Earth: Final Conflict

When Kevin Kilner left at the end of the first season, the show lost it's heart. They killed off the principal character and his drive and the show shriveled up for a while. Leeshock and his character eventually adjusted but the story still suffered, with the Taelons having so many twists and turns that they lost all mystique; now Leeshock's character is presumably dead and now there's Heitymeyer and her character with an almost Buffy:the Vampire Slayer storyline. The show has lost it's direction more than once in 5 years-what else would you expect since Rodenberry's notes could only last so long and hack writers take over? and it's time that they brought things to a merciful end.

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.

EFC started out interesting, and I found myself anticipating it as a must-see. Then, characters left or got killed off, and others not so good (and mostly one-dimensional) appeared. Generally, the whole show started a very depressing slide to the point where I would avoid watching it, because it had turned from thought-provoking to downright hokey crap. No wonder that nearly none of the characters in the cast actually stayed for the entire series (just Sandoval, who wasn't a shining example of humanity, although capably rendered by Von Flores). For some reason, the creators kept getting rid of the good guys, making them mutate, or die, or whatever. Vacuous non-ending to something that started out with so much hope.

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)

I have been watching EFC since the beginning. For the most part the show is very good (season 1 to 4). During the fourth season the plot began to go down hill and the fifth season is only watchable for laughs (as only one person from the first season remained). Over all the scripts a well written and complex yet understandable. If you like shows about the little guy winning watch EFC.