New Trailers For JJ Abrams Alcatraz & Brannon Braga’s Terra Nova + Fox Announces Schedule

Fox is making Monday into time-travel night for their next season, with two shows produced by Star Trek vets. Today Fox Broadcasting announced their full schedule for the 2011/2012 season along with releasing trailers for their new shows, including JJ Abrams’ Alcatraz and Brannon Braga’s Terra Nova. Watch those and read the new official synopses below.

 

Terra Nova – Coming to FOX on Monday’s this fall at 8:00 PM

Trailer:

Synopsis:

TERRA NOVA
From executive producers Steven Spielberg ("Saving Private Ryan," "Jurassic Park"), Peter Chernin, René Echevarria ("Castle," "The 4400") and Brannon Braga ("24") comes an epic family adventure 85 million years in the making. TERRA NOVA follows an ordinary family on an incredible journey back in time to prehistoric Earth as a small part of a daring experiment to save the human race. In the year 2149, the world is dying. The planet is overdeveloped and overcrowded, with the majority of plant and animal life extinct. The future of mankind is in jeopardy, and its only hope for survival is in the distant past. When scientists at the FERMI Particle Accelerator unexpectedly discovered a fracture in time that made it possible to construct a portal into primeval history, the bold notion was born to resettle humanity in the past – a second chance to rebuild civilization and get it right this time.

The series centers on the Shannon family as they join the Tenth Pilgrimage of settlers to Terra Nova, the first colony established in this beautiful yet foreboding land. JIM SHANNON (Jason O’Mara, "Life on Mars"), a devoted father with a checkered past, guides his family through this new world of limitless beauty, mystery and terror. Jim’s wife, ELISABETH (Shelley Conn, "Mistresses"), is a trauma surgeon and the newest addition to Terra Nova’s medical team. JOSH (Landon Liboiron, "Degrassi: The Next Generation") is their 17-year-old son who is angry to leave life as he knows it behind; upon arriving at the settlement, he finds himself instantly drawn to the beautiful and rule-breaking SKYE (Allison Miller, "Kings"). MADDY (Naomi Scott, "Life Bites"), Josh’s endearingly awkward 15-year-old sister, hopes Terra Nova will give her a chance to reinvent herself. Although Elisabeth’s medical training secured the family a spot on the pilgrimage, a secret involving their five-year-old daughter, ZOE (newcomer Alana Mansour), soon endangers their place in this utopia. Upon the Shannons’ arrival, they are introduced to COMMANDER NATHANIEL TAYLOR (Stephen Lang, "Avatar"), the charismatic and heroic first pioneer and leader of the settlement. Taylor warns the travelers that while Terra Nova is a place of new opportunities and fresh beginnings, all is not as idyllic as it initially appears. Along with blue skies, towering waterfalls and lush vegetation, the surrounding terrain is teeming with danger – and not just of the man-eating dinosaur variety. There is also a splinter colony of renegades led by the battle-hardened MIRA (Christine Adams, "TRON: Legacy"), who is vehemently opposed to Taylor and his leadership. Even more threatening than what lies outside the protective walls of the colony is the chilling possibility that something sinister is happening inside Terra Nova. The Shannons will come to suspect that not everyone on this mission has the same idea of how to best save mankind; in fact, there may be forces intent on destroying this new world before it even begins.

JJ Abrams Alcatraz – Coming to FOX Midseason on Monday’s 9:00 PM

Trailer:

Synopsis:

ALCATRAZ
From executive producer J.J. Abrams (FRINGE, "Lost," "Star Trek" and the upcoming "Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol" and "Super 8") and writer and executive producer Elizabeth Sarnoff ("Lost," "Deadwood") comes ALCATRAZ, the chilling new thriller centered on America’s most infamous prison and one-time home to the nation’s most notorious murderers, rapists, kidnappers, thieves and arsonists. When San Francisco Police Department DET. REBECCA MADSEN (Sarah Jones, "Sons of Anarchy") is assigned to a grisly homicide case, a fingerprint leads her to a shocking suspect: JACK SYLVANE (guest star Jeffrey Pierce, "The Nine"), a former Alcatraz inmate who died decades ago. Given her family history – both her grandfather and surrogate uncle, RAY ARCHER (Robert Forster, "Jackie Brown"), were guards at the prison – Madsen’s interest is immediately piqued, and once the enigmatic, knows-everything-but-tells-nothing government agent EMERSON HAUSER (Sam Neill, "Jurassic Park") tries to impede her investigation, she’s doggedly committed. Madsen turns to Alcatraz expert and comic book enthusiast, DR. DIEGO "DOC" SOTO (Jorge Garcia, "Lost"), to piece together the inexplicable sequence of events. The twosome discovers that Sylvane is not only alive, but he’s loose on the streets of San Francisco, leaving bodies in his wake. And strangely, he hasn’t aged a day since he was in Alcatraz, when the prison was ruled by the iron-fisted WARDEN EDWIN JAMES (Jonny Coyne, "Undercovers") and the merciless ASSOCIATE WARDEN E.B. TILLER (Jason Butler Harner, "The Changeling"). Madsen and Soto reluctantly team with Agent Hauser and his technician, LUCY BANERJEE (Parminder Nagra, "ER"), to stop Sylvane’s vengeful killing spree. 

