Terra Nova Treading A Tired Path

Okay, the dinosaurs on "Terra Nova" are a little better
than this plastic toy.  We'd like to see more of
them on the show to be sure.

The new Fox sci-fi thriller "Terra Nova" was hyped as the next great television experience, a groundbreaking shift in network fare.  A lot was made of the $20 million spent just on the pilot alone for this back-to-the-future epic that supposedly included dinosaurs galore as the plot takes the Shannon family from the year 2149 back to 85 million B.C.

Instead of a sci-fi series, the show should be converted into another "Law and Order" crime drama.

That's because there has been grand theft on a massive scale.

If the producers spent $20 million, then someone needs to look for some full-to-the-brim offshore bank accounts in their names, because they certainly didn't spend that much on production.

Worse, they continue to squander obscene amounts of money on the writers.  Even if they're paying the writing staff $100 a week, they've paid too much.

"Terra Nova" is likely to be the next great waste of bandwidth instead of fulfilling its potential to be one of the best shows on television, joining other brilliantly inspired and horrendously executed dramas like CBS's failed "Jericho" series and ABC's "V."

To set the stage, the show has an intriguing story line.  The notion of having dinosaurs and prehistoric possibilities should mean this show has the potential to blow everything else off the air.

Instead, the writers are creating storylines that were tired and worn out back when they first appeared on shows like "Peyton Place" and "As The World Turns."

Instead of capitalizing on dazzling plots revolving around the discoveries of new dinosaur genus and the conflicts between species separated by 85 million years, the writers are exhausting all their energies on a romantic triangle between Jim Shannon, the stowaway cop; his wife Elizabeth, the brilliant doctor; and Malcolm, the head scientist at the Terra Nova complex who used to be her lover in college. 

As if that wasn't insipid enough, we also have the blossoming love story of Shannon's rebellious son (no, that cliche' isn't TOO worn out, is it?) and a cute but troubled orphan.  Oh, and the blossoming love story of Shannon's eldest daughter and one of the security soldiers.

We traveled back in time 85 million years to watch a bunch of soap opera relationships? 

It is unconscionable that an exotic landscape filled with giant, dangerous animals is being squandered in this fashion.

Instead, the creatures are being used like background props a la the Superman model on the set of "Seinfeld."  In the first three episodes, they're shown but aren't really central to the story.

And maybe that's a blessing of its own, since the dinosaurs look a lot like leftovers from Jurassic Park 12, or whatever dino-centric sequel Steven Spielberg has been working on.

Then you have the jungle-like sets that suspiciously resemble the place where Gilligan, Skipper, and the Howells used to hang out, and unfuturistic vehicles that look like somebody found a deal on a fleet of used Volkswagen "Thing" automobiles.

Again, it's all reminiscent of "Jericho," a show that had incredible potential as it addressed the rebirth of a town isolated by a nuclear holocaust and the dissolution of the United States.  Instead, it devolved into a trite collection of romances and personality conflicts driven by petty and unlikely jealousies and power struggles that smelled a lot like the last days of "Dallas."

"Jericho" was mercifully euthanized in 2008.

The same fate befell another overhyped sci-fi offering from ABC, "V."  Invading aliens and shape-shifting monsters weren't enough drama for the writers on this waste of time.  No, they had to write lots of relationship plotlines, including (that's right) a blossoming love story between the detective's rebellious son and the daughter of the chief alien.

ABC pulled the plug on "V" in May of this year.

Unfortunately, this reliance on relationship fodder is the standard operating procedure for 21st century television.

Another show that has all the earmarks of following the exact same doomed path is the AMC wunderkind "The Walking Dead."

The first few episodes were extraordinary, featuring zombies and chases and survival.  Toward the end of the first season, it had become less about the undead and more about (you guessed it) love triangles between the main protagonist, his wife, and his best friend.  The show was also going heavy toward other relationships on the rise, instead of focusing on how to live through the zombie apocalypse, which should have been drama enough for any TV fan.  If the show sticks around long enough, I'm sure the protagonist's pre-teen boy will grow into a rebellious son that has a blossoming love story with the daughter of one of the undead.

With the offseason departure of originator Frank Darabont, you can expect more of the lackluster same in season two.

