Earth: The Final Conflict -- is it any good?

I've thought about renting this series, do you think it's any good?

 

The first season was great. Then, in season 2, the lead was fired and the show was deliberately dumbed down. It never recovered from there, though I'm told that season 4 was a slight improvement over seasons 2 and 3. I never saw it. I had stopped watching by then. I did see a lot of season 5 though and consider it the show's ultimate low point. The show was retooled once again, the second lead had been fired and the entire cast with one exception had already moved on by then.

 

Season 1 is definitely worth watching.

And if you don't want to ruin this experience, you should stop watching there, even if that first season has an open end.

 

I've only seen season 1. It's worth taking a look at, but I can't give an opinion for the later seasons.

 

Seasons 2-4 are actually decent and entertaining, even if I'm one of the ten who thinks so.

Season 5 doesn't exist to me.

 

Most fans agree that Season 1 is the best -- quite a few would say it's the only good one, in fact. I wouldn't quite go that far, but subsequent seasons were definitely of lower quality than the first.

So, yeah, Season 1 had some good stuff. Season 2 was a mixed bag, with a number of dumb episodes, but it picked up a bit towards the end. Seasons 3 and 4 were halfway decent. Season 5 was almost like a completely different show, which in and of itself might not have been so bad, but unfortunately the execution was terrible; as a result, the final season was mostly a mess.

 

Only one good season? Looks like this will be an inexpensive enterprise.

 

Yeah, one reasonably good season - the rest sucked eggs.

 

Like Andromeda after it, the tribune tried to micromanage everything after the first season and completely screwed it up.

 

It's settled then. I found E:FC S1 (that abbreviation is a mouthful) at Newbury Comics for $22. I'll purchase the set and sell it to FYE if I don't like it. Either way, I'll post my thoughts about the season here.

If I like the first season then, upon review, I might consider renting the rest of the series at a future point. From the sound of it though, probably not.

 

Missed the first season, so I can only tell you about seasons two through five.

They had a different lead, Kevin Kilner, in season one, then in season five, they promoted Jane Heitmeyer (if I remember the spelling correctly) to lead. So, practically speaking, they had three different shows. The latter two were not very good, they were character driven: What drives you to watch the show is a fondness for character(s). In this case, Sandoval, played by Von Flores. Mr. Flores is Filipino, so you will not have seen him, but he makes the show worth watching in seasons two through four. He was apparently too expensive (!) to be full time by season five, but if you like Jane I suppose even it would be tolerable.

 

Season 1: good. Season 2: terrible. Season 3: bad. Season 4: shockingly decent. Season 5: an abomination before the lord.

 

As someone who watched the entire series on live television, I can share with you some of my insights.

SPOILERS....... (for those who have not seen the series)





Season 1 had, what I consider to be the best ensemble, casting, and writing of the entire the series (although the writing after Sandoval's Run (a huge high point of season 1) would begin to give us a glimpse of what was to come). THe chemistry on screen with all of the characters (Boone AND DA'AN together specifically) was a high point. Lilli, Augur, Doors, and especially Sandoval where are pivotal parts of the series that exemplified the potential of greatness that many (myself included) expected for this series.

Again, this is not to say that there were no clunker episodes that I wish could have been jettisoned, but for a first season, it showed much promise. I remember people complaining that it was too cerebral or not enough "action." I also remember that people complained about some of hte special effects (which were are there early stages of development for television). Despite some of these complaints from my friends, I thought that there were some great episodes that made you question the moral ambiguity of the characters and their motivations. Boone was truly caught in the middle of a world where the Tealon's and the Liberation were truly ambiguous. The slow reveal of who and what the Tealons were about were great high points for series 1.

The ending of season 1 left me completely shocked since I was not aware of what was to come. It definitely picked my interest to come back and see the further adventures of EFC.

What came after season 1, was for me, a disappointment

***SPOILERS*******

Boone was "killed off at the season 1 and his death was "confirmed" in the beginning of season 2 when they brought in the character of Liam Kincaid. You also had major upheaval since most of the writers and producers left the series (such as Richard Okie). The series was never the same and Tribunes meddling (liek what they did to Anromeda) was to make it more "action packed" while dumbing down the series.

