Why Terra Nova Was Cancelled By Fox
Television history is filled with “what-ifs” and “what could have beens” when it comes to series that seemed to get cut a little (or way) too short. Terra Nova was, for sure, one of those casualties back in 2011 when Fox cut the show short. It lasted just one season, 13 episodes all told.
With its cancellation, it joined the ranks of cut-short series. A list that already included (and still includes) shows like Firefly, Terminator: The Sarah Chronicles, Tru Calling, and Dollhouse. All of these were also done away with by Fox despite having cultivated meaningful and engaged fanbases in their respective short runs.
Were these ratings bonanzas? No, of course not. But they had stories fans latched on to. It’s almost like Fox liked the idea of sci-fi series more than actually doing them—a real shame.
From a ratings perspective, Terra Nova actually performed better than those aforementioned series, in that they were simply mediocre rather than being downright terrible. The season (and ultimately series) finale drew in more than 10 million viewers when it aired on December 19, 2011.
The main issue with Terra Nova, and really why it was canceled, had less to do with the viewership, which was probably fine enough, but rather the exorbitant cost of actually putting the show together. It’s been speculated that the series cost about $4 million dollars per episode to make.
At the time, and really even now, this is an enormous sum of money, one that meant the show had to pull in massive numbers to justify a longer commitment. And because of the sci-fi and time-traveling nature of the plot, it was going to be hard to skimp on a budget here. Making it cheaper would have surely deluded the product to a laughable degree.
Big-time sets, CGI, and the works had to go into Terra Nova in order to create the feel of 85 million years in the past. That’s going to come with some massive receipts.
And it didn’t appear the network was all that in love with the story and final product either, a more bitter pill to swallow when it came time to pay the bills. At the time, Fox Entertainment president Kevin Reilly said, “Creatively, the show was hunting (for its identity).”
Terra Nova followed the Shannon family, a group of futuristic “explorers” who travel back in time to escape a ravaged Earth. They landed millions of years in the past and had to deal with dinosaurs and other threats aplenty.
The show starred Jason O’Mara (Man in the High Castle), Shelley Conn, Landon Liboiron, Naomi Scott, and Alana Mansour as the Shannon Family. Avatar’s Stephen Lang was also along for the prehistoric ride.
At the time of its cancellation, Terra Nova was shopped to other networks, and even Netflix got in on the talks in the early days of the streamer. But ultimately, it couldn’t find a landing spot and was canceled. Another gone-too-soon sci-fi series to add to the television history books.