By delving into Alcatraz history, government cover-ups and Rebecca’s own heritage, the team will ultimately discover that Sylvane is only a small part of a much larger, more sinister present-day threat. For while he may be the first, it quickly becomes clear that Sylvane won’t be the last prisoner to reappear from Alcatraz. Through the course of the investigation, Madsen and Soto will learn that Agent Hauser has known about the prison’s secret history and has been awaiting the prisoners’ return. Soto will witness his life’s work – the history of Alcatraz – come alive. Madsen will be forced to keep her supportive San Francisco cop fiancé, JIMMY DICKENS (Santiago Cabrera, "Heroes"), at arm’s length from the highly classified assignment as she sees everything she thought she knew about her family’s past shattered, all while fighting to keep the country safe from history’s most dangerous criminals.

Fringe stays the same

And if you were wondering, Fox’s other sci-fi show Fringe (from JJ Abrams, Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman) will stick with the Friday 9PM slot and will return in the fall.

Full Fox 2011/12 schedule available at Deadline.

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Personally I am all for scripted TV over reality TV, but I think I’ll pass on this one

“Terra Nova”: Potentially the most expensive “bomb” ever produced!

If the show fails, Brannon Braga’s career will end up extinct just like the dinosaurs featured in his new show!

“Alcatraz”: Not sure about this one. Could go either way. I do like Sam Neill as an actor though. So we’ll have to wait and see.

I’ll watch anything will Sam Neil in it.

And Terra Nova looks cool too.

Ok! … the trailer for “Alcatraz” got me… I ‘m very interested!

Yes, Alcatraz does look interesting. Terra Nova? As much as I enjoy Stephen Lang, i thinking bomb but then again, what do I know………

I have to laugh at the Red Dead Ryan. who joins a growing list of Braga’s demise with each new project he work on.

And yet…

…he’s still working very well in Hollywood.

How does he do it?

Who cares?!! Spend more time on your prospects and future rather the predicting the outcome of others’ lives where you possess little data or knowledge of how that industry operates and functions.

6.

Listen, outside of Star Trek, Brannon Braga couldn’t keep a job. He lasted only a couple of seasons on “24”, his series “Flashforward” got canned after only season, and “Terra Nova” is the most expensive tv pilot/show ever produced! FOX is taking a pretty big gamble on a guy best known for being Jeri Ryan’s ex!

Alcatraz looks like it could work. Terra Nova. I think it will not make it. Very few time travel shows make it. I mean Very few.

Alcatraz looks very polished, all the way around.

I predict it’s the new hit.

Terra Nova…….hmmm……

Looks cool, but they won’t be able to keep up the special effect money. No one ever can. Are we going to put up with the same Dino attack each week? No.

And, a sci-fi family story seems lame to me. Teenage problems in a prehistoric world? Ug. I don’t see any thing like that working.

But I’m older, so maybe not who that show is for.

Wait, isn’t Sam Neill supposed to be with the dinosaurs!?

Kidding aside, I’d like to see Terra Nova succeed – it sure has amazing visuals, but I hope plot and acting wise it is just as good.

Alcatraz will be awesome! Can’t wait!

Alcatrez looks freaking awesome….this looks to end my low-grade TV depression I’ve had since Lost ended. :-)

@10 “Wait, isn’t Sam Neill supposed to be with the dinosaurs!?”

Hilarious!

@7. Don’t like Braga either, but in fairness to him, 24 ended because the producers, the network and Keifer decided it was time to end — i.e., Braga was not fired after season 8. In fact, Season 8 was the best 24 season in several years.

