Earlier this month,
PaulRom wrote about a
Deadline article where Fox entertainment president Kevin Reilly said good things about
Terra Nova, the prehistoric sci-fi action series that recently ended its first season.
It’s still uncertain if the show will come back, but there’s reason to hope. Reilly said that the show was “the second highest-rated new drama.” “The studio made money on it, and it seems to have resonated with the family audience."
If it’s a decent show with a fan base, it seems like it would be a no-brainer for Fox to bring it back for season two, but that hasn’t happened yet. Cast and crew are probably anxiously awaiting the news so they’ll know if they'll still have jobs or not.
Well, I have a theory on why it may be taking Fox so long to make a decision, and if they have indeed decided to bring the show back, why they’re waiting to say so.
What I take away from Reilly’s quotes, and from other articles about what’s wrong with the show (including one I wrote last week), is that Fox isn’t quite sure what to do with
Terra Nova once it's back on the air. Execs may be thinking, “Sure. We want to bring it back, but if we do, what the hell do we do with it?”
There are at least two directions the show could go in, and both have their risks.
Direction #1 – Keep Things Family-Friendly
If Fox decides to keep the family-friendly tone that’s brought in the parents and kids thus far, that may not be good enough for the future.
Terra Nova’s done decently in the ratings, but it hasn’t been the juggernaut people had hoped, and some have theorized that that’s specifically
because of the family-friendly tone it’s delivered.
A lot of hardcore sci-fi and fantasy fans who tuned in for a show like
Lost or a movie like
Jurassic Park didn’t watch them for that feel-good family quality. It could be the
lack of these kinds of viewers that’s prevented
Terra Nova from being the ratings monster it could have been. (The specific reasons
why these kinds of viewers haven’t been tuning in, though, is another article).
If Fox goes the family route, it risks alienating potential viewers who find that kind of stuff corny. Granted, it will still have those viewers who like it just the way it is, but the current ratings may not be large enough to get the show a third season if they do.
Direction #2 – Ditch the Sappiness and Go for the Jugular
Fox could decide to make
Terra Nova the kind of
Lost-meets-
Jurassic Park show that reels in people who want less schmaltz and more blood, guts, and characters who don’t always get along… the kind of show these viewers may have expected from
Terra Nova to begin with before it first came on.
That would be a way to get this show higher ratings, but it’s risky as well. Just because execs ditch the family-friendly storylines doesn’t mean that other types of viewers will tune in. What happens if execs sacrifice one kind of audience for another kind that still doesn't care? They’d have lost both kinds of viewers and be screwed.
Of course, that’s not to say there isn’t an overlap between viewers who want cute kids
and dinosaurs that are actually allowed to kill humans and be killed by them as well, but Fox has got to decide to create a show that has both, or just one or the other.
Fox's decision on whether to bring the show back is coming any day now, but once we know, it will probably a while longer before we know what kind of show, exactly, we'll be getting when we finally see it again.