Terra Nova-Bylaw Review

Shocky Here-And time for another Terra Nova Review

     Ah, Terra Nova. You just keep failing. But you are so fun to mock.
So, I seem to have phased myself away from Star Trek again, and I am now watching Doctor Who(as in the New). I love this show, I must admit, it is a ton of fun, and has some really good stuff so far, although I'm barely halfway through the first season. What I learnt from Doctor Who:
Bananas are a good source of potassium.
Sonic Screwdrivers fix everything.
Why creatures resembling metal garbage cans make good villains
and whole lots of other things.
      Terra Nova on the other hand is AMAZING.
That is, amazing at highlighting why other shows work.
Now I can't compare it to all other shows, but based on what it aims, I can safely say it can be compared to BSG. I have read material that has pointed out the shows aims are to be more than "just sci-fi"
and accomplish actual drama and have good characters and be fairly family friendly.
Of course BSG wasn't family friendly...but otherwise, I think they have similarish goals and could have similar problems.
        Bylaw isn't bad like the few soapy early episodes. it's bad because if completely fails to do anything or be anything. We have the situation of a murder on the settlement, something that has never happened before, and they're questioning what to do. Some dude comes out and confesses, thus, The Commander decides punishment is banishment, without question, but Protagonist dude decides to investigate further because of s something his wife says. Then there some plot about gambling and debts and the like.
         Anyhow, the problem here is it appears to have a situation looking at the moral implications. Should this guy Have a trial?Is banishment a good punishment? The problem is, IT DOESN'T. It goes off on its own way, totally destroying any opportunity for drama or anything actually interesting. I don't know what I'd put there, BUT I WOULDN'T DO THAT.
     When a fifteen year old knows you've done wrong, you fail.

       The second problem besides that they fail at what they're trying to accomplish, is a major flaw in the Taylor character. Here we come round to BSG. See Taylor fails at what a commander person should be. Its not that he makes horrid decisions. And his character doesn't change episode to episode like Janeway. Its flat, sure, because he gets no developments. The major problem is that no one questions him.
At the end of the episode, he mentions that he'll lose no sleep over the decision he made.
That's arrogant.
  The show expects us to immediately trust his decision just because he is a commander, but ti doesn't work that way. It takes More than that for us to have faith. Yeah, we trust Captain Kirk on Star Trek, but that's after we know who he is. We do see him toil over his decisions. Taylor appears to put no thought into it.
We don't trusts him.
And at the same time, we see no one question him. Yes, at one point ti is brought up, then forgotten again.
Frak this show.
One of the great things about BSG was that it didn't takes side. You had the two opposing forces of the military against the civilians. Both sides were treated with respect. The military's decision was always questioned. It also helps that the Admiral was a developed character who DID care about doing  what is right, all while dealing with all the crap and conflicts int he show.

My heart longs for you, good writing.