This panel was scheduled for long enough to allow us to see the entire pilot, though there was very little time for questions afterwards. That’s ok, WE SAW THE PILOT – SQUEE! More about that after the trailer below.

Also, though I took some photos of the panelists (Executive Producers Brannon Braga, Rene Echevarria, and Jose Molina, visual effects supervisor Kevin Blank, and star Stephen Lang), it was one of those situations where I would be doing no one any favors by posting them. You know, like when you pause your tv and gorgeous people look goofy? Eyes mid-blink, or neck tucked in making one look a bit Jabba the Hut-ish? Happily, Fox Broadcasting has uploaded some video that includes many of my favorite bits from the panel, and you’ll get to see what the panelists look like without the horrible pics:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t48MEF016Vk[/youtube]

I can’t, of course, show the pilot here, but I can show you a very nice, very long trailer that will give you a fair indication of what the pilot is like, as all the footage is from that first episode.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6aNEIZwPFc[/youtube]

So, the pilot. As always, I won’t spoil, other than to give just a little info to illustrate a point. The first line of the first episode is, “Dad scored an orange!” I love it when shows can pack so much into a single line, and especially when they presume the audience is smart enough to figure out what’s going on without a lot of exposition. That makes the show a Smart Show. To me, Smart Shows are the best shows, and have the potential for being Great Shows. Fringe is an excellent example of this.

So, is this show Smart, and is it potentially Great? Well… it has many aspects of Smart, but isn’t quite there. It therefore isn’t quite there for Great, either, but it’s good. A good solid show, well-written, and even though I saw this in a dark room on Saturday when I had been averaging 3 hours of sleep per night for the previous three nights, I did not fall asleep. That’s pretty good.

I was encouraged to hear from the panel that we will be seeing more of the dystopian world that the main characters left behind, and which figures in the first part of the pilot. That place was interesting, and very dark. Lost aside, it isn’t easy to make a tropical paradise seem dark and foreboding, so a return periodically to the literally very dark future will provide a good visual balance.

But what about the number one most important aspect of the show? How was THAT?!

The creatures were cool.

Terra Nova will be premiering on Monday, September 26 at 8/7c on Fox.