Terra Nova – Now you see me Review!

‘Now you see me’ is the tenth episode of Terra Nova and intended to conclude the story arc of Jim and Taylor finding the Sixer spy, alas, the spy is revealed but only to the audience. In the episode preview I suspected this might be a ‘bottle show’ and unfortunately I was right. It’s mostly just fliler material and serves as a bridge to the season finale. In the official release schedule the next episode is scheduled for december the 12th so we will have to give Terra Nova a miss for a week. But first, this weeks episode review!

As for the plot…

While in the jungle, Mira reveals more to Taylor about her plans, and provides him information about Lucas. They must also work together to evade a ferocious predator. Meanwhile, Jim is closer to uncovering the Sixer spy’s identity as the spy frantically attempts to cover her trail. It is revealed early in the episode that Skye is the spy for the Sixers. Jim and Reynolds manage to capture a blood sample from the traitor and bring it to Malcolm to analyze. When Elizabeth is decoding the DNA from the blood sample, Skye sneaks in and destroys it. Her mother is still alive, therefore forcing and pressuring Skye to make some drastic decisions. When Elizabeth and Jim realize what has happened, they create a list of the people with access to the room on that day. The DNA sample managed to reveal that the blood belonged to a female, narrowing their search to 47 suspects. Also, the Ankylosaur hatchling that Zoe has been caring for is rapidly outgrowing Terra Nova, forcing Zoe to face a difficult decision.

Conclusion…

This episode is definitely a mixed bag, it has two story lines interwoven and each comes up short of the mark. Had one failed the other might still have given this episode a chance at greatness. Alas, it was not to be. The story line involving Jim’s efforts capturing the spy is the most interesting but is horribly torpedoed when Skye is revealed to be the spy early on in the episode, after this moment it is merely watching Jim and Malcolm go through the movements. The revelation that Skye’s mother is still alive and living amongst the Sixers doesn’t do much for me as I can’t seem to feel much for the character of Skye, afterall she has only been in a few episodes and mostly playing an obnoxious teen.

Jim’s character does grow to be more important in this episode as he has to run Terra Nova in Taylor’s absence. Lieutenant Washington absence is only referred to and is quite frankly an insult to the viewer, her character can give a good counter balance to Taylor’s character but so far she is just there as a pretty face (as strangely most soldiers in the future are male).

The secondary story line involving Taylor and Mira was weak from the start, Taylor supposedly leaves the safety of the base to go find the rocks that his son Lucas uses to write equations so the portal can go two ways. Why Taylor should do so alone is beyond stupidity in my mind. And gues what, Mira just happends to be doing the same as Taylor. Mira at first captures Taylor but quickly he manages to turn the tables on her. Supposedly they are walking to Mira’s 4×4 but why it’s such a distance is never explained. As they are being followed by two dinosaurs they bond together and as such Mira opens up to reveal her reason for travelling to Terra Nova. It’s for the money so she and her daughter can live in a domed city. She also alludes that the sixers have taken hits from the dino’s ever since they split off. The story line ends with Mira and Taylor holding off the two dino’s that were tracking them. The special effects in these scenes vary from good to very poor and that is strange coming from such an expensive show and gives rise to the suspicion that this was a ‘bottle show’.

Score; 7 / 10.

Viewer rating; 7.19 million. Which is a big increase over last week, despite the episode being reviewed to lower grades. Maybe the studio forgot to advertise the episode properly?