Terra Nova

As a weekly series, the effects need to remain impressive and the writers need to avoid falling into "Lost" and "Walking Dead" band-of-survivors rehash.

Good family fun--providing your family doesn't include little kids who are scared to sleep. Ever.

Terra Nova is another vehicle for a familiar story. It's one we're happy to watch, just maybe not with the fervor FOX is hoping for.

So long as the dinos roam, Terra Nova has a future.

There's a lot of clunky setup, a lot of piece-moving to send the main characters back to Terra Nova, and a lot of explaining of rules once they get there.

Nothing in this pilot is as compelling as the idea for the show, which begs philosophical and ethical questions that Spielberg and company (for now, at least) aren't interested in addressing.

By the end of a couple of episodes, most viewers will be wishing Spielberg and his henchmen had spent more time on scripts and less on special effects, even if it meant splicing old outtakes of Barney and Friends into the action sequences.