Wow- Braga is the biggest hack in the universe. Is James Cameron suing over this series? I mean wow they even got the same actor from Avatar…

i already hate it the trailer looks bad. and the plot of it looks retarded.

“Terra Nova” looks like a rip-off of “Jurassic Park”. Maybe Spielberg wanted to do a “JP” series but was too cheap to pay royalties to Michael Chrichton’s estate and so he went with “Terra Nova” as the title instead?

I’d much rather see dinosaurs on the big screen. They work best on a huge screen, with a hundred or so people in their seats trembling in fear…..

15.
….

Which one? :-)

Commodore, what do you mean time travel shows don’t work?

I’ve been watching “Time Tunnel” for more than 40 years.

(grin)

Alcatraz- interesting

I dunno, if Terra Nova is just about teenagers running from dinosaurs, it’s going to bomb. If, though, there’s some kind of mystery or twist, it might have potential.

It was the same way with LOST. If LOST had simply been about some people who crashed on an island, it would have bombed, but it didn’t because there was more to it than that.

But considering who’s running the show, my guess is that there isn’t more to Terra Nova than teenagers and dinosaurs, or, if there is, that it isn’t very good.

I know the real reason for the setting is so it can be a dinosaur show, but….

traveling back as far as they did would be extremely dangerous.

Let’s assume that traveling into the past won’t affect “our” future – a show should establish this from the start and not deviate when the plot suits them (Star Trek). So this is a “different” Earth.

Whatever they do won’t affect the future where they came from.

Alright, so why go that far back? I know the reason is “dinosaurs!” but for all practical reasons, a few million years would suffice. Let’s say 5-20 million years (Neogene). By only going that far back, mammals and birds dominate the planet. Flora and fauna will be much more similar and likely more comparable to today’s plants and animals. And the animals that do exist will have less of a likelihood that they’ll kill you on the spot. Land masses would be largely similar, and so and and so forth.

I’ll probably give the show a chance, but I’m remaining really skeptical.

Will there be a spinosaurus on “Terra Nova”?

Way strong cues from Avatar in Terra Nova. Alcatraz? Meh.

Yeah, Terra Nova seems to be ripping off Avatar. Good thing James Cameron didn’t rip off anything to make his movie, because he’s got artistic integrity. No copying for Mr. Cameron. Noooo sir. He’s the real deal. Completely original.

Terra Nova looks cool, but I hate the premise, going back in time, settling humans from the future to what looks like the Jurassic Period when there were not even primitive humans yet. Yea like that wouldn’t mess with peoples futures and for that reason alone I probably wont watch it, that just really bothers me lol. I don’t like anything that f8cks with the past….unless Daniels goes back to correct it.

The poster for Alcatraz is too reminiscent of Shutter Island. Given that the latter was such a dog of a film it would be better to find some way of creating an image that was not associated with such recent negative emotions.

I’m sure that good films have not done so well because the public associate them with a lesser film that had similar looking promotion.

Still hold a bit of a Grudge toward Brannon Braga because when he Abandon Enterprise for other Projects it ended Enterprise when it was getting good, but hey I give his new show a chance.
\

@26. Not applicable, as Alcatrez is a TV series and nobody pays attention to TV series posters.

@21: From the given synopsis, it sounds like they may well not have been able to choose when their portal led, but I guess we’ll see.

Can’t help thinking Alcatraz reminds me a lot of 4400 which was one of the best not sure if this will be as good.

Terra Nova looks interesting but also reminds me of the BBC show Outcasts which I enjoyed but bombed over here (UK) which is a shame. Big Hollywood budget will always help though :)

Just wondering if there are any fresh ideas out there you just have to look at the new movie line up to see most of the releases are all sequels.

Alcatraz looks great. And I’ll certainly give Terra Nova a shot.

Terra Nova’s key will be to make the audience care about the family. Sure people will tune in for the first episode to see the eye candy Avatar special effects, but to make people keep tuning in week after week will require us to care about what happens to this family. Hopefully they can pull it off because personally, I haven’t minded Brannon Bragas’ shows like Flash Forward and Threshold and it would be good for one of them to last.

Alcatraz I also can’t wait to see because I’ve been in a Lost withdrawal and I never really got into Fringe so I’ve been dying for a JJ Abrams mystery/thriller series. Plus I’ll watch almost anything set in San Francisco cause I live in the Bay Area and it is also the future home of Starfleet.

Both shows sound interesting.

