Heading for extinction: Steven Spielberg dinosaur drama Terra Nova cancelled after first season



It was hailed as a heady mix of Avatar and Jurassic Park and tipped to be the must see show of the decade.



But it seems audiences disagreed – and after just one series 20th Century Fox has cancelled Steven Spielberg’s time-travel drama Terra Nova.



The show cost around £100 million to make for just 13 episodes, making it the most expensive TV series in broadcasting history.



Cancelled: Sci-fi show Terra Nova won't be returning for a second season

Terra Nova, which stars British actress Shelley Conn and Avatar star Stephen Lang, struggled to pull in ratings that justified its massive budget.



It averaged an audience of around 7.5 million for each episode in America – which works out at a cost of almost £1 million per viewer each week.



The show broadcast here on Sky1 and pulled in ratings of around one million.



A spokesman for Fox confirmed it had been cancelled but it is expected the broadcaster will sell the programme on to other networks because of the potential to make money from international sales.



Big budget: The dinosaur show was the most expensive TV series in broadcasting history

The series began in 2149 where the human race is on the brink of extinction and struggling t to find even enough air to breathe.



The premise is that the planet is so overdeveloped, overcrowded and over-polluted that mankind is in a perilous position so a team of scientists create a portal to the past and select a number of people to send through.

Miss Conn, who plays doctor Elizabeth Shannon, opts to go back to prehistoric times with her husband and children where people are attempting to re-build civilisation in the Terra Nova colony.



The humans are sent back 85 million years to the late-Cretaceous period and battle to survive against a backdrop of dinosaurs and prehistoric dangers.



High hopes: With Steven Spielberg as producer, the show was highly anticipated by audiences

This lead to comparisons with Jurassic Park, which was one of Spielberg’s biggest hits, and the CGI graphics and state-of the-art special effects are similar to those used in the blockbuster film Avatar.



Terra Nova’s final episode aired in December but executives at Fox delayed making a decision until now in the hope that changes could be made to the plans for season two.



The cast, which also included Jason O’Mara who starred in the US version Life on Mars and Heroes’ actress Christine Adam, had hoped it would be given a reprieve.



Miss Conn said in a recent interview: ‘We're so invested that it would break my heart if we didn't get another chance at this.



Producer: Steven Spielberg was behind the big budget time-travel show

Disappointed: The show starred Jason O'Mara (L) and Stephen Lang

'Bad news': Jason O'Mara took to his Twitter account to reveal the show had been cancelled

‘I just think everybody's worked so hard and we've created something that deserves to be continued.’ Executives in America have been desperate for a new stand-out hit after popular long running series Lost and 24 drew to a close.



The network has new dramas from Lost creator J.J. Abrams' – his thriller Alcatraz tackles the disappearance of prisoners from the famous prison.



There is also a new series for 24 star Kiefer Sutherland called Touch, in which he plays a single father and widower who discovers his mute son is a genius.



Spielberg had had more success with his recent film work – he was nominated for five Academy Awards for War Horse.

