'Terra Nova': It's about time

* TERRA NOVA. 8 tonight, Fox 29.

WHEN FOX describes "Terra Nova" as "an epic family adventure 85 million years in the making," it's exaggerating.

Slightly.

Announced in May 2010 as part of the network's 2010-11 season, the show that brings man and dinosaurs together (and, yeah, includes a guy from South Jersey named Spielberg among its dozen executive producers) has experienced a few bumps on the road to our TV screens, from weather problems on its Queensland, Australia, location to technical issues in bringing the dinos to CGI life.

None of which will matter if enough viewers tune in tonight for "Terra Nova's" two-hour premiere, which introduces us to the 22nd-century Shannon family, led by Jim (Jason O'Mara), a police officer, and Elisabeth (Shelley Conn), a doctor.

In embracing TV conventions by having three children - played by Landon Liboiron, Naomi Scott and Alana Mansour - the Shannons have violated the population rules of their corner of the seriously damaged Earth, where most people's only hope for the future lies in being chosen for a trip 85 million years into Earth's past, where there's a lot more oxygen available.

(Cue the dinosaurs.)

Aimed squarely at the audience that failed to show up for ABC's superpowered "No Ordinary Family," "Terra Nova" isn't trying to be the coolest kid on the sci-fi block, forestalling questions about the "butterfly effect," for instance, by sending its pioneers back through a different "time stream" that will keep their actions from inadvertently affecting the future.

It can't compete, either, with the special effects poured into most of the summer blockbusters, so expect its dinosaurs, the result of technology producers say wasn't available even five years ago, to be used judiciously.

"It's not that there's not a lot of whizbang, but it's not about that," executive producer Rene Echevarria told reporters last month.

"It really is about the Shannon family," added executive producer Brannon Braga.

What's working for me so far: O'Mara and Conn, as a couple whose 22nd-century marriage is likely to be recalibrated in a world in which his skills might be as important as hers, and Stephen Lang ("Avatar") as the man in charge of the new colony.

O'Mara, of course, has done the time-travel thing before, in ABC's foreshortened "Life on Mars."

"I called my family, saying, 'Guess what? I got a new show. It's about a cop who travels in time.' And they said, 'I think we've seen that one,' " O'Mara said last month.

Beyond that, though, the two shows couldn't be more different, he added.

His "Life on Mars" character was "thrust into that situation" and trying to get home, while Shannon "is hungry to get he and his family here and then take care of them," he said. And there's the "wildlife, which can be a little tricky from time to time."

Rachel Bilson ("The O.C.") returns to TV full time in the CW's "Hart of Dixie" (9 p.m., CW 57) as Zoe Hart, a newly minted doctor from New York who's forced by circumstance to take a job in a small-town doctor's office in Alabama.

Hollywood's idea of Alabama, anyway.

Think Reese Witherspoon's "Sweet Home Alabama" meets Michael J. Fox's "Doc Hollywood" and you've pretty much got "Hart of Dixie," a pleasant little rom-com whose chief recommendations are that it stars Bilson - and that it's mercifully free of witches, vampires or Upper East Side fashionistas.

Back by popular demand (here and in Britain) Idris Elba as the damaged detective "Luther" (10 p.m. Wednesday, BBC America), which follows last week's deliciously twisted conclusion to "The Hour" in the network's "Dramaville" slot.

Also back: John Luther's psychopathic little friend Alice (Ruth Wilson).

This time around, Luther's chasing a masked serial killer, but you can get those anywhere. "Luther" is about much more than murder. So as Alice would say, "Don't be a stranger."