M-Net scores most expensive TV show

Cape Town - M-Net will officially announce on June 22 that the pay broadcaster has secured the biggest South African TV programming coup of the year by securing the broadcasting rights to the most anticipated and most expensive TV show ever produced - Steven Spielberg's new Terra Nova.

With increased competition within the South African television industry – TopTV's Fox Entertainment channel grabbed the other highly anticipated Steven Spielberg drama Falling Skies starting on July 4 in South Africa – sources are telling Channel24 that M-Net went out "guns blazing" to secure the rights for Terra Nova. M-Net is set to start airing the series "from early 2012" shortly after the show, currently being filmed in South Australia, starts in the US.

The futuristic-prehistoric Terra Nova will chronicle the adventures and drama of the Shannon family who travel back in time 85 million years from the year 2149 where the overpopulated and polluted Earth is dying. As part of the so-called "Tenth Pilgrimage" the Shannons travel back to prehistoric times where dinosaurs roam the Earth to restart civilisation and a colony called Terra Nova. Things quickly go wrong and they get trapped "in this land of limitless beauty, mystery and terror".

Terra Nova was supposed to debut its first two episodes in America in May but the launch date was pushed back to the end of the year on the Fox network since the producers asked for more time to work on the special effects-laden show that will, according to Steven Spielberg, be like nothing seen on television before.



"These adventurers soon discover that this healthy, vibrant world is not as idyllic as it initially appears," says the show description the lavish production issued that promises new dinosaurs – and some with feathers – in every episode.

"The areas surrounding Terra Nova are teeming with danger – and not just of the man-eating dinosaur variety. The Shannons will come to suspect that not everyone on this mission has the same idea of how to best save mankind; in fact, there may be forces intent on destroying this new world before it even begins."

Watch the trailer here.