There are a lot of good shows set to premiere this fall, but the most expensive one by far is the Steven Spielberg produced Terra Nova. While the two hour series premiere (airing tonight) has been critiqued for it's choice in actors, the acting itself and the premise of the show, one aspect that has been raved about is the dinosaurs. The future is in environmental dismay and their only hope of restoring society is to take select individuals back 85 million years to live in colonies. Terra Nova expands on the realistic dinosaur effects Spielberg pioneered in Jurassic Park. He is breaking boundaries on what the audience expects from a network show, with a budget of almost $20 million for the pilot alone (the rest of the 13 episodes range around $4 million each). Each episode racks up about six to eight weeks of extra production time for the advance CGI needed to create the realistic dinosaurs that become the main focus of the show.
I think that even if the plot and writing is excellent, bad special effects can really take away from a good show. Primeval is a show that started airing in 2007 on ITV, it is about a magnetic anomaly that opens up and allows dinosaurs to freely roam between their home in prehistoric times and present day Britain. I love the show but some of the times I find myself distracted by how ridiculous some of the dinosaurs end up looking (mainly the larger ones).
