Fox cancels 'Terra Nova'

The bubble has finally burst on TV's biggest bubble show: Fox will not renew "Terra Nova," although sister company 20th TV will try to sell it to another network.

The news came down last night, confirmed by the trades, and of course radio silence by Fox. The news is sure to be intensely disappointing to fans, who came to love the quirky show -- for all its quirks. Plus, the freshman season finale set up a reasonably compelling sophomore season in the "Badlands" (even though most major first season storylines were resolved -- just in case).

It's a surprising development, or surprising to me anyway: A couple of months ago, I figured it would definitely get a pickup, and Fox even indicated that the future looked good, although there was an asterisk attached to everyone's optimism: If new shows like "Touch" -- which has yet to launch though it has had a successful tryout  -- or "Alcatraz" got so much as a pulse, then that would have meant trouble for "TN." In fact, they got strong pulses, and happen to be good shows as well, and as the weeks went on, and Fox's reticence to make a final decision continued, worries started to mount among fans, and even stars (there was a report yesterday that Jason O'Mara had asked fans to send plastic dinosaurs to Fox Entertainment chief Kevin Reilly.)

Here's hoping for a new network . . . but TV's most expensive hour drama, in fact believed to be the most expensive in history, may have some hurdles ahead. What's especially disheartening about this premature wrap is that "TN" tried something radically different - an SFX turnaround that took place in a matter of days, as opposed to weeks or months, and an ambitious attempt to cram a sprawling big-screen canvas onto the small screen. Lot of critics complained about the story  but fans didn't seem to mind too much. "TN" was something different, and often different-good... 

Here's another look at the original trailer which promised big things indeed -- very big things, with teeth, and beady eyes.