Sadly, the reason for such terrible TV in all four shows is the same: money.

It's a lot cheaper for producers to get a couple of low-paid unknown actors to bat their eyes at each other and utter stilted, cheesy dialogue than it is to continue creating exciting scenes filled with the special effects that originally drew in the curious.  It also takes less money to recycle scripts from old episodes of "General Hospital" than to light the fuse on demolitions of sets and equipment, explosive action that is the only chance a TV show has to sate the appetites of fans who have been taught to expect more by their weekly treks to movie theaters.

The bottom line is that if your life has been ruined by the demise of "All My Children" and "One Life To Live," your salvation awaits with the same kind of mindless 42-minute storylines to be found on "Terra Nova" and "The Walking Dead."

So in the finest tradition of daytime television, don't be surprised if someone shows up pregnant out of wedlock on "The Walking Dead," and at least one character disappears and returns from a bout of amnesia on "Terra Nova."

And if you saw Monday's episode on Fox, you know that the latter prediction has unremarkably already come true.

"Terra Nova" can be seen on Fox Mondays at 8 p.m. PDT.  "The Walking Dead" returns to AMC on Sundays at 9 p.m. beginning Oct. 16.

ESPN, Please Make 'Non-Stop' Stop

For NASCAR fans, the idea of "Non-Stop" broadcasts by ESPN during The Chase appeared to be a heavenly proposition.  Imagine watching a race uninterrupted by commercials.  Sounds almost un-American, doesn't it?

Don't worry.  As the saying goes, "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

On Sunday, ESPN got a chance to apply their new ruse to the race at Dover.

Well, half the race.

The "Non-Stop" coverage didn't start until halfway through the show. 

By the end of the race, real NASCAR fans had to be begging ESPN "Please, make the 'Non-Stop' stop!"

That's because, as usual, the network figured a way to booger up what should have been a real achievement.

Ordinarily, networks place their commercial breaks about eight minutes apart.  That means eight minutes of commercial, followed by three minutes of ads.  And that discounts the reality that a NASCAR race actually includes 59 minutes of ads per hour, since every car is a rolling billboard, every camera angle is sponsored by a product, and every scrap of information is accompanied by another company logo.

During the "Non-Stop" coverage, ESPN splits the screen and shrinks the race action to a small, silent box, while devoting the much larger picture-in-picture and audio to a commercial.  They consider it "non-stop" because the race is technically still on the screen.

However, the truth is that instead of commercials every eight minutes, they are showing the split-screen ads an average of every six minutes.

Now THAT is the American way...pretending they're giving you more while they're actually giving you less.

Also, the heartbreak is that ESPN has a real knack for being in commercial whenever something important happens on the track.  On three different occasions Sunday, the caution came out while ESPN was doing their "Non-Stop" split screen commercials.  Without sound, the viewers had no way of knowing whether there was a crash, debris on the track, rain in the tri-state region, or if Dale Jr. simply needed another "fortuitous" yellow-flag pit stop to fix another sway bar problem.

About the only good thing about this lousy innovation is that it really makes you appreciate ESPN's race announcers.  Since the racing on the small split screen is silent you can't really tell what's going on, especially since the sports network's producers seem to be refugees from MTV, with the camera angle and scene changing every 1.5 seconds like a Madonna video.  The ESPN camera work is always a bit dodgy, and without Darrell Waltrip their commentators are among the worst in the sport.  But after accumulating 21 minutes of silent screen action every hour, race fans would desperately welcome commentary from Elmer Fudd.

All of this is made even more agonizing by the lack of action on the track over the last three races (which, ironically, are the first three races of The Chase, which is supposed to be NASCAR's playoffs). 

For real NASCAR fans, a better alternative would be to forego the televised race altogether and go to NASCAR.com for their animated coverage.  Or, if you want to save three tedious hours, wait until after the race when a legitimate sports writer will summarize the event with 12 paragraphs and a three-minute highlight video.

The only other real salvation for NASCAR fans is the fact that they're only four months away from the start of first-rate TV coverage by Fox Sports and D.W., which begins with Daytona in February.

Until then, you'll just have to suffer through ESPN's coverage, where the only thing uninterrupted is the "non-stop" string of commercials.