Terra Nova and an Italian Gem

The Terra Nova cast prepare to meet Glee at Nationals

 I've watched two shows this week that for very different reasons caught my attention. You'd have have to have been living up a Bongo tree on the Isle of Wagawong to have missed the trailers for Terra Nova.    "Speilberg, most expensive show ever made, time travel, dinosaurs!!!!!"

They didn't trail the cliches or the 21st century teenage American attitude that is transplanted on both the future - and via the time portal - the past.

Terra Nova begins with a rip off of Blade Runner in Chicago 2149, it then rips off or 'borrows' ideas from six other series/films. The world is overpopulated, Earth an ecological disaster area and the air barely fit to breathe. The set up and execution bears a horrible resemblance to the BBC's "Outcasts". And we know what happened to that.

In the world of the future there are laws limiting family size but the Shannon family have one more child than they should. Up until the opening sequence they've successfully hidden her in the air conditioning duct any time a Childcatcher cop comes to call. But this being genre sci-fi all that is about to change. Nasty Nazi-style cops are at the door and this time the little babe blurts out a cry whilst the Childcatchers are trashing the room.

Dad, Jim, a square jaw and an unprepossessing presence, gets banged up. His wife, Elizabeth,  struggles on for two years before she at last gets a chance to see him in jail and when she gets there she discovers he's developed a slight cough and redness around the eyes - being a Doctor she can instantly diagnoses such things. She leaves him her breathing mask which is the 22nd century version of a cake with a file in it.

With one bound he's free and joining the rest of the family as they head for the portal to the past, the Stargate to Terra Nova.

Here they encounter what looks like Centre Parcs in a jungle clearing. All gravel drives, flower and fruit markets, nicely scrubbed children and the odd pterodactyl swooping down gull-like to nick the kids chips.

Head of the colony is Commander Nathaniel Taylor (Stephen Lang, the white bearded guy from Avatar here sporting a black and white striped beard). We're not too sure if he's a good guy or a bad guy but he does have more presence than everyone else put together. Not that his lines are any better.

We may be 85 million years in the past but Teen American Mall Attitude is still on display and one of the Shannon kids soon joins some other kids as they go OTG - that's outside the gate. And what have they hidden out there? Why it's a Still, the kids are making moonshine.

A massive budget, CGI dinosaurs, fantastic scope for all kinds of stories and what have they come up with - kids bunking off to make moonshine. Duh. The cliches abound like the pterosaurs - 
which here looked the most CGI of all the dinos on display.

The wonder of seeing a giant dinosaur come to life in Jurassic Park is still something I can feel deep inside. But that was a long, long, time ago and we've seen so many CGI beasts since then it's hard to get excited about them in the same way, so this series has to do something else. Like 'Lost' it has its mysteries, strange markings on rocks, and it's own set of OTHERS, here they're called SIXERS and I'm guessing that Commander Taylor's missing son is amongst them - if not leading them.

But we've seen it all before.

Really. Ten, count them, ten Executive Producers and THIS is what they have collectively concocted? The story is rice paper thin and falls apart just as easily. I sat and watched the opening and second episode and by the end I couldn't care less whether I see any more of this tosh. Which is a shame, as going in to any new series always I really want to love it.

Everyone is so po-faced here, no humour, terrible background music, false jeopardy, contemporary attitudes, stupid conflict, two dimensional characters. The only time the dinos looked remotely scary was at night, when it was raining. Now where have I see that before? Otherwise they bore a strange resemblance to chickens - and before anyone says, yes but birds are related to dinosaurs these beasts are supposed to be terrifying and I ain't never been terrified of a chicken!

My biggest gripe with this kind of stuff is the lack of real emotion on display. Everyone reacts as though travelling back 85 million years in time is completely normal. There's lots of forced false emotions going on. People don't act that way.

I read this from a critic: "Go in without high expectations and there is some fun to be had".

No.

This is Speilberg, a man whose name has been connected to some of the most absorbing films of the past thirty years.I expect to be entertained and enthralled and surprised and wowed.

This is the most expensive tv series ever made. Why would I go in without high expectation.

This kind of criticism is unforgiveable. It's a cop out for every crap show that makes it onto the air. There's no place for comments like that here.

Whether we see any more of the dystopian 22nd century society I don't know - can they go back through the time portal or is it a one way street? I hope they do go back and all get wiped out by the bad air.


Speilberg should be more choosey about what he puts his name to. And we won't even mention Falling Skies.

Contrast this tosh with Romanzo Criminale which began this week on Sky Arts. 



I wouldn't be surprised if this show's entire budget didn't match that spent on one episode of Terra Nova.

This seires does a different kind of time-travel. It takes us back to Rome during the 1970's and tells the true story of the Banda della Magia, the prolific and bloodthirsty crime family in Italy who were responsible for some of the most violent crimes the country had ever seen.

Real emotions, terrific acting and writing, violent, funny and beautifully shot.  Absolutely brilliant. I know what I'll be watching Mr S.

Galton and Simpson

I knew there was a reason why a few months back I stuck my toe once more into the sometimes warm, sometimes icy waters of radio broadcasting. I've been hosting a Sunday mid-morning show at BBC Radio Bristol for the past couple of months and have got to talk to some interesting folk. Today I got to talk to two of my writing heroes: Galton and Simpson. A rare and wonderful treat. We chatted for forty five minutes and when I  had to bring our chat to a halt Ray said, "Is that it, we were just getting warmed up".
I could have spent the rest of the day talking Hancock and Steptoe and Frankie Howerd and Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes, Les Dawson and so many others. Towering figures in British comedy, all of whom spoke the words of the great men or worked alongside them.

Galton and Simpson cut their teeth or radio variety shows before hitching up with Tony Hancock to produce the greatest comedy of the age, first on radio and then television. Though Hancock eventually discarded them - the worst move not just of his career but of his life - it was Galton and Simpson who flourished.

'The Boys', as they were called, had a profound affect on me. For a start they helped shape what I write and the way I write but they also got me sent out of class for being cheeky to my student teacher.

The eviction from the classroom was at junior school. We had a prim and proper student teacher attached to the class and one day I came in reciting lines from the previous evening's Steptoe and Son - Galton and Simpson's great creation.

"You smells worse than a pair of zoo keepers boots" I offered in my best Harold Steptoe voice. It wasn't directed at her but nonetheless I ended up outside the door. She didn't appreciate Steptoe one bit. She told me the old man was disgusting,  I told her it was funny, she told me it was vulgar and a boy my age shouldn't be watching such things. We argued, I stood my ground - even at 11 I wasn't going to be told what was and wasn't funny by a middle-aged woman who probably had a secret stash of Flanders and Swan records under a bed that never squeaked. Harsh.

Steptoe was funny.  Even as I kid I knew that. But it was so much more. Galton and Simpson got so much depth into what was basically two men in a room, it was extraordinary.

When I came to write Plaza Patrol, a sitcom for comedians Cannon and Ball, I didn't have to look far for inspiration. My characters were two night security officers, they were work mates not father and son - but to me they were two men in a room. I couldn't wait to explore the possibilities that long stretches of doing nothing posed.

I wrote this scene even before I had a story - something you should never do - but the situation allowed it. I could craft moments like this because in the darkest hours men on night shifts get bored and sooner or later someone does something to irritate his mates.

Plaza Patrol wasn't picked up for a second season but it never got figures of less than 7 million. A comedy would die for those figures today.

It was a great pleasure to spend time with The Boys. Though they are now in their eighties the sparkle is still there in their eyes, and a line not from from their lips.