Universal // 1997 // 914 Minutes // Not Rated
Reviewed by Appellate Judge Mac McEntire // May 5th, 2009
"Three years ago they came, forever altering the future of humanity."
In 1997, sci-fi and fantasy on TV were huge. There was not one but two Star Trek shows running concurrently, The X-Files had exploded into the mainstream, Babylon 5 maintained legions of fans while fighting to stay on the air, Hercules and Xena experienced huge popularity, and word-of-mouth was spreading about a brand new show called Buffy.
In the midst of all this, Earth: Final Conflict exploded onto the sci-fi scene. The big deal was that the pilot episode was written by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry before his death. Many, at the time, wondered if this series would become the new Trek. Years later, we can see this is not the case. Still, Earth: Final Conflict lasted five seasons and contains some great acting, intriguing ideas, and quality production values.
Three years earlier, Earth made contact with an alien race called the Taelons, also known as "The Companions." The Taelons have cured disease, ended hunger, and ushered in a new age of enlightenment. There are those, however, who believe the Taelons are up to no good, operating in secret to learn the truth.
After his wife is killed, William Boone (Kevin Kilner, Auto Focus), a cop, is hired to provide personal security for Da'an (Leni Parker, The Man), the Companion assigned to work alongside the American government. Boone suspects the Companions had something to do with his wife's death, and he's not the only one. Boone is recruited to join the liberation movement, working as a double agent against the aliens.
Now, Boone lives a double life, with a fellow undercover agent, pilot Lili Marquette (Lisa Howard, Long Island Confidential) as his partner. He has to watch out for Sandoval (Von Flores, Degrassi: The Next Generation), who is fiercely loyal to the Taelons. Boone is also at times wary of Jonathan Doors (Richard Hemblen, Rollerball), leader of the liberation, whose motives might be just as questionable as the Taelons' are. Also helping Boone is Augur (Richard Chevolleau, Narc), a quirky computer hacker.
This episode list was created in the hopes of bettering mankind:
* "Decision"
Before he can work for the Taelons, Boone must
be implanted with a cyber-viral implant, or CVI, which will greatly enhance his
cognitive skills, but also rewire him to be 100 percent loyal to them. A
liberation doctor (Majel Barrett Roddenberry, Star Trek: The Next
Generation) hopes to rework the CVI so it gives him the skills but allows
him to keep his own mind. Boone is also permanently attached to a skrill, a
bioengineered weapon he can use instead of a gun.
* "Truth"
Boone pursues the true cause of his wife's death,
putting his new standing with Taelons in jeopardy as he does so. Were the
Taelons truly responsible for the murder? If not, then who?
* "Miracle"
A young woman who lost her hands in an accident
years earlier gets brand new hands thanks to a Taelon bio-experiment. As a
result, she sees the Taelons as angels from God, and a religious group uses her
as spokesperson for their own purposes. While the Taelons do nothing to
discourage the religious fervor, Boone fears the girl might be danger.
* "Avatar"
A freaky serial killer escapes from jail, after
having painted Taelon symbols all over the walls. What is his connection with
the Taelons, and can Boone and Lili find him before he kills again?
* "Old Flame"
As the title suggests, Boone is reunited with
his first love. The romance could be cut short, though, as Boone wonders whether
her loyalties are with the Taelons or with the liberation.
* "Float Like a Butterfly"
An Amish community starts
experiencing mass suicides and an attack of butterflies with razor-sharp wings.
The cause could be an alien probe nicknamed the "metal scarecrow." Can
Boone and Lili shut it down before it destroys everything in sight?
* "Resurrection"
After weeks spent in hiding, Doors finally
reveals himself to the world as the leader of the liberation. Disappointed, the
Taelons replace Da'an with Zo'or (Anita LaSelva, Mistrial), who is much
more anti-human than Da'an ever was. It's up to Boone and Lili to find a way to
reinstate Da'an while pretending to hunt for Doors.
* "Horizon Zero"
After the first manned space flight to Mars
is unexpectedly called off, the astronauts believe the Taelons are to blame.
With Lili's help the race is on to use a Taelon shuttle to make the flight
before Sandoval tracks them down.
* "Scorpion's Dream"
A scientist who works with the alien
skrills steals one of them and goes on the run. While pursuing him, Boone gets
in touch with his own skrill. Is it just a weapon, or something more?
