In “Terra Nova,” Season 1, Episode 5, “Bylaw,” the colony deals with its first murder. In the meantime there are subplots involving Josh’s quest to get his girlfriend from the future and one with Zoe and a dinosaur egg.
Spoilers surely follow.
One had to admit that murder by dinosaur was pretty clever. The perp lured a predator into a shed with some bait and then locked the door behind it. Then, when the target opened the door to the shed, the dinosaur leaped out and munched on some nice, juicy primate. It would have worked too had not a trained, Chicago homicide detective been present.
The rest of the murder mystery was a by numbers police procedural, with not one by two red herrings. More interesting was a look into the judicial system that Terra Nova operates under. It seems that there is no trial by jury, Taylor, besides being chief executive, is also chief judge. The punishment for murder is banishment into the wilderness. Since the wilderness is filled with nasty, hungry reptiles, the punishment for murder is actually death by being eaten by dinosaurs or, if one is lucky, being killed by Sixers.
Josh is anxious enough to get his girl friend back from the 22nd Century that he does things for the Aussie sounding bar owner, like make contact with Mira and the Sixers. It seems that in order to get his sweetie back from a milieu that is particularly unkind to young people, Josh is going to have to be a traitor to the colony.
The question arises is why is Skye participating in this folly? She seems like an intelligent, level headed pioneer gal. Is she that altruistic by helping someone she clearly is attracted to in getting some other girl back in time? Or is there something else going on.
The subplot with the dinosaur egg is pretty cute. There seems to be a paucity of dogs and cats in the colony, so having a little girl acquire a pet dinosaur does actually work. Maybe it will teach her some responsibility, which is something her big brother clearly lacks.