Invasion planète Terre

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)

The pilot episode written by Gene Roddenberry is excellent, but the show goes nowhere, all hugger mugger and no real story. Roddenberry's basic idea, that contact between humans and superior aliens will not be all black and white but will be filled with ambiguities, is a good one. Later writers, however, think in terms of good aliens and bad aliens. The use of female actors to play androgynous aliens was a good idea, but in later seasons everybody except Da'an overdoes it. In the third season, there are a number of scripts by Howard Cheykin, who is an excellent writer, and who wrote some memorable episodes of The Flash TV series, as well as some great graphic novels. However, he is unable to do anything here, because he is locked in to what is really not a workable story line. I have not watched the fifth season, but I have read that it throws out most of what was established in the first four. For scifi completists only.

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.

I really enjoyed this series when it first came out. Although the idea of benevolent-seeming aliens with ulterior motives is not new (see the original Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man"), EFC gave it a new and fresh approach. Add to that the intrigue between Da'an and Zo'or and the other Taelons, the power struggles within the Resistance, and the Machiavellian Sandoval, and you had a story with some real promise.

Unfortunately, the loss of Kevin Kilner as Boone towards the end of the first season, signaled the beginning of a string of cast changes that disrupted the continuity of the series and the story line (to paraphrase a line from "The Outlaw Josey Wales": when I get to liking a character, they don't stay around very long). Robert Leeshock put in a fine performance as Liam Kincaid; but I felt Liam became less interesting the more "human" he became. As part alien, he straddled both sides of the fence and could bond with Da'an in ways that no human ever could; but as a human, he was just one more resistance fighter.

Another disturbing trend--and maybe it's my own imagination--was the tendency to cast women based on their brassiere sizes. I thought nothing of it with Lisa Howard--I thought her portrayal of Lili Marquette was first-rate--but then with the introduction, shortly after Lili's disappearance, of Jayne Heitmeyer as Renee Palmer, I became more suspicious. The final straw was Lori Alter's well-endowed and scantily-camisoled Ehrengraf wrestling with Liam in the final moments of "Emancipation". All we needed was the Jell-O. Were they TRYING for the adolescent male audience? I'm not criticizing the acting abilities of any of these women; I'm just saying that it was hard to take the series seriously after that.

Finally, would it have been rocket science to choose a less transparent name than Doors International? Jonathan DOORS--Bill GATES??? (Not to mention Microsoft WINDOWS(R)!)

I can't comment at all on the fifth season--once I saw the Atavus appear and started reading some of the story lines, it just became too painful to bear.

E:FC Review:

This part goes for the first season: E:FC was one of the most promising science fiction series I ve ever seen. The talons where so completely differnt from all the other alien races in other series. These were no humans with cheap makeup in the face (star trek anybody?), or the nasty nasty aliens from trash sci fi. This race were different. They had their goals, they had their owns definition of moral. But even though they have made "mistakes" in the first season too you always believed that they wanted to help the people. But not only the talons were good. The leading character (Boon), a spy working for the talons and the resistance at the same time. Wearing a alien life form as weapon, lost his wife due to the deeds of the talons, getting a good friend of Da'an. This character was really promising. So was Sandoval, who acted like he acted cause he had a working CVI. IMO the best story of the show was Sandovals freed from the CVI for a short time. Thats were you were able to see the real depth and tragedy of this character.

Now to the later seasons:

I hate them. They destroyed everything that was differnt about E:FC. Just take the new main character Liam. This guy got no past, no personality and he even loses his alien side! "Wheres your shakarawa liam? Oh, I lost it..." DOH!!! And on the top of this the talons became more and more the evil aliens we all know from thousand other science fiction stories...

I suggest you watch the first season of this series. Its really worth it. But then forget it. Dont watch the later seasons. They are destroying everything.