* "Live Free or Die"
A group of disgruntled former soldiers
kidnap Da'an and hold him prisoner until their demands are met. While Boone and
Sandoval track down their whereabouts, Da'an tries to understand his
captors.
* "The Scarecrow Returns"
The alien probe from the Amish
episode is back, this time manufacturing murderous clones of liberation
scientists. When one of them attacks Lili inside liberation headquarters, Boone,
Doors, and Augur have to find some way to shut the probe down.
* "Sandoval's Run"
Sandoval's CVI goes haywire, causing him
to revert back to his pre-CVI personality. He goes on the run, in the hopes of
finding his long-lost wife. The Taelons, meanwhile, insist on taking care of the
problem, permanently.
* "The Secret of Standhill"
It's off to Ireland, where a
gravesite reveals evidence of a Taelon who visited the Earth thousands of years
ago. Da'an and company want to cover this up, so now Boone and Lili must find
the site before they do.
* "Pandora's Box"
Boone starts having visions of one of the
soldiers from "Live Free or Die," who everyone thought was dead. This
same soldier is involved with a human/Taelon hybridization experiment, which
brings out violent tendencies in one Taelon.
* "If You Could Read My Mind"
The Taelons' psychic
connection, called the Commonality, has been invaded by a human mind. A famous
human psychic is the prime suspect, but she seems more interested in Boone than
in the Taelons.
* "Wrath of Achilles"
Augur created a computer virus that
gets out of hand, to the point that Taelon tech shuts down all over the world.
Boone ends up trapped inside Taelon headquarters with Sandoval, and Lili and
Da'an are on the run in the woods after their shuttle crashes.
* "The Devil You Know"
A group of thieves steals a Taelon
weapon, one that destroys information instead of lives or property. When the
thieves take Lili hostage, she discovers a surprising connection with one of
them.
* "Law and Order"
Rho'ha, the homicidal Taelon from
"Pandora's Box," stands trial for murder -- the first time a Taelon
has faced a human judicial system. Boone and Sandoval are charged with defending
him in court. Prosecuting the case is Doors' son.
* "Through the Looking Glass"
The Taelons introduce
inter-dimensional travel at airports, portals that allow folks to travel across
the country in seconds. When a little boy disappears in transit, Sandoval and
the Taelons want to keep this information hidden from the public. Boone and the
liberation know, however, and they investigate.
* "Infection"
That pesky probe makes a return visit, and, of
course, it's causing problems. It's the source of a virus that's killing both
humans and Taelons. When a group of anti-Taelon white supremacists steal the
virus in the hopes of using it as a weapon, the crisis escalates. Edgy
stuff.
* "Destruction"
A human scientist's consciousness trapped
inside the probe reaches out to Augur. It has all the information about the
liberation recorded on it, and the Taelons are about to unlock it all. Now,
Boone and company plan an elaborate heist to get the probe out of the Taelons'
hands.
* "The Joining"
Turns out there are other aliens out there,
and they don't like the Taelons much either. One of these aliens has made it to
Earth, assumed a human's identity, and is on a killing spree. By the time it's
all over, Boone and Zo'or face each other one last time.
Basically, what we have here is a cop show with an alien twist. Every week there's some sort of cop show case that Boone has to handle. The twist comes in because Boone works for the Taelons, and not the police force, so every case involved the aliens in one way or another. A secondary twist comes in with Boone's secret association with the liberation, which usually gives Boone a counter-mission while working on every case. So the show has several layers. Throughout the course of any given episode, viewers have to remember all the motivations of the characters and their factions, even when those characters are acting to deceive one another.
At the center of the show, Kevin Kilner is the one who walks this line more than any other. When he is around the Taelons or Sandoval, he must act as if his humanity, for lack of a better world, has been dialed down to the point where all that remains is pure loyalty to the aliens. This makes him appear stiff and cold-hearted in many scenes. The thing is, this is his character putting on an act in front of his enemies. When we see the real him, usually around Lili, he's usually thinking like a cop, trying to find the best, most ethical way to strike back at the Taelons. Interestingly, this often puts him at odds with Doors, who is more interested in taking out the Taelons by any means necessary. Some of my favorite scenes are when Boone and Doors clash, because this where Kilner really gets to cut loose and show Boone's anger and frustration, even though he's letting it all out on someone who is on his side.
