More on the Fall Season: Person of Interest and Terra Nova

I am trying to catch up on my favorite shows as well as the new season these days.  It is not easy with a slew of new programs coming out in September and many more to follow in October and even November.  Of the new shows so far I found one I like and one I will not watch again.

-- Person of Interest:  This CBS series starts off with an interesting premise - two leftovers from the government's war on terror find each other and team up to fight ordinary crime.  We have seen plenty of shows (and even movies) where the stars try to alter the future with their limited knowledge of things to come.  For instance, think of ABC's show Lost.  Speaking of Lost, it is nice to see the calm present of Michael Emerson again, even though I believe his role on this show will be a bit more benevolent than Ben Linus. The energy of the pilot is promising, yet I can see this slipping back into a simply cop/national security chase each week.  I mean, how much can you do with a single Social Security number?  I guess that will be the question each week.  I may put this show on the back burner while I try other pilots, but overall I enjoyed the first episode.

-- Terra Nova:  "Terrible No No" is what comes to mind.  There has been an enormous amount of press about this Steven Spielberg-guided project concerning future Chicagoans who return to the dinosaur past in order to restart civilization.  An interesting idea where Jurassic Park meets Land of the Lost meets Blade Runner meets Lost in Space.  However, what we really have here is "Lost Without a Script."  The central family returning to the past is an odd pairing of personalities which never convinced me they cared about one another.  And the dinosaur battles seemed to be the only passion on the screen, with everyone else mumbling predictable lines as they walked around their Gilligan huts filled with Apple-like machines.  The show takes me back to Episode One of the Star Wars movies where George Lucas still had his machines but he had lost all interest in writing a script with convincing dialog.  I did not expect the same from Spielberg, but that is what I see here.  I guess I now have more time to catch up with other shows.