Earth Final Conflict: Season 5 - Best Episodes

[Mal]

What are the best episodes of EFC S5?

Before you point out that "best" and EFC:S5 are contradictions, or claim that "best S5 ep" is just an oxymoron, I'll just say that I agree.

Season 5 of Earth Final Conflict is around 10 years old. (Yes, you are that old). And I've never seen it - despite the fact that I've seen Season 1 several times. In fact, Season 1 of EFC is one season of Sci Fi that I am most fond of.

But it must be the general lack of good TV scifi now that there is no Star Trek, no nBSG, no new WHO eps for a while, and since I've seen B5 only about a dozen times, I needed something different. Anything really.

And so in desperation I turned to Season 5 of Earth Final Conflict. (I'll admit, my first instinct was to watch the later seasons of Andromeda, but I couldn't even get through all of Season 3. It was that bad.)

There are at least two episodes that I think are actually quite good:
5x19 Subversion, and
5x16 Deportation.
Both episodes would be highly entertaining to anyone who enjoyed Babylon 5, or even some of the darker DS9 episodes.

There are two somewhat fun romps through history,
5x15 Grave Danger is EFC's take on Indiana Jones. And if you're willing to be silly, it is fun; and
5x10 Legacy has quite an endearing Othello, and manages not to be racist at all.

The episodes with where they bring back Boone are sadly somewhat of a waste (Boone's Awakening and Boone's Assassin), but Renee gets a much better boyfriend in 5x17 Honour and Duty, which for some reason reminded me of the old War of the Worlds TV show. I'm not sure why.

And finally there are two episodes that do a good job of humanizing the Atavus (which are the aliens that replace the Talons and Juridians in Season 5):
5x18 Bad Genes, and
5x09 Entombed.

Add in Death Suite, Atavus High, and Deep Sleep (511, 512, and 513), and you have a fairly reasonable season of TV.

Is Season 5 of Earth Final Conflict terrible? Yes.

It is godawful. The first 4 episodes are an abomination, the last 2 episodes are utter crap, and frankly, without Boone, Lilly, Doors, Da'an, Zo'or and Auger - how the fuck can they even call this the same show?!? The action is comical, the plots are weak, there are far too many clip-shows, and even Sandoval is much less compelling when he doesn't have a decent foil to work with. Don't even get me started on the ridiculousness of turning EFC into Renee the Atavus Slayer. FUCK!

But that said, if you do want a pain-minimizing experience of EFC S5, I would recommend:

5x05 Boone's Awakening

5x09 Entombed

5x10 Legacy

5x11 Death Suite

5x12 Atavus High

5x13 Deep Sleep

5x15 Grave Danger

5x16 Deportation

5x17 Honour and Duty

5x18 Bad Genes

5x19 Subversion

They are just a youtube click away. So go ahead, waste a day

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

I did actually spend a slow day watching some of these episodes recently.. And I can't get that day back.

There are NO good episodes for the fifth season of this show. Even the fricking opening narration makes me retch. No point going over what you wrote, but I applaud you for being geek enough to go through with it... Many of us can't make it. My advice to all, just don't. Please don't. You'll want to tell people how awful it is if you do.

Mark

 

[The Wormhole]

To be honset, I haven't bothered with season 5 since it originally aired. I did not feel incnlined to get it on DVD with the rest of the series.

But this is not about my history with EFC. I only bring that up to point out that my memory of the season is extremely hazy to the point of being non-existent. But I seem to remember Boone's Assassin, the one where Zo'or is resurrected as an Atavus and sent to kill Boone as actually being half-decent, so I'll vote that as the best of the season.

But, man, most of the time the show was just "Atavus hybrid chamber of the week." This week it's in a hospital, a health spa, a high school. What a painful year.

 

[DeepSpaceWine]

I watched Earth: Final Conflict during its original run. I knew in advance thanks to the internet that EFC Season 5 and X-Files Season 9 would be horrendously bad, at least to the standards of each series. I didn't think I could handle that much crappiness at the same time, and back-to-back days in the week too, so I chose to watch just 1 show. I chose EFC because as much as a trainwreck as it seemed to be, X-Files seemed a bigger trainwreck. Of course, X-Files was chugging along at much greater speed, so it made a bigger crash. EFC was cruising at oh, about 15mph (slow motion trainwreck).

I watched it, saw almost all episodes, but you know what, very few episodes stick in my head. I have a good memory with many tv shows' episodes and seeing a title usually makes me recall at least the basic story in the least, though a number of EFC's blur a bit, even previous seasons (probably a result of being hour 4 of a 4-hour action block and EFC being consistently mediocre vs. DS9, Hercules, Xena). It was a chore to watch it and I'm guessing I glazed over and my mind felt the memories weren't worth recording during several eps. But saying all of that, in the absence of a good or pretty good sci-fi series, it is watchable.


