question of the day: What vibe do you get off Steven Spielberg’s ‘Terra Nova’?

Somehow I missed the news last spring that Steven Spielberg and some creative folks from Star Trek and 24 were launching one of the most expensive science fiction TV series ever. But now Terra Nova is on the Fox broadcasting schedule -- a two-hour preview will air on May 23 and May 24 before the show returns for 13 episodes in the fall of 2011 -- and the anticipation (or the dread) is building. The official synopsis:

The series centers on the Shannon family as they join the tenth pilgrimage of settlers to TERRA NOVA, the first colony of humans in this second chance for civilization. JIM SHANNON, a devoted father with a checkered past, guides his family – wife ELISABETH and children JOSH and MADDY – through this new land of limitless beauty, mystery and terror. In addition to blue skies, rolling rivers and lush vegetation, TERRA NOVA offers new opportunities and fresh beginnings to its recent arrivals, but the Shannons have brought with them a famial secret that may threaten their citizenship in this utopia. These adventurers soon discover that this healthy, vibrant world is not as idyllic as it initially appears. The areas surrounding TERRA NOVA are filled with dangerous dinosaurs and other prehistoric threats, as well as external forces that may be intent on destroying this new world before it begins.

And a few pix: