Steven Spielberg Returned to Dinosaurs 15 Years Ago With a Cult Sci-Fi Show That Was Cancelled on a Cliffhanger

Steven Spielberg got his start working in television on the Universal lot. The director came up on TV shows like Night Gallery, Marcus Welby, M.D., and Columbo. He eventually garnered enough attention to jump to features with his television movie Duel. The filmmaker never quite left television completely, producing multiple landmark series while delivering some of Hollywood’s biggest hits. Spielberg returned to television in the mid-’80s with the anthology Amazing Stories, his Americana-infused riff on The Twilight Zone. He kept one foot in television throughout the ’90s with shows like SeaQuest DSV and animation projects like Tiny Toons and Animaniacs at Warner Bros.

In the 2000s, Spielberg would pursue a variety of shows that let him explore his fascinations in a longer form. His lifelong obsession with alien abduction stories continued with the miniseries Taken. A World War II obsession he shares with Tom Hanks delivered two incredible HBO miniseries, Band of Brothers and The Pacific. Fifteen years ago, the mogul would release two shows in the same year, each focusing on a different aspect of his sci-fi loves. The first was the alien invasion resistance show Falling Skies on TNT. The other let him play with his favorite toys again: dinosaurs.

A Pillar of Spielberg’s Personality

On September 26th, 2011, Terra Nova premiered on Fox. In an overpopulated future, a group of refugees is sent back in time to establish a colony in the past, the Late Cretaceous period, to be exact. Regular Batman voice actor Jason O’Mara, Shelley Conn, and future Aladdin and Power Rangers star Naomi Scott form the Shannon family, viewers’ access point into this world. Their military counterpart, Commander Taylor, is played by Stephen Lang, just two years after the first Avatar. Perhaps the biggest stars on the show, though, were the CG dinosaurs.

Steven Spielberg has not been shy about his love of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs and toy trains lined his toy shelves as a child. He would eventually play with dinosaurs on a much bigger scale. He first introduced a generation to the thunder lizards with George Lucas and Don Bluth on The Land Before Time. In 1993, though, Spielberg would revolutionize cinema with ILM’s computer-generated dinosaurs and Stan Winston’s animatronics in Jurassic Park. That same year, he also released the animated kids’ book adaptation We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story, with Spielberg making one dinosaur movie for the kids and one for the adults. He’d return to the world of Jurassic Park as a director on The Lost World and executive producer on Jurassic Park III. A full decade would pass before a Steven Spielberg dinosaur project would hit screens again.

Lost in Space With Dinosaurs

Fox had been pursuing big genre TV since their long-time hit The X-Files became a ratings winner in the ’90s. But for every Fringe, there was also a short-lived but beloved show like Alien Nation, Firefly, or Space: Above and Beyond. Terra Nova qualifies as one of the latter. The series had its roots in the past, and not just in the show. The basis for the series is a modern take on the Swiss Family Robinson/Lost in Space family adventures of the 1960s. The era Spielberg grew up in. Trading the space adventures for a time rupture, the Shannons would get caught between dinosaurs and human drama instead of aliens and cheesy costumes.

The series has three factions maneuvering for control of Terra Nova. Taylor and the refugees who think the past is a second chance to start over. They want to rebuild and try to thrive alongside long-ago extinct creatures. The Sixers are a group that came through on an earlier pilgrimage, but broke away to fulfill their own agenda. At first they look like rebels, but they’re actually coordinating with someone in 2149. And then there’s the elite in the future who view the alternate past as an opportunity to mine it for its resources. They are represented in the past by the Phoenix Group.

By the end of the first season, the Phoenix Group is invading the settlement, and Jason O’Mara’s Jim must destroy the portal and its connection to the future. Once the Phoenix Group is cut off, their remaining troops retreat into the Badlands. While pursuing them, Stephen Lang’s Taylor inspects the prow of an 18th-century sailing ship the group recovered. Are there portals to the Cretaceous from other time periods? Fans hoping Season 2 would answer that question were disappointed when the show wasn’t renewed.

Spiritual Sci-Fi Siblings

The spirit of Terra Nova would continue in Netflix’s Lost in Space reboot produced by Legendary Television. Completing a thematic circle, the series shares a few similarities with Terra Nova. Much like how the Fox show’s Shannon family has to smuggle one of their children into the past due to reproduction limits, Maureen Robinson has to manipulate the system to get her son Will onto the Jupiter 2. The Murphy’s Law-in-space-inspired iteration of the series was able to run its course, paying off themes and storylines that Terra Nova would never have the chance to. The two shows even share a behind-the-scenes connection with director/producer Alex Graves.

Steven Spielberg’s TV dino-jaunt may not have lasted longer than a single season, but it left an impression. You can see echoes of it in shows like The 100 and even on return trips to Jurassic World, where the militarization vs. nature themes are even more present than in previous iterations of the franchise. We may not be able to go back in time the way they can on the show, but if we could, we’d certainly rally to get this lost Spielberg-produced gem another second shot at redemption.

We can think of three shows that featured episodes with time travel and dinosaurs: Terra Nova, Legends of Tomorrow, and Doctor Who. Who do you think did it best? Tell us in the comments below.