Still, the double agent scenario isn't without its flaws. Boone is constantly confronted by Da'an about how his actions serve the Taelons, and the explanations he gives feature such ludicrously roundabout logic, I'm shocked that Da'an always buys it. I would've thought that Da'an would say, "Whoa, even for me that's abstract." Instead, he always praises Boone for finding new and inventive ways to be faithful. I suppose it's possible that Da'an is onto Boone's secrets and is messing with Boone, but the writers never explore this.
That leads into the next interesting aspect of this show -- the aliens and their ambiguity. There's no denying that they're the bad guys, but, again, there are levels. Da'an is something of an anomaly among the Taelons. He has an interest in learning about human culture. He wants to connect with the humans in ways that the other Taelons do not. Still, he's not against squashing all over a human's basic rights for his own purposes. If Da'an is the "good cop" Taelon, then Zo'or is the "bad cop" Taelon. So'or is just a cold-hearted bastard. To him, humanity is just a tool to be used by Taelons, nothing more. The disagreements between Da'an and Zo'or, not unlike the disagreements between Boone and Doors, reveal that this not a "black and white" world. Here, the bad guys can be noble at times, and the good guys can be heartless at times. That makes the show exciting and unpredictable.
Hemblen and Flores are two actors who play things close to their chests. Hemblen doesn't get as much screentime and the regulars, but he always plays Doors with a kind of unstable cool, yet you always get the sense that there's all this rage just under the surface. Similarly, Flores plays it cool and even-tempered, but there's a feeling of huge intensity just under the surface, ready to explode. Contrary to this is Chevolleau as the quirky hacker (is there any other kind?), filling the comic relief duties. He's the rare comic relief who gets to be both funny and sexy-cool at the same time.
As Lili, Lisa Howard gets to play the tough girl quite often, and she clearly has fun with that. She gets to show some humor as well in moments when it's just her and Boone. Plot-wise, though, she's the people mover. Her job is to fly the alien shuttle, and get the characters from place to place. The shuttle is a cool creation, and one of the iconic images of the series. It looks a little like a bug, with some parts of it held together by glowing energy fields, and different parts of it move around based on whether its landing or going inter-dimensional or whatever.
The production values are nice throughout. The alien makeup jobs are freaky but kind of cool, as expected from a Roddenberry-related show. The alien sets have an organic, almost coral-like look to them. Then there's the CGI. For a 1990s syndicated TV series, the show employed a lot of CGI effects, more than most others of its kind. Some effects, like aforementioned shuttle and the Taelons in their all-blue energy forms, still look quite good. Other effects, such as some bluescreen shots or the rarely-seen Taelon mother ship, are a little clunkier. The slightly more cerebral nature of the show means there's not as much action as others of its kind, but the action scene are nicely staged for what they are.
The picture quality on this five-disc set is surprisingly good, with bright, vivid colors and details that pop right off the screen. The sound does its job with all dialogue, score, and effects coming through nicely. The best of the extras are the commentaries, hosted by Roddenberry's son, Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry, who was a writer and technical advisor the series. He's joined by various actors, writers and directors on tracks for six episodes. There are two featurettes, one an overall retrospective on the show, and the other on "the Roddenberry philosophy." The younger Roddenberry also provides a short intro to the series on the first disc.
You know what's missing from this show? A sense of paranoia. Boone and Lily talk openly about the liberation while in Boone's office, or out on the street, and he takes calls from Sandoval while he's inside liberation headquarters, and so on. I kept wondering how he could be so comfortable in his double life, and why he wasn't constantly looking over his shoulder.
In summary: Fun show, good acting, and interesting ideas. Now the bad news -- as fans already know, the series was significantly retooled after this season, and it was retooled even more radically in later seasons. This season is your one and only chance to enjoy "classic" Earth: Final Conflict before it became "the new" Earth: Final Conflict.
Naaahh-sharraaahh-faaahh. (Translation from Taelon: "Not
guilty.")
Review content copyright © 2009 Mac McEntire; Site layout and review format copyright © 1998 - 2013 HipClick Designs LLC
Scales of Justice
Video: 90
Audio: 85
Extras: 85
Acting: 90
Story: 85
Judgment: 87
Perp Profile
Studio: Universal
Video Formats:
* Full Frame
Audio Formats:
* Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (English)
Subtitles:
* English
Running Time: 914 Minutes
Release Year: 1997
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Distinguishing Marks
* Introduction
* Commentaries
* Featurettes
Accomplices
* IMDb
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0123816/combined
* Theme Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y7rSIyrew4