Unfortuneately, most of the cast left throughout the series. Lilli went on maternity leave and was written out of the show at the begining of season 3. Augur left at the beginnig of season 4, Doors was killed midway in season 3, and the total blow to the serieswas at the end of season four when they got rid off Da'An and Zo'or (and yes even Liam).

Season five, IMHO, was an abomination of the series. All of your interesting characters (except for Sandoval) were gone. Renee Palmer, Lilli's replacement and series 5 lead) became an "ubber-buffy the vampire-esque" character that was unrecognizable (besides I was not a fan of her acting). The Tealons were gone and replaced with the Atavus, vampire wanna-be aliens that were suppose to be the progenitors of the Tealons and Jaridians. Although the tried to tie back much of hte shows mythology to this new season, it really was another show and should have been so. Although certain characters (Boone and Zo'or) returned briefly, they were unceremoniously gotten rid of (Zoor, as an Atavus was killed in a shuttle fight with Renee and Boone was "killed off-screen"). Liam at least did return for the final episode. BUt by this point it was just plain awful.

Postings on this board and others suggested that most of these changes through out the series run ere due to financial considerations. Although I understand the importance of staying in budget, I wish the writers would have found ways to improve the writing/stories so that they could stay within budget and keep the original cast (and the season 2 additions) and toss out the expensive CGI. But the writing, especially in the later seasons (season 5) really declined and did not help the series in any way.

 

Well, you might be in for a some confusion as season 2 has yet to be released on DVD. All the other seasons are (although seasons 3-5 are out of print).

Season one was the best season all around. Strong episodes and nice building of an overall story.

Season two, they changed gears. The first half of the season is very stand alone, save for a few minor arcs. It also features nearly every staple of sci-fi (time travel; alternate universes, etc). The latter half of the season starts to pick up again when they give us a strong story arc that caps off the season. The end of the season actually ends pretty strong.

Season three follows on this wave and I personally thought it was good. Not out of this world fantastic, but not terrible either. However, there is very little arc development and it is mostly standalone.

Season four, I would argue, is on par with season one and it wrappes the series up in a nice package.

Then there is season five, which I have no idea what they were thinking. They should have just marketed it as a spin-off and be done with it.

 

Crap. I wish you didn't say that.

For the past three years I've been developing a script. I took on a partner a year-and-a-half ago who's indicated that one of the characters I'm writing is similar to Sandoval.

That's part of what prompted me to watch the series. That and I gave Andromeda a shot 10 years ago (only watched half the first season), so why shouldn't I give Earth: The Final Conflict a chance too?

For a while, Gene Roddenberry was like the Tupac Shakur of sci-fi.

 

Now all we need is a conspiracy theory claiming Roddenberry is still alive.

 

There's no "the" in Earth: Final Conflict.

Seasons 1-4 are quite good, season 5 is a different show that just happens to have the same name.

It's like calling Crusade "Babylon 5 season six".

 

I found a way to watch all the seasons and I just watched "Decision". Overall: I enjoyed the pilot and I became more interested as the episode unfolded. It's very '90s and the series almost lost me during the first half of the pilot but it picked up once Boone's wife appears. I was surprised to see Lisa Ryder in the role.

After Kate Boone dies and William Boone meets with the Taleons again, one look from Sandoval told all I needed to know. It was obvious to me that Da'an had set up Boone to change his mind. From that point, I was hooked. Even better was that Boone realized the Taelons were likely responsible for his wife's death. I'm glad I wasn't reading into what's not there.

The alien asthetic is creative looking and different from Star Trek. The down-to-Earth stuff not so much. Though it's too generic, that might be the point, to show contrast and give a contemporary feel. I like the almost adrogynous appearance Da'an has, and I assume the rest of the Taleons have. It reminded me of Talosians in "The Cage".

 

Although I think this is all stated in the first episode... Maybe not?

Spoiler: Too much revealed?

It's been a while since I've seen the episode, but IIRC Da'an and the Taelons didn't actually have anything to do with his wife's death.

Rather, it was purely Sandoval acting on his own due to what he believed was the Taelon's best interests, accented by his CVI. Sandoval saw Boone as a valuable resource for the Taelon's so did the extreme in order to acquire him for them, but did so independently.

 

All of that pseudo-erotic Avatus hissing and heavy breathing and mugging at the camera bullshit was just.... stupid. I never bought these salivating morons as superior beings. They were basically "sexy" versions of the Wraith in SG-1.