won't be very interesting for very long

 

[Mellian]

I thought there was enough background. We were seeing it and finding out about what happened as Archer and his crew did. They had to figure out what happened to the original colonists.

The thing that bothered most was the way they wrapped it up so quick at the end. That just didn't seemed way to fast. OF course it is what they seem to end up doing a lot of on TV.

All in all a pretty good episode.

 

[Neo]

I have to admit that I too wasn't all that impressed with "Terra Nova" and ESPECIALLY "Unexpected". My first thoughts about the first three episodes are that they all have terribly recognizable plot structures and content. The first thing that grabs me in every episode yet is that I think "OH GOD I've seen this plot before in..." whatever Trek series you can name. For instance, "Terra Nova" had some close similarities to "Frienship One" from Voyager. Even though I think there were TOO MANY similarities between the two episodes, I think we'll all be seing similarities in every Enterprise future show and all the other Trek shows combined. The Star Trek universe has accumulated 35 years worth of programming and storylines - it's almost unavoidable for future Enterprise episodes to bear resemblences to previous Trek episodes...it's what happens when you keep weaving the same story with the SAME piece of thread for 35 years straight - patterns repeat. "Terra Nova" was really that first "Enterprise" episode to repeat a theme in Star Trek.

All being told, I enjoyed "Terra Nova". It wasn't original, but it was Star Trek and I AM (grins) a Trek junkie. I'm looking very forward to Jeffry Comb's foray into the Trek universe again. He is an incredible Star Trek actor and he lowers the bar for all future Trek actors. Weyoun's character was genius. Brunt's character was genius. Even that role he did in Voyager was good and it will be a riot seeing him back into the type or role he soared as - the villian.

 

[Dave]

I liked "Terra Nova"! But!

A little bit slow. I was interested in the answer to the puzzle. The colonists did seem to have been very unfortunate to have been hit by an Asteroid so soon after arriving. Pity Bruce Willis wasn't with them. But they were lucky Archer arrived, Dr. Phlox said they would have died in three more years!

Best Lines:

"Are we there yet?": Archer to Mayweather and Sato.
(you need to have children to get that!)

"Every school kid on earth had to learn about the vulcan expeditions!": Tucker to T'Pol.
"Name one.": T'Pol to Tucker.
"I never said history was one of my best subjects.": Tucker to T'Pol.

Observations:

Oooh, a ghost town! Look, there's an abandoned bicycle, and Reed can't resist spinning one of the wheels. And a tumbleweed?

We see a proto-Prime Directive speech by T'Pol about Archer's need to respect this culture's differences.

And Lung Cancer can be cured in 3 hours! He's quite some Doctor!

Lt. Reed being stereotypically stiff-upper-lip: "Don't worry about me, sir," -- "I'm British, after all."

Star Trek Firsts:

The very first shuttle crash! How could they have landed right on top of a collapsing tunnel when they had such detailed maps of the underground structure?

There were a few other nits to pick, like:

The radiation in this region is so deadly, only CGI birds can survive!

After 70 years these cave people still happen to have plenty of bullets for their machine guns, and the guns are still in perfect working condition.

And I didn't buy the problem of no-one finding out what had happened before because of the 18 year journey problem -- ships such as Travis' parents must have been passing by all the time -- if not, then why not send a probe? Oh yes! We wasted all of our Warp Probes when we sent them to the Delta Quadrant!

These colonists wouldn't have traveled blindly for 9 years to a planet unless they knew they could have landed on it and lived. Which means they knew other continents were also there. Yet they complained about the idea of a second wave of colonists. What, a planet with multiple continents too big for 400 people? They couldn't have set up base on one of those other continents?

Those cave dwellers talk a lot like the plane-crash kids from "Beyond Thunderdome": "Take that one and don’t track back!" "I lived on the overside!" "Our go-before shared the same path!"

Why weren't they smart enough to realize that it was a meteor that hit them? Their communications still worked (just couldn't transmit outside the contaminated atmosphere). What happened to the rest of the ship when they took off the bulkheads? Weren't they ever planning to visit the other continents? Even Neil Armstrong took a Luner Rover with him to the moon. It's still sitting there. But these guys? No scanners? No vehicles? No protective suits? Or they couldn't even build themselves a boat?

A 9 year journey and 200 people to feed, they must have brought animals with them or some way to feed themselves. Yet there wasn't one mention of them. Those "diggers" must have tasted good after all!

The Captain has a huge problem climbing down into the pit to save the man trapped at the bottom. But, somehow it must have been very easy to climb back out while helping a man with a broken leg to get out too.

Apart, from the fact that Archer cut the tree in half without setting it on fire, how did a dead tree so heavy they couldn't move it, get underground in a side cavern?

Reed is too deep to be transported out, but not too deep for T'Pol to suggest transporting stun grenades.

The children of Terra Nova were able somehow to survive the lethal radiation. So why they weren't rendered sterile, and whether there aren't other cases of cancer besides Nadet's.

Enterprise takes place 88 years after First Contact. And 70 years after the attempt to colonize Terra Nova. Before Terra Nova, we are told in this episode, humans built a colony, New Berlin, on the Moon and, Utopia Planitia, on Mars. Take a look at the people of Earth in First Contact; did they look like they could have those colonies up and running in less than 18 years? "Zephram Cochrane of Alpha Centauri" moved to Alpha Centauri in his old age, after the events in 'First Contact'. But now the first, and closest, colony outside Earth's solar system, according to this episode was Terra Nova, about four times farther from Earth than Alpha Centauri. Oh, well, the Eugenics Wars never happened either...

 

[ray gower]

We are also back to the question just how far away are all these planets. Nine years isn't very far astronomically speaking even at light speed. Going to the grocer at the end of the street is starting to look a long way.

The other continents could have been forgotten about if the only people to survive were young children. Most four year olds can barely register that it takes more than an hour to get to Grandma's.

NIMBY's exist everywhere. Who would want a bunch of vagrant settlers planting themselves on the lawn just after they've got the grass growing nice

I didn't mind the repeated plot. As far as I remember, it was handled differently. Even if the result was so horribly similar.

I would like to see them achieve something that is not in the book of TNG rules at somepoint. If only to show the people are different and haven't yet evolved into something more than human.