I watched Terra Nova last night, and I noticed plenty of similarities with the BBC show Outcasts that was on earlier this year:

It is the distant future, and Earth has become inhospitable, forcing humanity to send a small number of humans to a distant world/our distant past in a last-ditch attempt to preserve our species.

Jim/Cass is a man with a complicated past who wasn’t even supposed to be a part of the colony, but he earns the trust of the stern and experienced base commander and is given a position of responsibility as a part of the security team.

He quickly learns that although this world is beautiful, it is also deadly and holds many secrets. Some of the colonists have already split from the main group and formed a dangerous faction with an unknown agenda.

There are more similarities and differences between Outcasts and Terra Nova, but I doubt either show was influenced by the other directly, instead drawing their inspiration from the same old tropes. Both shows have an angsty teenage character who feels abandoned by their parent, for example. The Terra Nova producers don’t seem to have any shame either, hiring the canonical Colonel Badass.

Terra Nova isn’t exactly terrible, just it’s a very expensive re-tread of the usual.