Hoping Terra Nova will work out better than FlashForward. Be great for Brannon Braga to have a successful show again.

Alcatraz could be interesting as well.

@18 Yeah, but “Time Tunnel” time travelled to different historical locales each week (with Vic Fontaine!) so I share the doubts of others about a Jurassic Park/Survivor show where the trailer seems to highlight the teen angst angle.

But, then again, I am no longer a teenager (unless you talk with my wife). :-)

RE: Terra Nova – If they can pull this off it will be totally awesome! So many classic Sci-fi ideas in the mix. I think Spielberg and the others know what they are doing. I just hope Fox doesn’t mess with it. I don’t know why they’re not scheduling it on Fridays with Fringe. The SyFy channel’s Friday schedule is dead so there’s no competition.

Terra Nova=Earth 2-(Jurassic Park/Avatar), Alcatraz=4400-(Lost*Fringe)

Considering its Fox, if these shows are any good, they’ll be cancelled in 2 months

Both seem pretty cool, will give both a go :-)

….Land Of The Lost, anyone?

If it wasn’t for Fringe, I’d never turn to network TV for anything. Honestly.

Every time I hear about Terra Nova, I reflect back on something Bob Orci touched on from an earlier thread. What about the meteor or asteroid that is believed to have brought about the extinction of the dinosaurs? Could be bad timing for the Terra Novans but I suspect we’ll never find out.

I am more intrigued by Alcatraz.

Seeing as how they land about 20 million years before the asteroid strikes, I think the Terra Novans may have bigger worries—such as the big meat-eating dinosaurs!

I’m a little skeptical as well of Terra Nova because what changes at that time era could be made to better the future of mankind? They will bring back specimens of plants and animals, but If I were going back in time I would maybe go back to Tesla’s time.

That era in the 1800’s would cover electricity and the time frame including the discovery of atomic energy via the many different scientists working with atomic/nuclear processes. Of course the family wouldn’t be able to stay there the entire century but pop in and out long enough to institute positive change.

Also in that time frame of the 1800’s, though dinosaurs and pre-historic plants have become extinct by then, there would still be plenty of plants and animals at that time to bring forward to re-establish the balance of man vs nature.

This show may be interesting if it shows the necessary evils of having advanced technology -vs- choosing to ignore the technology to ultimately protect our eco-system and how those choices would have impacted our society, and the earth. (i.e. purposeful atomic destruction vs the benefits of radiation in medicine, etc.) I like how they are including a partical collider I’m assuming like the CERN LHC as well.

Looking forward to watch both of the shows- but for longevity, I am guessing Alcatraz may last the longest from first impressions.

I predict that neither show will see a 2nd season.

Has anyone considered that Terra Nova could take place in a parallel universe, bypassing the so-called “butterfly effect”? That way, they could mess with another Earth’s past and not their own.

Simple enough, eh?

Bring back Flash Forward i say. I know many that loved it. ABC was only too quick to shut it down. If Star Trek – The Next Generation was released now in Season 1 that would not have become the fantastic series it was. Give new Series a chance, 3 years at least!
And while were on the subject Bring back Terminator – The Sarah Chronicles!

Alcatraz looks fantastic! Easily the most-anticipated show of the fall for me.

Terra Nova reminds me of another failed Speilberg series: Earth 2. I think Terra Nova will suffer the same fate as that show.

@12

You wouldn’t be depressed if you watched AMC’s shows.

Alcatraz does look intriguing.

I just hope they don’t pull a Fast Forward and either focus on the least interesting people in the series or not properly balance the solving of parts of the mystery with adding more frustrating layers to it.

Hmmmm – what is it with JJ Abrams and folks disappearing from strange islands? Too many Gary Merrill movies as a kid?
[grin]

HURRRRLLYY!!!!!

Terra Nova just looks so unrealistic to be watchable and not cringeworthy at the same time. For a start, the climate was different to what it is now back in the time of the dinosaurs. I believe the ratio of carbon dioxide to oxygen were slightly different to what they are today and was mostly tropical and possibly even warmer/hotter and more humid than tropical climates today.

I know many people live in tropical climates today, however it is not an easy climate to survive in, which is why the bulk of humanity live(d) in the cooler places. These cooler areas are also the places where most advances have taken place – arts, sciences, philosophies including the world’s main religions (not so sure about all the religions though) and various technologies. One can generally think more clearly in a cooler climate.

Terra Nova is certainly about sending people backwards in time, in more than one sense of the word.