Again, if you’re new to Terra Nova or just new to the concept of playing along with it, please play with us. The more the merrier. Get in on the game by making a character and emailing me the character sheet. It is in that spirit that I have an announcement:
A little bit more housekeeping before we launch into the results from What Remains. One of our players asked to see who everyone is playing as what skills everyone has. All of that information can be found here. I might just print that up, it looks so nice. Really, 90% of the fun for me is in the picture selection. So thank you all for coming to my blog and entertaining me.
Okay, again, kind of a light episode as far as action is concerned. Mostly, our guys just sat around re-explaining what happens when someone loses their memory and complaining about those damn mynocks – I mean, ovasaurs. Here’s my breakdown:
| ovasaurs… chewing on the power cables | dino id | 1 |
| are you with the red cross? | first aid | 1 |
| running blood samples now… | adv. Med skills | 1 |
| chew it; you’ll be good for 12 hours | first aid | 1 |
| ALWAYS CHEWING ON THOSE DAMN CABLES! | dino id | 1 |
| beating up mr. shannon | unarmed combat | 2 |
| that’s my wife, so keep your hands to yourself | intimidation | 1 |
| the nickel in the cable! | elec. Improv | 1 |
| sedating malcom | unarmed combat | 1 |
| how are you at computer hacking? | computer hacking | 2 |
| Taylor sneaking in to Terra Nova | unarmed combat | 1 |
| diagnosing the problem | adv. Med skills | 3 |
| fixing the problem OFF SCREEN AGAIN | doctors | 3 |
I thought about awarding Hunting points for Taylor getting in to Terra Nova and sneaking around all Solid Snake style. You know, the most dangerous game, etc. Although, is man still the most dangerous game when dinosaurs are involved? I’m pretty sure the Predator would have more fun wrestling a Tyrannosaurus Rex than taking on Danny Glover in an alien-boomerang fencing match. Or an all-Predator dance off:
Sorry, what were we doing?
Current standings:
| Total | Character name |
| 37 | Doctor Doctor |
| 36 | C.S. Lewis |
| 30 | Porkins |
| 29 | Catherine |
| 23 | Turdball McStupid |
| 23 | Balrog |
| 21 | Lady GaGa |
| 20 | Shortround |
| 14 | Jeff |
| 10 | Muldoon |
That’s all for this week. If you’re catching up on-line, how’d you like that horny-birds episode?
Al wanted to see a break-down showing points awarded for individual episodes, so here it is:
| Total | Character name | Genesis | Instinct | What Remains |
| 37 | Doctor Doctor | 19 | 4 | 14 |
| 36 | C.S. Lewis | 20 | 9 | 7 |
| 30 | Porkins | 20 | 6 | 4 |
| 29 | Catherine | 13 | 11 | 5 |
| 23 | Turdball McStupid | 11 | 6 | 6 |
| 23 | Balrog | 12 | 4 | 7 |
| 21 | Lady GaGa | 12 | 6 | 3 |
| 20 | Shortround | 12 | 4 | 4 |
| 14 | Jeff | 9 | 2 | 3 |
| 10 | Muldoon | 5 | 4 | 1 |
In the future, I think I’ll show the total prior to the new episode, the total gained in the episode and the new grand total – sound good?
Will she prove the old axiom today?
The weak lose and the strong win!
“Although, is man still the most dangerous game when dinosaurs are involved?”
That, sir, is undoubtedly one of the great questions of our time.
Or of 2148 or of 85 million years in the past. Terra Nova would have me believe that the most threatening things during this time are those most inexpensively rendered on film.
That’s a striking point spread, but I think it’s still anyone’s game. This show has revealed itself to be wildly inconsistent and pretty damn episodic, which I think any trends we’ve seen can be pretty quickly reversed. That said, the show’s exposition problems mean that someone will always be identifying a dinosaur pretty much any time one comes up. I also kind of wish I knew going in that one of the main characters was a doctor, since the show can’t seem to resist showing us boring fictional medical techniques when THERE ARE DINOSAURS RUNNING AROUND OUTSIDE.
Also, how much did that bird episode suck? Three soldiers get their eyes gouged out, while a bunch of kids manage to curl up and avoid all but a few scratches. Also, why are the soldiers driving around in a doorless jeep? Do they know there are dinosaurs? Did they just figure they’re more likely to run into predictable story lines than an expensive to animate dinosaur? Bet they didn’t count on a lame-ass opening where they just don’t show what was attacking them.
Why is “rapidly synthesizing a chemical” a solution that so many sci-fi stories rely on? There is nothing interesting in the concept itself, and watching people tap away at a keyboard (or in this case, waggle their fingers in their 3D iPad) is exactly as boring as it sounds. Bringing in two dudes in armor to impatiently yell at them to hurry up doesn’t up the tension, it just makes those dudes look like dicks–seriously, they’re going as fast as they can, geez. I also don’t understand the technology we’ve developed so we can monitor a chemical process by the gallons by manipulating a single model of a molecule, but can’t just automate that interface portion? Learn some fucking macros, Terra Nova.
They didn’t do themselves any favors in the effects department by choosing flying dinos this week, either. Any time the camera moved, everyone conveniently flew in that direction suddenly. I think flying things are way harder for the actors to pretend to interact with, too. All this technology, and we’re still just waving our arms like Tippi Hedren.
Point is, this show is way worse than any show with dinosaurs has any right to be.
One of the things that really bothered me about Horny Birds was that anything that could have been interesting was done off screen. Shannon and Taylor have to capture 2 dino-birds so they can fuck with their pheromones, but all of that happens during a commercial break. Doesn’t it seem like there could be some cool stalking-through-the-jungle action in that little fetch-quest? And again at the end, Taylor and Shannon have some epic adventure – wherein they are both heavily wounded from dino-bird bites – and all we get on screen is their safe return home. Incredibly lame. Especially so if you’re a fun dinosaur science fiction tv show.
Drew, I’m eager to hear your take on this new one. It is easily the worst so far and hinges around a memory-loss virus that was created by one of the scientists for non-dinosaur reasons. Boring reasons at that. As above, it includes the line “How are you at computer hacking?” Oh and then the resolution doesn’t make any sense and happens off screen. And there’s more technology that doesn’t make sense (you’re in the future Terra Nova, why is that iPad so fucking bulky) and some crazy bullshit about dinosaurs loving the nickel in the power cables… I just…
I kind of liked that the dinosaurs were nickle crazy. I think that quirk actually made the dinosaurs as three dimensional as any of the human characters they’ve introduced.
You think we’ll get some in depth exploration of the dinosaur’s nickle addiction?
When you do the episode write ups, can you give us both the overall points and the points earned that week? You’d be saving me some math. Plus I’m sure excel can whip that out in a few seconds.
-Al
Excel pretty much whips things up instantaneously. I made an addition to the post above.
I appreciate your speed in this matter.
-Al
I know you take games seriously. That’s the thing I like second-best about you.
Is glorious beard #1?
I told Sarah earlier this evening that it starts with B and rhymes with Rattletoads.
I bought a nintendo a few years back just to play battletoads again. It turns out that when you can’t dedicate several hours a day to that game, you might as well not even play it. I got my rhythm back a little, but I couldn’t get past the elevator shaft.
Man, our Battletoads efforts would actually make for a pretty hilarious blog post. Would you mind if I relayed that story in this space? Probably not for a while, but it’s always good to have material in the wings.