The show Terra Nova begins in the year 2149, a time when all life on Earth is threatened with extinction due to lacking worldwide air quality and overpopulation. Scientists discover a fracture in space-time that allows people to travel 85 million years back in time to the late cretaceous period of an alternate prehistoric Earth. The Shannon family join the Tenth Pilgrimage of settlers to Terra Nova becoming part of the first human colony on the other side of the temporal doorway.