By Christopher Wallenberg
17 Sep 2011

	Stephen Lang in "Terra Nova."
	photo by Michael Lavine/FOX

Perhaps the most hyped new TV series of the season is Fox's otherworldly dinosaur drama, Terra Nova, which premieres Sept. 26 at 8 PM ET. The epic adventure series follows the Shannon family as they are transported on a harrowing yet hopeful journey back in time to prehistoric Earth as a small part of a daring experiment to save the human race from extinction. It's the year 2149, and the Shannon family lives on a pollution-choked, overheating Earth that's bursting at the seams from overpopulation, with the majority of plant and animal life extinct. The future of mankind is in doubt, but a glimmer of hope emerges when scientists unexpectedly discover a fracture in the time-space continuum that makes it possible to construct a portal back to the past. The history-changing idea emerges to resettle humanity in the distant past — with a second chance to rebuild civilization. The Shannon family is chosen to embark on their journey as part of the Tenth Pilgrimage of settlers to Terra Nova, the first colony established in this idyllic yet dangerous world. The series stars longtime stage veteran Stephen Lang as Commander Nathaniel Taylor, the charismatic yet mysterious first pioneer and leader of the settlement. While he's perhaps best known for playing Colonel Miles Quaritch in "Avatar" and Stonewall Jackson in "Gods and Generals," Lang has a long and varied stage resume. He was the first actor to play the iconic role of A Few Good Men's Colonel Nathan Jessup, a character popularized by Jack Nicholson in the 1992 film, and he was nominated for a Tony Award in 1992 for his lead role in The Speed of Darkness. He played Happy in the 1984 revival of Death of a Salesman and the television movie adaptation with Dustin Hoffman. He was recently seen as Colonel Littlefield in John Patrick Shanley's Defiance, which ran Off-Broadway in 2006.

	Michael Emerson in "Person of Interest."
	photo by Eric Liebowitz/CBS

Theatre veteran Michael Emerson rocketed to stardom playing Benjamin Linus, one of TV's most deliciously diabolical and enigmatic villains on "Lost." This month, he returns to the small screen in JJ Abrams' new paranoia-soaked spin on the procedural drama, Person of Interest, which premieres Thursday, Sept. 22 at 9 PM ET on CBS. While Emerson may be a two-time Emmy winning TV star, he first got this start in the theatre, toiling for many years on small regional stages before making his way to New York. He most famously brought to life that flamboyant, epigram-tossing aesthete, Oscar Wilde, in the Obie-winning Off-Broadway drama Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde in the late '90s. His stage resume also includes George Tesman, the ineffectual, put-upon scholar and husband of the title anti-heroine in the Kate Burton-starring Hedda Gabler on Broadway in 2001; and the forlorn, perpetually inebriated Ivy League washout, Willie Oban, in the Kevin Spacey-starring The Iceman Cometh in 1999. In "Person of Interest," Emerson plays the mysterious Finch, an eccentric billionaire who uses a Big Brother-style surveillance project that he created for the U.S. government to single out individuals from security footage who may be likely to participate in violent crimes. Finch enlists the services of an ex-CIA agent (Jim Caviezel) to help him enact his own unique brand of vigilante justice. Emerson will no doubt be channeling aspects of the paranoid Machiavellian manipulator, Ben Linus, his character on "Lost."