The two things you suggested are connected, if people didn't moan about the crap tv, and they kept making the crap series, so for instance Terra Nova was still going strong, and other crap, we're still complain about not having any good sci fi on tv, because Terra Nova was crap.
This show is abysmal in every way, almost no one on it can act, they've got a cast of, the filler actors you put in around the good ones on other shows.... the guys who can pad out a cast/show, not the guys who can carry a show. THe mayor, while hot, has only ever really been good in Buffy, and that was in a supporting role, she is very poor in this and her character is awful.
Its unoriginal, boring plots, being done in a new (yet still the same) location/premise. THe incredibly irritating "everyones just trying to survive but someone everyone trusts is secretly stabbing them in the back because they believe that in the long term it will save everyone" storyline, its this Lost thing, everyone wants a counter storyline. Where everything isn't what you first think it is, where the reason the bad guys are doing things, you eventually learn is because someone senior in the good guys has some great well thinking plan that will kill most of them. Its nonsense, its gibberish, and by the end of a season you find out its all entirely stupid.
Terra Nova... same thing, zomg, we learn there are like a bad tribe of people who get through the portal and are against the "good guys", then you find out they think they are well wishing do gooders and really think they are doing whats best, blah blah blah. Inbetween on top of the crap story arc for the season, is teenage drama BS that is ALWAYS awful.
Really, the kid knows all about the culture of these aliens, so will know that if someone doesn't go through this, whatever the hell it was, he'll let himself be killed for honour, so she still cuts him down. Isn't it always funny how in every show the aliens are painted as middle easte.... sorry, I mean backwards and medieval with mean cultural idea's where people are put through ordeals because of honour and the like. Its so unoriginal, its the same crap.
Mix ok premise, with same teenage drama, some aliens (literal or immigrants) who have backwards idea's that the really moral leaders can't abide by, but are making excuses for, that someone has to buck the trend on, which leads to the death of someone over honour. Pick a show, its had that storyline, its boring story writing and worse, like religion is SO often used, its to make the show seem deep and interesting, when really it makes it feel vapid and unoriginal.
Should we list the cliche's Terra Nova went through in this thread, and tick them off one by one as Defiance hits them once a week? The "kids get lost outside of town" episode, the lead characters strongly disagree over how to deal with something, one person caves to the "wrong way", and by the end of the episode, its failed caused loss of life and they do the first "right way" thing in the first place..... etc, etc.