Terra Nova/Characters

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Shannon Family

Jim Shannon

Played By: Jason O'Mara

• Badass
• Berserk Button: Don't touch his kids. Or his wife.
• Cowboy Cop: Though oddly enough, Da Chief is still cowboy enough himself to rather appreciate it. Though as far as Terra Nova and Taylor is concerned, he's basically the -only- cop in town. Everyone else is technically part of the security force.
• Daddy Had a Good Reason For Abandoning You: Prison, in this case.
• Papa Wolf: Don't mess with his kids. Ever.
  • A great example happens in the finale. Josh has gotten himself into trouble protecting Skye from Lucas, and is currently being beaten by Phoenix soldiers. Skye tells Jim. Cut to a few minutes later, where Jim brains Lucas with a cane and beats the crap out of every soldier that tries to restrain him. They had to hold him at gunpoint to end it.
• Troll: Though he clearly doesn't have a problem with Reynolds dating his daughter, he seems to enjoy messing with Reynolds since he's always so serious.

Elizabeth Shannon

Played By: Shelley Conn

• Absurdly Youthful Mother
• Guile Hero
• Hospital Hottie
• Hot Mom
• Hot Scientist: Though she dresses reasonably, is married, and has children.

Josh Shannon

Played By: Landon Liboiron

• Distracted by the Sexy: Generally, if Skye is going somewhere or doing something, you can bet he's easily persuaded into going along.
• The Load: More so in the pilot episode.
• Rebellious Spirit: Ranging from the Deadpan Snarker variety to occasional Jerkass.
• Took a Level In Badass: In the season finale.

Maddy Shannon

Played By: Naomi Scott

• Adorkable
• Bookworm
• Girl Next Door
• Girlish Pigtails: Shown in the season one premier, in order to make her seem older after the Time Skip.
• Hollywood Nerd: Of the Type 2 variety.
• Moment Killer
• Miss Exposition

Zoe Shannon

Played By: Alana Mansour

• Girlish Pigtails
• Tagalong Kid

Terra Nova Residents

Commander Nathaniel Taylor

Played By: Stephen Lang

• A Father To His Time-Travelling Community
• Authority Equals Asskicking
• Badass
  • Badass Beard
  • Commanding Coolness / Colonel Badass
• Big Good
• Cool Old Guy
• Dark and Troubled Past: Mind Rape by Somalian and Russo-Chinese terrorists not the worst thing he went through before signing up for the Terra Nova project, and there are still lots of folks on the other side who are out for his blood. This includes his own son who has hated him ever since he failed to save his mother in Somalia when he was a teenager.
• My Greatest Failure: Taylor couldn't save his wife in Somalia which to his son Lucas's hatred of him along with his Start of Darkness.
• Parental Substitute: to Skye.
  • Reynolds as well. He's apparently been giving him dating advice.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Sometimes. Other times (as in the end of the murder mystery ep) he's more Screw the Rules, I Make Them.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: It's becoming clearer as the series progresses that will do just about anything to protect his vision of Terra Nova's future. Including killing his friend and former commander. Although it was self defense. And they were trying to loot Terra Nova too so...

Skye

Played By: Allison Miller

• Action Girl
• I Have Your Wife: The Sixers are forcing her cooperation through exclusive access to the cure for her mother's condition.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: More recently, she's starting to help Josh find a way to bring his 2149-era girlfriend to Terra Nova.
• The Mole
• Ms. Fanservice

Guzman

Played By: Milo Hamada

• Papa Wolf: To his idiot kid, Tasha.

