Embedded below is the first trailer for Fox’s “Terra Nova,” the Steven Spielberg-produced time-travel dinosaur drama that was originally scheduled for this spring but bumped to fall due to production issues. Here’s the plot synopsis from Brandon during his last guest stint here on WG:

In 2149, all life on planet Earth is threatened with extinction, so a group of scientists and a random family head back to prehistoric times and start shooting dinosaurs with machine guns.

While I’ll pretty much watch anything with dinosaurs, the trailer below looks pretty underwhelming, like a cross between Jurassic Park without Jeff Golblum and Avatar without the blue cat-monkeys and hair sex. And that’s just no good. If you’re not going to cast Jeff Goldblum, then there better be a whole lotta hair sex.

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It was twenty years ago today that ABC aired the first episode of “Dinosaurs.” I remember the show as a strange mix of Jim Henson and “The Flinstones,” with the result being not particularly funny but compulsively watchable. (Although I suspect that then, as now, I found all dinosaurs — especially talking ones — compulsively watchable.) TV Squad has more details:

On April 26, 1991, the world was introduced to the Sinclair family on ABC’s ’Dinosaurs.’ The sitcom lasted for four seasons and 65 episodes (58 episodes aired during the first run; the remaining aired in syndication) before ultimately ending with the extinction of dinosaurs. (Inevitable, we suppose.)

While ‘Dinosaurs’ was a sitcom, the show broke the mold by not having a studio audience or a laugh track. Brought to life by a cast of experienced Henson puppeteers and seasoned voice actors, ‘Dinosaurs’ is heralded as one of the most ambitious sitcoms ever.

While the most memorable aspect of the show may be that stupid baby dinosaur’s catch phrase — “Not the mama!” (ugh) — I generally remember “Dinosaurs” as having one of the most depressing finales in sitcom history. You can watch the YouTube of it below. While the “we should respect nature” allegory is heavy-handed, it still took balls to have sitcom characters face down the end of the world. Big ol’ T. Rex balls.

Aw, poor T. Rex. He could never touch his own balls with those useless little forearms.

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Hold on to your dinosaur butts: the Steven Spielberg-produced sci-fi show “Terra Nova” will make its debut over two nights in May, and the Super Bowl mid-game shows (the commercials) gave us our first look.

For the longest time, my joke for the worst, most Joe Sixpack idea for a screenplay ever was “swat teams fighting dinosaurs.” Then came 2005′s A Sound of Thunder, which added Ed Burns to the joke to make it one of the worst movies ever made. Of course, I had no idea that it was based on a short story from thirty years before I was born, so this terrible idea has been around forever.

The new version jumps headfirst (like Pete Rose) into FOX’s Friday Night Sci-Fi Red Ring of Death with a new twist on the plot. In 2149, all life on planet Earth is threatened with extinction, so a group of scientists and a random family head back to prehistoric times and start shooting dinosaurs with machine guns. You can watch the teaser commercial below, which makes it look like Avatarosaurus, but I’m guessing the dinosaur fights happen maybe once an episode, meaning “Terra Nova” is closer to “The Walking Dead” than Avatar. Are you ready for some boring discussions about fate? I am!

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“‘C’mon, I have to BELIEVE you want to eat plants. Now once more, with feeling.”

Despite Roger Corman’s inroads with Dinocroc, the Carnosaur trilogy, and now Dinoshark, Steven Spielberg remains Hollywood’s leading authority on ass-kicking dinosaur epics. So there’s understandably some excitement about the possibility that Spielberg will sign on as a producer for “Terra Nova,” a dinosaur series that Fox is presently considering.

Spielberg and Peter Chernin are in negotiations to board the drama project “Terra Nova,” which is described as following a family from 100 years in the future who travel back in time 150 million years to the strange and inhospitable environs of prehistoric Earth.

The 20th Century Fox TV project, which is said to have drawn special attention from Fox Entertainment chairman Peter Rice, would involve such elaborate sets and vfx that there’s been talk of greenlighting it directly to series production rather than a pilot because it would be too expensive to shut down and start up again during the downtime between pilot and episodic production. [Variety]

Tough call here. On the one hand, it sounds pretty unoriginal. On the other, DINOSAURS!!!! Sounds like it’s gonna get greenlit to me. If I know anything about Hollywood, all-caps and exclamation points trump “unoriginal” every time. It’s called the Michael Bay Principle.

Cancel the romantic dinner plans you didn’t make with your girlfriend who doesn’t exist, because there’s only one thing you should be doing this Valentine’s Day: watching “Tyrannosaurus Sex” on Discovery Channel:

This Valentine’s Day, February 14th at 10pm ET/PT on Discovery Channel, Locomotive Entertainment Group will premiere Tyrannosaurus Sex. The one-hour special explores the mysteries, wonders and newest evidence surrounding ritual courtship and mating habits of dinosaurs. How did a ferocious T-Rex woo his lady? [beach picnic at sunset, duh - Ed.] How did a female Titanosaur support the weight of a male who was as long as a four-story building is high? How did a Stegosaurus couple negotiate sex with all those deadly plates and spikes?

Very carefully! Wokka wokka wokka!

Tyrannosaurus Sex doesn’t just answer the questions, it shows dinosaur sex in all its glory with state-of-the-art CGI animation.

Oh man, I can’t wait. I haven’t seen dinosaurs get it on since the late ’80s, when I got all the Dinobot Transformers for Christmas. Although technically, I guess that was dinosaur robot sex. Which I hear is all the rage in Japan right now.

[via The Awl, thanks to Matt M. for the tip]