DAWSON'S JURASSIC CREEK: It is very difficult to send people back in time. Indeed, it requires two particle accelerators the size of the Washington Beltway to rend the space-time continuum and put people through, a hundred or so at a time. It can also only be done about once a year. Given those constraints (and perhaps a bit more often to send the non-living), we realize this is a very large undertaking for a very crippled economy. So, in order to ensure the survival of humanity, what do we expect to be sent back in order for humanity to stand a chance?
* vehicles;
* weapons and ammunition in infinite supply;
* state of the art medical equipment (also, leeches);
* enough materials so every colonist can live in a four bedroom home with its own stainless steel kitchen;
* throw pillows;
* window treatments;
* posturepedic mattresses;
* people without a discernible skill set
Things that don't get sent (even though you can request stuff and "everything is provided for us"):
* iron (because while we will provide the colony with enough nylon backyard sunshields for a resort in Palm Springs, you will be expected to do your own smithing).
Look, colonization of the past is a perfectly reasonable trope. And the folks behind Terra Nova know enough about it to give a shout out to Bradbury's "The Sound of Thunder" and what I thought might be an allusion to the even cooler "Hawksbill Station" by Robert Silverberg (where the chrono-political exiles were all lame, crazy, and turned tricks for some extra trilobyte soup).
But for this sort of conceit to work, and for me to believe that the underlying conflicts are best solved by requesting more supplies from present-day Earth, the show is going to needs rules. And I don't see that the producers are going to supply them.
