TV Talk - Earth: Final Conflict Part 1

Next up for the month is a show that I sort of remembered from my childhood. The 90’s was a time where you had sci-fi shows popping up everywhere. A couple of them had the name of a certain sci-fi creator in the title: Gene Roddenberry. You may have heard of him. While Roddenberry is known for Star Trek, he did try to get other sci-fi shows made. Earth: Final Conflict was one of them, but it was under another name called Battleground: Earth. Work on Star Trek pretty much kept that from being made, and then, he passed away in 1991. Eventually, his wife,  Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, decided to take the torch and get it produced under Tribune Entertainment.

The show started in 1997 and ended in 2002. I pretty much was watching the show as it aired on FOX. I think it was also on UPN, but don’t quote me on that.  My family finally decided to get cable, and it was one of the shows that was part of this block on FOX. This station was also where I started to watch shows like Star Trek: DS9, the X-Files, reruns of TNG, Hercules, Xena, and a bunch of other stuff. It was a fun time. I also remember how tumultuous this show could be since it seemed like things changed from season to season. When I saw that it was on Amazon Prime, I had to check it out again. I originally was going to do a look at it by season, but as I started to watch more, one (or two) posts should do it since this wasn’t as good as I remembered.

Zo'or is that Taelon!

Earth: Final Conflict was about how the Taelon Companions come to present day Earth with the promise of peace. The show picks up three years later and the Taelons have more or less integrated themselves into everyday life. What they and others don’t know is that there is a human resistance movement being built up by billionaire Jonathan Doors (David Hemblen). William Boone (Kevin Kliner) is a detective who’s picked by the Taelons to protect Da’an (Leni Parker). Ronald Sandavol (Von Flores), the head Companion Protector, also plays a big role. Boone also ends up as a double agent for the Resistance as they try to find out why the Taelons are on Earth in the first place. He’s aided by Lili Marquette (Lisa Howard), Augur (Richard Chevolleau), and others.

Then, Season 2 comes and flips all that on the head. Without spoiling too much, Boone’s… gone and is replaced by Liam Kincaid (Robert Leeshock), a mixture of human and multiple alien species. The Taelons’ true motives are revealed as they are at war with a species know as the Jeridians. The Taelons also have Zo’or (Anita de Selva) as their leader, and he leads the Taelons to be more shady toward humanity. The show more or less keeps this format through the third and fourth season. We also get a few new faces in the Resistance like Renee Palmer (Jamie Heitmeyer) and Street (Melinda Denies).

Things really come to a head during Season 5 of the show. The pretty shady Taelons and warmongering Jeridians get replaced by the Atavus, an ancient precursor to both races. I have only one opinion on the Atavus… they suck. Also, we get another shift as Renee Palmer becomes the lead character. The only constant on the whole show is Ronald Sandavol. At least you know where he’s at! So, now that I’ve done this short recap of the show, what do I think?

PROS

While the show had its problems, I think it did have an interesting concept. The show kind of feels like a mix between The X-Files and V: The Miniseries. You had these aliens show up with the promise of peace… and things actually work at first. We really don’t run into issues until the show starts. At that point they’ve been on Earth for three years. Instead of Fox and Mulder working for the FBI, you got Boone/Kincaid working for the Taelons and sort of doing their bidding. The V part comes in as Boone/Kincaid is also working for the Resistance and trying to stop the Taelons from having their way with humanity.

If there’s one thing that made the series work, it would be the Taelons themselves. They were some interesting aliens. Even though they were non-binary, they’d rather be called “he” or “him.” I’m guessing this was before they/them was known as preferred pronouns. Anyway, the main ones we followed were Da’an and Zo’or. They were pretty much opposites with Da’an being more benevolent and peaceful. On the other hand, Zo’or was that Taelon you didn’t want to trifle with. Even when the show started to get less plot-heavy, you could count on those two being good characters to see.  

The human characters are okay for the most part. While there isn’t much depth to them, they can be entertaining. Boone was good for all the time he was around. He was just a normal cop thrown into a new way of life. Then, Kevin Kliner was let go (not sure what happened) and Robert Leeshock replaced him. While it took a while to get used to Liam Kincaid, I did come to like him over time. Other characters that were cool were Lili, Augur, Renee, and Jonathan Doors. By the way, you might recognize David Hemblen’s deep voice since he played Magneto on the 90’s X-Men cartoon.

One thing I wish the show did was to have these two meet. Season 5 had them in separate episodes, which is another reason why that season sucked.

Then, there’s Ronald Sandavol. If there’s another saving grace to the show, it’s him. Sandavol was pretty much the wild card on the show. You didn’t know what was going through that dude’s head. In some ways, he’s probably worse than the Taelons. At least they had a reason to be douches. As for him, he was mostly wanting to be on the winning side. Even when the Atavus crawled their annoying butts into the 5th season, Sandavol was still that jackass. While the series finale wasn’t good, just know that Sandavol gets his. Von Flores did that character justice throughout the whole show.

Ronald Sandavol: the show's biggest douchebag!

The plots on the show ranged from interesting to “meh”. The first season is pretty interesting since it stuck to its premise the most there. Stories would revolve around the Taelons being up to something and the Resistance trying to stop it. Season One was also more like the X-Files in how it handled things. The later seasons were much more action-packed, and while that wasn’t a good thing at times, it wasn’t bad either. Season Three is probably my favorite season of the bunch since they were able to find a middle ground with the action and story. You’d get a few guest stars like Majel Barrett, Marina Sirtis, Margot Kidder, and a few others.

The look for the show was nice. The Taelons and other aliens looked interesting. The technology the Taelons had looked cool. The visual effects weren’t too bad. This was the 90’s, so we were in the early-CGI era. While things didn’t look too good at first, the show did eventually get better with its special effects. Yeah, they could come off as cheap at times, but you can only do so much. They did start to look better with each season, though. Finally, the music was pretty good. The main theme was actually a pretty cool one. I barely skipped it on my rewatch.

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Well, this is going to be pretty long. I guess that let's you know that I got a lotta problems here. Anyway, skip on to part 2 where I'll go into the issues with the show and give some some highlights.