Earth 2

Earth 2

A sci-fi series that aired on NBC in 1994-1995.

The Set-Up: The Earth has become uninhabitable. A super rich foxy chick puts together a mission to colonize a far off planet in an effort to find a cure for her sickly eight-year-old son’s condition, known as “the syndrome.” With futuristic technology that’s already outdated, they escape the mean ole government’s efforts to stop their leaving and crash on some planet 22 light years away. Once there, they migrate to their intended landing site called New Pacifica and slowly discover the planet’s many mysterious secrets. Gee, it seems someone’s been on this planet before . . .

Just so you know, in the future, all vehicles will be built by Hummer. Buy stock now!

Typical episode: An eagle cry echoes across the desert (every episode!). The group lounges around their campsite repairing things and doing scientific experiments. There’s lots of silly sci-fi jargon/exposition regarding the “rules” of the future. Antonia Sabato, Jr. has goofy visions about the planet with a funky shutter effect and percussion heavy score. Everyone reassures everyone else. One or both of the bratty kids wander off and do something stupid requiring the adults to panic. The husband, Morgan, wants a bigger piece of the pie and acts silly. Someone mentions that those Yale model cyborgs went bad a few years ago. I wonder if that will come up later . . . Clancy Brown grumbles something under his breath. The Terrians or Grendlers or human inhabitants have issue with the caravan. The doctor does some research, spouts off some pseudo-medical jargon and comes up with an answer! The Cyborg boils the adventure down to a single, easy-to-digest lesson. If Tim Curry is involved, there will be a scene where he quotes Shakespeare to himself.

A different character manages to narrate most (but not all) episodes without revealing an ounce of their personality.

The style: Star Trek plus Lost divided by Gilligan’s Island.

Similarities to Lost:

• The resident doctor is hot.
  
• Their fancy flying machine crashes for reasons unknown.
  
• There’s a married couple.
  
• The first night there, a dangerous creature is discovered in the forest/jungle.
  
• “We’re not alone.”
  
• Magical healing exists on the island/planet.
  
• Each episode focuses on a different character.
  
• A young boy is kidnapped by the mysterious denizens.
  
• A young boy has a psychic connection with their new home.
  
• The “castaways” meet up with a nut who has been on the island for 15 or 16 years.
  
• Numerous flashbacks to the crash.
  
• They find two human skeletons near their campsite.
  
• Terry O’Quinn.
  
• Clancy Brown.
  
• An abandoned cabin with a moving rocking chair.
  
• Ghostly visions.
  
• There is a mysterious transmission that has been going for many may years. 16 years vs. over 20.
  
• “I’m getting extreme readings here. An electro-magnetic pull.”
  
• Flash forwards.
  

Similarities to Gilligan’s Island

• The married couple is pampered and spoiled.
  
• The amount of scientific experiments is excessively absurd.
  
• A hell of a lot of people have journeyed to this island/planet.
  
• The show is silly and stupid.
  

Typical dialogue: “I’ve never seen such a rapid escalation in development. That horse, its genetic growth braking mechanism is not kicking in. If it continues growing at this pace, it’ll be dead in 48 hours.”

More Dialogue: “This passage may be a time-space fold. Think about it. We’ve said before that this planet is a living organism, with a very strong metaphysical plane. So possibly this tunnel could be part of a circulatory system. A means for the planet to transport things.”

More Dialogue: “On those Kemper one-tens, a good bump will usually lift the contacts right off the power harness.”

More Dialogue: “Well, True girl, I think that’s what happens to rain when it freezes. They used to call that “snow” back on Earth.”

Typical Tim Curry Dialogue: “Worked wonders, my friend. They won’t be going anywhere without the dune-rail’s vital organ. In days, I’ll have won them over.”

My Favorite Tim Curry Dialogue: “Why are you so wretched?”

Typical narration: “It’s like fear of the dark when you’re young. Only now being old enough to know the dark is real, and it’s coming after you. And maybe, just maybe, it is you.” <- Shades of Night Stalker.

My favorite episodes:

• 1.1 “First Contact” The show had promise. The crash. The Terrians reveal themselves. They are genuinely creepy, and I really like the effect where they rise out of the ground. The only special effect I like on this show.
  
• 1.4 “Promises, Promises” Tim Curry at his most evil. He’s a meanie. Antonio Sabato, Jr. narrates, but he’s barely in it. Other than that, this episode is mediocre.
  
• 1.8 “The Enemy Within” Terry O’Quinn in a big echoey room. I forgot that he shows up this early in the series. A traitor in their midst. A fairly uncomfortable episode. In fact, I kind of like this entire Terry O’Quinn arc. Even when Terrians are nice, they are creepy as hell. Talk about socially awkward. The allegory regarding drug abuse is lame. Cat fight! At the end, Yale rehashes everything that happened in the episode for no reason whatsoever.
  
• 1.17 “The Boy Who Would Be Terrian King” This episode cuts back and forth between the present, er current future, and the future future, where Uly has grown up to be a freedom fighter for the Native Americans, I mean Terrians. There’s a nice juxtaposition between 25-year-old Uly having grown apart from his mother due to politics, and 9-year-old Uly getting tucked into bed by his mother. Devon asks future Uly if they make it to New Pacifica. Uly changes the subject and doesn’t answer her. That was slick of the writers. The ending is a bit pandering, but mostly an enticing episode.
  