Lieutenant Alicia Washington

Played By: Simone Kessell

• Action Girl
• Badass
• Combat Medic: Who served in an enormous mess in Somalia before a nasty hit took her out of action. Still manages to kick loads of ass.
• Good-Looking Privates: Although one with far too low a rank for her age.
• Heroic Sacrifice
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Not that Taylor needs a super awesome sidekick ... but he damn well has one.
• Killed Off for Real
• Noodle Incident: Plenty between her and Taylor. Also somewhat justifies her low rank since it seems she's unwilling to outrank Taylor due to respect and camaraderie.
• The Lancer: To Commander Taylor.
• Subordinate Excuse: Strongly implied towards Taylor.
  • YMMV. She and Taylor are very much like Jurgen and Cain. Unless you'd say there was Ho Yay between those two ...
• Vasquez Always Dies

Mark Reynolds

Played By: Dean Geyer

• Good-Looking Privates
• Meet Cute: When first running into Maddy.
• Officer and a Gentleman: Though he's not an officer, he is excruciatingly, even old-fashionedly polite to Maddy and her parents when it comes to intimacy issues.

"I would like to declare my intentions toward your daughter."

• Shallow Love Interest: To Maddy. What exactly do we know about this guy?
  • He did volunteer to take over guard duty for the Shannons' house when the pterodactyls were swarming the colony. He got knocked unconscious for his efforts, but he was certainly more competent at it than the three Shannon siblings at any rate.

Jim (to Maddy): That's how you know a boy likes you.

Malcolm Wallace

Played By: Rod Hallett

• Deadpan Snarker
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Might come with his job of Chief Science Officer.
• Working with the Ex

Tom Boylan

Played By: Damien Garvey

• The Bartender
• Deadpan Snarker
• The Mole: To a limited extent. He does business with the Sixers, but it's clear there's someone else in the camp that's actively betraying the colony.
• Noodle Incident: At least to anyone that isn't Boylan, Taylor, or Jim, why Taylor tolerates Boylan (and conversely, why Boylan is ultimately loyal to Terra Nova and will help Taylor). Ironically, said Noodle Incident is also seemingly responsible for his current state as Taylor had to bribe him to prevent him from being a good soldier and reporting Taylor's murder.

Sixers

Mira

Played By: Christine Adams

• Anti-Villain
• I Have Your Wife: Her backers in the future are holding her daughter in order to ensure her cooperation. Interestingly, this is a tactic that she herself is not above using.
• Kick the Dog: Blackmailing a Sixer child into spying for her by threatening to hurt her brother.
  • Pet the Dog: When that falls through, however, she admits she was bluffing and lets the hostage rejoin his sister in the far more salubrious neighbourhood that is Terra Nova, no strings attached.
• Rebel Leader

The Phoenix Group

Lucas Taylor

• Big Bad
• Brother-Sister Incest: Okay, so Skye may not technically be blood-related, but Lucas takes her treatment of his father as a father-figure as being enough to make them brother and sister. And then proceeds to come on to her in an extremely creepy fashion.
• Man Behind the Man: The Sixers work for him by proxy.
• Freudian Excuse: The reason he hates his father so much is because he failed to save his mother in Somalia when he was fourteen years old. The finale reveals that they were captured by rebels and Taylor had to choose between them to decide who lived. He picked Lucas. Lucas not only believes he should have died, but that Taylor blames him for it.
• Large Ham
• Not Quite Dead: Skye shoots him twice in the chest. In the couple of minutes she and Taylor stop paying attention to him, he's vanished.
• Psychotic Man Child: Why is he so eager to help destroy mankind's last hope for survival? To spite his father, that's why.
• Psychotic Smirk: Often.
• Self-Made Orphan: He really wants to do this. Comes pretty close, too.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: In the season finale, it was revealed that Somalia was, in Lucas' mind, simply the last straw in what had been a childhood/early adolescence where he was on the receiving in of his father's disappointment/disapproval. Considering what a total brat he is, one should take this with a grain of salt.

Weaver

• Big Bad Duumvirate
• Establishing Character Moment: Shooting a Brachiosaur while it was having lunch. Unprovoked.
• Jerkass
• Karmic Death: Shoots a harmless dinosaur, gets eaten by a not-so-harmless dinosaur.
• Smug Snake