Editor's note: The following is an e-mail conversation between CNN Geek Out's Elizabeth Landau and Henry Hanks.

Landau: After reading your recap of Fox's new series "Terra Nova," I have to say that I respect your opinions, Henry, but I wasn't as enthusiastic about the first episode of this show as you were.

First off – I hate to say it but, as much effort as the Shannon family put into leaving their dark, polluted, nearly unlivable world to travel back in time 85 million years, I was more interested in what was going on in that desolate future than in this rather absurd prehistoric past.

I almost didn't want Jim, the devoted father of three, to make it through the time portal so that maybe the show would be split between his struggles in the future and his family's new life in the past, and we could get a better understanding of the destruction that humanity has wrought on our planet. Apparently you can't even see the moon anymore in the year 2149, making its appearance in the sky of dinosaur land miraculous to the family. Too bad it looks so fake. Somehow the unbreathable air of the future felt more real to me than the crisp CGI-enhanced over-freshness of the past.
FULL POST