I'd also recommend Star Trek: Voyager for sci-fi fans who are looking for something to watch. It wasn't horrible, it just didn't live up to people's expectations. Its reception was so vitriolic because the haters were passionate about it whereas the fans (myself included) were not as passionate, feeling it to be fairly good but not really good or good but not great. It lives up to the Star Trek name for quality of production. It looked like a full production, something many other UPN shows can't say (they looked like lower than average budget syndicated series). It has some episodes people feel are really bad, but come on DS9 has "Profit and Lace", "Ferengi Love Songs" and TNG has some real pieces of crap too. And it's 7 seasons or any 4 seasons were better than Enterprise on the whole, though Season 3 (Xindi Arc) was among the finest Star Trek season ever. Season 4 was much better than lackluster Season 1-2 but suffered some of its own issues (too much TOS references and themes all to please the fans, felt too self-referential, too many arcs, horrendous ending).


Other series: Highlander (Seasons 3-5 considered the best. Season 6 considered rather weak, Season 1 slightly boring. Maybe Season 2 is a good starting point), Adventures of Sinbad (campy, low budget yet endearing, cast felt like it had very strong camaraderie. Season 2 is depressing though due to Tribune-esque interference and Bryn < Maeve). Not sure about Mortal Kombat, Crow, Lost World, Sheena, Relic Hunter. Avoid at all costs Conan (the live-action show; the cartoon was great, a hidden gem), Tarzan, Highlander: Raven (alienated Highlander fans, an Immortal actress who's afraid of a sword, didn't attract new viewers either). Beastmaster is another lackluster Tribune series, Mutant X is Tribune rips off X-Men but takes what should be a cool idea and makes it 10 layers of blandness. From someone who read a lot of X-comics in the '90s, it didn't get me with the 1st episode and 2 episodes in, I stopped watching. Baywatch Nights was supposedly legendarily bad. I'd like to hear from a glutton for punishment to watch EFC Season 5 and Baywatch Nights Season 1 & 2 to get a sense of what's worse.


Refreshing what little memory formed of Season 5 and looking at episode synopses...
The Boone episodes were mildly interesting. "Termination", they hyped that it had Margot Kidder. Can't remember if it was any good or not. "Atavus High" was laughably bad and really seemed to cement this was Renee the Atavus Slayer. Might be campy once you get past the initial atavus revulsion. The episodes involving the Stonehenge Atavus presence seemed mildly intriguing ("Entombed", "Legacy"?). "Deportation" was obviously social commentary along with Enterprise "Detained". Can't remember it though. Yulyn added a little more dimension to the season in the end though the ending few eps were very lackluster (yet better than "These are the Voyages..."). Sorry I couldn't be of more help despite being one of the few original viewers it seemed to have. I wasn't drunk or high during any of the episode viewings... I just can't remember it.


And Andromeda. I watched part of that series.
* Saw Season 1, knew it was crappy sci-fi and could see from a mile away Sorbo was going to pout until it was Hercules in space. I liked Hercules, but he didn't have much leverage with shaping the show because he was a no-name until it got big (though he did in the end, choosing to end it because he hated being on an island on the opposite side of the world from Hollywood). Its quality ranged from better than EFC's middle seasons at times to below EFC's average quality. Rommie & Trance were big plusses. With better writers, Rommie could have been a major sci-fi character. Da'an was, though thank's to the series' obscurity and going down the tubes, Da'an/Leni Parker isn't remembered alongside Spock/Nimoy. Her performance was the diamond amongst the coal, graphite, and buckyballs that was EFC.

* Season 2- Watched thru "Ouroboros" (when Wolfe was forced out), saw a few episodes beyond. My interest steeply dropped off after 2 or 3 episodes. Even before "Ouroboros", the quality wasn't that good. Over its run Andromeda felt like it had sub-EFC quality.

* Season 3- saw parts of 2 episodes, complete crap. In what fragments I saw, it seemed very inconsistent. I felt there was better crap to waste time watching. I;ve heard look for the episodes written by Stentz & Miller (?). Supposedly they were the only ones to care about keeping to the Season 1-2 style, not Hercules in Space.

 

[The Wormhole]

the ending few eps were very lackluster (yet better than "These are the Voyages...").

That's not really saying anything though, is it? It's not very hard to make a better finale than TATV. Most TV shows (even the truly horrible ones) can pull that off.

Although, having Riker walk in and say "Computer, end program" might have made for a better ending to EFC's finale then what we got...

