I grew up loving Earth: Final Conflict, so when I decided to start rewatching shows that I grew up with, this was naturally one of the first. Many years later, it still holds a lot of complex feelings about what it meant and especially what it could have meant if it wasn’t utterly sabotaged from season 2 onwards.
Like most people who claim to love this series, I loved season 1, and I barely tolerated the other 4. TV was different back in the late 1990’s, you generally stuck with a show until it ended simply because there was nothing better on, and that’s not saying much. The best episode, Sandoval’s Run, happens half-way through season 1, and that’s never a good sign. The show was based on some notes found after Gene Roddenberry passed away (you know, Star Trek’s Gene Roddenberry), and brought to fruition by his wife, Majel Barrett. Roddenberry’s plans clearly ran out when season 1 ended, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The show starts three years after a seemingly benevolent alien species (the Taelons) make first contact with Earth. They have improved almost all facets of our lives, from agriculture to medicine, though some still doubt their sincerity. In this sense, the series walks a middle line perfectly. The Taelons seem to have Humanity’s best interest a heart, yet they also have difficulty comprehending Humanity in general, like our need to explore the stars. “Why risk your lives when we can simply give you the information you seek?” You can see how that rings altruistic, but also with a hint of “What are they hiding?” The Resistance, on the other hand, surely must have our best interests at heart, yet they’re also lead by a “by any means necessary” extremist. An online marketing campaign at the time, even had you sign up for an account and newsletter either with the Taelons or the Resistance.
The star of the show is undoubtedly Leni Parker as Da’an, the Taelon Companion to North America. She brings the character to life in way that I have never seen before nor since. To this date, it is the single greatest portrayal of a humanoid alien I have ever seen on screen. She plays the androgynous character, who is referred to as male throughout, with an incredible feminine grace that is just slightly not human enough to be uncomfortably inhuman and yet incredibly comforting at times. The little things, like how they modulate her voice down for English, but let her natural voice shine through for the Taelon language is incredibly captivating. And for an alien race that generally does not show emotion, she often manages to convey profound sadness, anger, and fear from underneath that facade, many times outshining the rest of the cast. I can’t really come up any further description that does her portrayal justice, so I suppose you’ll just have to watch at least the first episode, it’s worth it.
The second best actor on the show is Von Flores as Ronald Sandoval, attache to Da’an. There’s an impressive conviction to his role, but he’s also the only character in all 5 seasons of the show. Technically he’s one of the villains, but this leaves the viewer in an odd position of following his story more closely, because he’s the only one you recognize throughout, and that just sort of highlights where the problems start.
Kevin Kilner as William Boone wasn’t the strongest actor on the show, but he was the lead for season 1, and he did provide a compelling narrative and almost a noir detective feel. Rumor has it that the studio didn’t renew his contract, so he was killed off-screen between the finale of season 1 and the premier of season 2 (I know, right?!), replaced by Robert Leeshock as Liam Kincaid, a far less engaging, far less mature, and I guess far younger character, but more of a “man of action.” He existed mostly to drag you through whatever was left of the plot. But, Kilner wouldn’t be the only departure. Throughout all 5 seasons, all of the main cast of season 1 left, except Flores. This wasn’t Game of Thrones either, most were not killed off for story or character development reasons, they just ceased to be on the show.
Rumor has it that Majel Barrett left after Kilner’s departure, which left producers scrambling to construct their own idea of where Roddenberry’s story went from there. They did not do a good job. Season 1 left us with a feeling that the Taelons needed us for something, and that we would need them to protect us against an terrifying cosmic force that even they feared. What we got were the Jaridians, a generic military alien that just didn’t like the Taelons, and we were in their way apparently for some reason, shrug. It was all downhill from there, gone was the intrigue of questioning whether or not the Taelons really were benevolent or malevolent. One of the main Taelon characters even launches a plan to steal all of the Earth’s gold “by any means necessary.” Remember when we didn’t know if these were the bad guys or not? Sigh. If you thought it stopped there, don’t worry, the Taelons and Jaridians merge and become vampires that feed off of the humans in season 5. Welcome to rock bottom.
This could have been such a great a show, the intrigue between the two factions was incredible, and the performance of the Taelon characters was captivating in a way that I have seen no other humanoid alien portrayed since. Yet when studio money took the forefront, all good things were lost, and it simply became disappointing and a constant reminder of what we could have had. I wish I could have seen this show fully conceived by either Gene Roddenberry or Majel Barrett, but that will simply never happen. Instead, we got proof that studio heads are a poor substitute for both.
Earth: Final Conflict is available for free on Amazon Video for Amazon Prime subscribers. Season 1 really is worth it, and I hope you love it as much as I did, just like I hope you’ll heed my warning to stop there.