Least Favorite:

• 1.9 “Moon Cross” Sample dialogue: “This? It’s called hugging and touching. People – men and women do this when they know each other better. People limit this to their friends and their family.” Gag.
  
• 1.14 “The Greatest Love Story Never Told” By this point in the series, there are way too many secret sects of humans. It’s no longer mysterious when we meet people on this planet. It’s supposed to play like a wagon train western, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a western TV show I liked. Plus this episode is super fucking cheesy. And the mystical conversations in the bright white room where everyone speaks in profile – directed by Ingmar Bergman? And too many goddamn children. Fuck! I hate cutesy children! It is kind of cool to see Carnivale’s Patrick Bauchau and Clancy Brown in a scene together. But not cool enough.
  
• 1.15 “Brave New Pacifica” Spiders in love. I wretched up my lunch.
  

How many episodes were produced? 21.

Is there much continuity? There is a definite attention to continuity. Sabato, Jr. takes weeks to heal, but once he does it’s instantaneous. Guest stars generally hang around for four episodes before being written out. When winter hits, they set up camp and stay there for many, many episodes. Characters are consistent, but once the Terry O’Quinn arc plays out, most of the episodes are filler until it picks up again in the final episode. In the beginning, the mystery regarding the planet’s secrets are intriguing, but by the half way point, there is a definite here-we-go-again quality to every person they meet.

For the last few episodes, the writers drop the gimmick of having a different character narrate each episode. Yippee!

Unfortunately, a few episodes were aired out of order and remain out of order on the DVD. Thus, one character seems to be in perfect health when she fell into a coma the week before. In the two episodes that never aired, appearing after the final episode, some important shit happens. The geo-lock is found. And spring is brought about thanks to a magical whispy insect and some of the worst special effects I’ve ever seen. Considering that winter seems to be the biggest threat they face in getting to New Pacifica, I’m surprised they didn’t air the spring episode.

Why was it canceled? As far as I can tell, it just had so-so ratings. I can’t find much information on this particular show.

Was there closure? Nope. It ends with a cliffhanger, which was written to deal with the lead actress’ pregnancy. However, the series was not renewed for a second season, and the cliffhanger was never resolved.

Any unattended issues? Well, besides Devon being in a coma! Also they never make it to New Pacifica. They never come to terms with the Terrians. I suppose Riley is still a threat. Basically, there’s a shitload of unresolved stuff here.

The verdict: This show was filmed at my college during my freshman year there. Everyone was aware of it, but no one actually watched it. I think I saw more episodes of Seaqust than I did Earth2. I saw the premiere episode and just didn’t feel like watching anymore. Plus I didn’t have a TV at the time. This show makes me miss the Southwest.

The title sequence makes it look like some kind of ghetto Christian program. All sunsets and hugs and silhouettes.

The dude playing Morgan is far too goofy and adds to the Gilligan’s Island side of the scale. The main chick, Devon, is bland. The chick doctor is kind of cute. Antonio Sabato, Jr. does better with his role than I expected. Of all the actors, Clancy Brown does the best job of bringing some respectability to the proceedings. No surprise there.

This show had a lot of promise, but mostly it squandered it with dumb dialogue, iffy acting and cliched characters. For the first nine episodes, there is an ongoing mystery regarding the new planet, but at episode 10, the series settles in for more episodic, less threatening plots. And the show really suffers as a result. All tension between the characters becomes superficial and my curiosity about the planet’s cultures are never satisfied. It just feels underdeveloped and ultimately compliant.

Some of the problems I have with the series:

• Why the hell isn’t Devon more overprotective of her kid. To have juxtaposed her parenting to Danziger’s more laissez-faire parenting techniques would have been an excellent source of character development. Instead, they are both just generically overbearing the way most parents are.
  
• After episode ten, none of the characters they meet ever really pose a threat to New Pacifica. Isn’t that the whole point of the show – making it to New Pacifica.
  
• Their relations with the Terrians is way too friendly. There really needs to be more drama there – rather than just sometimes Terrians are nice, sometimes they are creepy.
  
• Why is Antonio Sabato, Jr able to talk to the Terrians. Doesn’t this bother anybody?
  
• The married couple seems to have an agenda early on, but it mostly falls to the wayside and they just become annoying and whiney.
  
• Sabato’s romance with the doc is nothing more than an excuse to watch two pretty people hold hands a lot.
  
• I never get a good headcount of how many people are in the caravan. In one episode, someone dies, but I can’t figure out who. All the usual extras seem to be there still. Battlestar Galactica posts a body count at the beginning of every episode. That might have helped here to know how many people there are at least once.
  

*according to some dude on the internet, the writers were all replaced mid-season and the show was changed to appeal to the Sunday night football crowd. However, I can’t find evidence of his online. The show definitely changes direction somewhere in the middle.

It could have been a good show, but it’s not. Or as the chick who plays the doctor says in the outtakes, “It’s so freaking cheesy!”