 

[Mal]

I knew in advance thanks to the internet that EFC Season 5 and X-Files Season 9 would be horrendously bad, at least to the standards of each series.

Why was Season 5 of EFC so bad? I mean, obviously a lot changed from Season 1 to Season 2, but frankly there were big chunks of Seasons 3 and 4 which were not bad at all. Good even.

So what happened with Season 5? Behind the scenes, that is.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I remember we here who used to follow the show, referred to season five as Renee The Atavus Slayer (oops I see Mal already referenced it lol) , because that's basically what it turned into. I can't think of a single good episode in season five that I liked. They wasted the return of Boone...I can't recall now...but Liam was gone as well right? I liked Liam.

 

[DeepSpaceWine]

Why was Season 5 of EFC so bad? I mean, obviously a lot changed from Season 1 to Season 2, but frankly there were big chunks of Seasons 3 and 4 which were not bad at all. Good even.

So what happened with Season 5? Behind the scenes, that is.

They got rid of Liam. While he was mediocre, whatever "it" is that allows people to follow a series and get behind the lead character, the actor had "it". Some unknowns have it (Liam's actor did, the Highlander Duncan actor did), some don't. Renee's actress was ok as a mediocre supporting character or sidekick, but as a lead, she was really lackluster.

As big, they got rid of Da'an. Da'an and the actress under all that makeup and latex was really the bright spot for the whole show. No Da'an = no Da'an-Zo'or back and forth, which was as good as Spock vs. McCoy. It seemed like the actresses really had a fun time in those scenes.

Sandoval's lines/direction made him 1-dimensional. He had previously been 2-dimensional, occasionally 3-dimensional.

They brought back Boone for 2 episodes, and it was completely dull and not memorable. They brought back Zo'or briefly too, with an Atavus makeover. Yeah, forgettable end.

No Taelons, no ambiguous aliens that are somewhat manipulative of humanity while being slightly helpful, just the Atavus. Not the 1st kind of Atavus, not the 2nd kind of Atavus, but a new 3rd kind of Atavus that literally came out of nowhere (except for an ambiguous mention of 'The Others' in Season 4). Cheap rubber suits, neanderthal makeup, cheesy vampire premise, lead villain more obsessed with a piece of that bland blonde ass (Renee) than any grander agenda.

It basically lobotomized all the interesting elements out of EFC though did keep the conspiracy-weaving aliens plot generator for episodes. It did feel like "Renee the Vampire Slayer", which was funny because Buffy's ratings had declined since peaking in 1999, so trying to copy it in 2001 seemed a little weird. It kind of became the epitome of Tribunization and EFC viewers suffered whiplash from all the changes. Season 3 & 4 weren't bad at all, and rebounded from the unevenness of Season 2.

 

[The Wormhole]

Why was Season 5 of EFC so bad? I mean, obviously a lot changed from Season 1 to Season 2, but frankly there were big chunks of Seasons 3 and 4 which were not bad at all. Good even.

Honestly, season 5 just felt like no one was bothering to put any effort into the show. Like I said above, half the time it was just "Atavus Hybrid Chamber of the week" in which Renee travels to various laocations like a hospital, health spa, high school, whatever to destroy an Atavus Hybrid Chamber and thus foil the evil Atavus plans for another week. The episodes weren't entertaining and a times copied stories previously done in EFC. I ain't talking taking a premise from season 1 and offering a different spin on it, there was one season 5 episode which I swear was the exact same story as the previous week's episode. The episodes were largely predictable and their "plot twists" were so obvious that the only people who would have been surprised were people who missed the beginning of the episode. And two clip episodes.

Really, I think it came down to all the story arcs were reolved in season 4, but since they had to do one more season they just said "to hell with it" and threw any old random crap to fill time.

 

[Isadorabelle]

I think that season five could've been great. Before anyone starts throwing rotten vegetables, let me explain!

If it wasn't EFC but another series entirely, I would've been interested. Howlyn, Juda, Zo'or-with-breasts, they were hot. And, the idea of an alien race being ressurected only to be the dominant sentient life on Earth before us is an interesting story. But, I loved EFC not because of hot life sucking vampire aliens bent on screwing, eating or turning humans, but because of oddly attractive and other worldly aliens that had these complex motivations and intensely complex personalities and relationships.

What I enjoy and appreciate about EFC is humanity and the Taelons, not season 5 and not really the Jaridians or stereotypical human-alien heroes. (that's why my rpg and fan fiction is season one.)

But as far as the best season 5 episode goes, I'd say Boone's Assassin. Boone was a great character that never should've been 'retired' and you get to see Zo'or being...awesome. Finally the outside and biological abilities seem to reflect the person within!