In the US: Mondays, 8/7c, Fox In the UK: Monday, 8pm, Sky 1 HD. Starts 3rd October
A true scientific law about TV: while having the name ‘Steven Spielberg’ attached to a movie is almost always a blessing, with a TV show, unless it’s an historical drama about the US military, it’s almost certain that that TV show will suck collossally and usually feature various men agonising about the responsibilities of being a father.
Another true scientific law about TV: if your script is written by former Star Trek producers René Echevarria and Brannon Braga, it will almost invariably involve time travel and temporal paradoxes.
The final true scientific law about TV: it’s almost impossible to go wrong with dinosaurs on a TV show. Almost.
You can imagine the thought processes involved in the making of Terra Nova. "You can’t go wrong with dinosaurs. Remember Jurassic Park? Let’s have a TV show about dinosaurs."
"Dinosaurs are millions of years in the past. How do we have have a show about dinosaurs?"
"Can we just make new dinosaurs?"
"Jurassic Park – we’ll get sued."
"Can we bring the dinosaurs from the past to now?"
"Primeval – we’ll get sued."
"Dinosaurs on another planet?"
"Why would there be dinosaurs on another planet? How about we go into the past? I do like time travel and timey-wimey paradoxes."
"Why would we go into the past to meet dinosaurs?"
"Maybe the whole world is falling apart from environmental catastrophe and the only way to escape it is to go back into the past."
"That makes no sense, but it would mean we could pretend to do Blade Runner for 20 minutes. Then what?"
"Well, we could tell a story involving lots of kids and really dangerous dinosaurs about how hard it is to survive millions of years in the past with only the bare essentials."
"Where’s the fun in that? How about we create a show in which people go ‘glamping’ – that’s glamorous camping – in the past to escape from the terrible future and have mildly exciting adventures in which they’re surrounded by inhospitable but only marginally threatening outsiders, while a bunch of guys worry about how hard it is to be dads?"
"Cool. And even though it’s set in the year 2149, do you think we could have minimal changes in technology and social order, while reinforcing every single possible modern-day stereotype imaginable?"
"Sure. Although it’s going to sound a bit like Earth 2, isn’t it?"
"Meh. Who remembers you even did that show, Steven? Falling Skies is the one everyone will be reminded of because it’s on TV right now."
Not a lot of tele at the BFI in November this year, but what there is is top quality: a preview of the first episode of the new series of Sherlock, as well as a Q&A with Sharon Gless and Barney Rosenzweig to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Cagney and Lacey. And on top of that, there’s also a lost ITV play recovered from the Library of Congress and starring Charles Gray and Susannah York.
