Earth: Final Conflict

The pilot episode written by Gene Roddenberry is excellent, but the show goes nowhere, all hugger mugger and no real story. Roddenberry's basic idea, that contact between humans and superior aliens will not be all black and white but will be filled with ambiguities, is a good one. Later writers, however, think in terms of good aliens and bad aliens. The use of female actors to play androgynous aliens was a good idea, but in later seasons everybody except Da'an overdoes it. In the third season, there are a number of scripts by Howard Cheykin, who is an excellent writer, and who wrote some memorable episodes of The Flash TV series, as well as some great graphic novels. However, he is unable to do anything here, because he is locked in to what is really not a workable story line. I have not watched the fifth season, but I have read that it throws out most of what was established in the first four. For scifi completists only.

E:FC Review:

This part goes for the first season: E:FC was one of the most promising science fiction series I ve ever seen. The talons where so completely differnt from all the other alien races in other series. These were no humans with cheap makeup in the face (star trek anybody?), or the nasty nasty aliens from trash sci fi. This race were different. They had their goals, they had their owns definition of moral. But even though they have made "mistakes" in the first season too you always believed that they wanted to help the people. But not only the talons were good. The leading character (Boon), a spy working for the talons and the resistance at the same time. Wearing a alien life form as weapon, lost his wife due to the deeds of the talons, getting a good friend of Da'an. This character was really promising. So was Sandoval, who acted like he acted cause he had a working CVI. IMO the best story of the show was Sandovals freed from the CVI for a short time. Thats were you were able to see the real depth and tragedy of this character.

Now to the later seasons:

I hate them. They destroyed everything that was differnt about E:FC. Just take the new main character Liam. This guy got no past, no personality and he even loses his alien side! "Wheres your shakarawa liam? Oh, I lost it..." DOH!!! And on the top of this the talons became more and more the evil aliens we all know from thousand other science fiction stories...

I suggest you watch the first season of this series. Its really worth it. But then forget it. Dont watch the later seasons. They are destroying everything.

It was clear from the beginning of the series that the story had been fairly carefully mapped out. The early ambiguous characterization of the Taelons became clearer as their motivations were revealed, and the righteous fear of the Resistance was confirmed; such gradual exploration of a complex storyline is one of the best elements of Sci-Fi television (I have no idea what semantic distinction is supposed to exist between "science fiction" and "SciFi"--fanatics are always inventing new layers of obfuscation to objectify their opinions). Unfortunately, E:FC has suffered from apparently unplanned cast changes: the departures of Kevin Kilner after the first season and Robert Leeshock after the fourth (though both have made brief return appearances) have plainly disrupted the story. The latter disruption has sapped the drama of its narrative drive, unfortunately; Jayne Heitmeyer's Renee was fine as a secondary character, but just doesn't have the stuff to carry the show. The introduction of the Atavus has the feel of last-minute scrambling too. The Taelons were a deft, sophisticated creation of a fascinating mind, while the atavistic hybrid that succeeded them would be more at home in a cheap horror story. If I'm wrong about the ad hoc storytelling, then Gene Roddenberry's bible wasn't as good as I had thought. In either case, the final season of Final Conflict has been a distinct disappointment.

Year 1: near genius, entertaining, thought provoking.

Years 2-4: Mediocre, some nice short skirts from time-to-time but that's about all.

Year 5: Deus Ex Machina, and not in a good way. This season was a form of insanity. Watching the principles struggle through this silliness was very painful.

There are so many good TV shows today there's no point in watching this.

For older TV that blows away most of today's TV and movies check out:

The Prisoner (1967) The Singing Detective (1986) I, Claudius (1976)

Well, WHAT have they done to my favorite show?? Earth: Final Conflict used to be a wonderful series. In the first season, it was about a contact with a truly _different_ alien race, called the Taelons. Outwardly peaceful and benevolent, secretly altering the future of humanity. They weren't evil, just desperate (although we didn't know it). They weren't good, because they did bad things to us. Then came the second season. Lots of action. Little thought. Liam. Liam is a hybrid. Half Kimeran (another alien race), half human. He quickly became Mr. Superman-like-character. This was _BAD_ TV. Now we are presented with season 3. Pretty good, although Liam is as stiff as ever, Renee is his sidekick (both characters are so flat they could practically interchange lines at any point). Perhaps season 4 will be better. I doubt it though. There is something wrong with the writers on this show. Unless you are looking for disappointment when s4 gets here, don't get too involved.