User reviews

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.

Believe me I wanted this series to work, but the early departure of Kevin Kilner dealt a near death blow after season one. Robert Leeshock just wasn't right for the part and Jane Heitmeyer did an admirable job as lead but the series just got too messy and confused at that point. I don't know what happened in Season Five, what a mess. Sometimes its time to drop the red cape and just stick the sword in the bull, if you know what I mean. The only consistent thread holding the series together were the amazing performances of Leni Parker and Anita LaSelva as the two Taelons in quiet idealogical conflict. If not for their talents and well-written dialogue they would have been two weird bald man-chicks in a B-movie series.

If only this series could have ended at season 4 and picked up later by SyFy...

This series needs a prequel.. It opens up on the day Da'an arrives but what happened before this? Why was there never a back story? What made the Taelons choose Earth? How did they overcome the Fear and distrust from the people of Earth?

I'd Love to see a prequel!!!!

Watching Final Conflict on IMDB now, never saw the final season in 2002. The show does start out very promising & for me continues thru season 3 were i am now. I also found the " humanizing" of Liam disappointing.wish there could be a re-make with great si-fi writers.

I never heard of this series when it was running...pretty busy during those years. I accidentally came upon it at Amazon and hunted down the first episode. I WAS HOOKED!! I can't stop! This series is amazing! Mystery, intrigue, twists and turns.....just when you think you know whats going to happen...BAM, something else happens! The story lines are extremely well written and the characters, and their development, are fabulous, especially the two main Taelon characters, Zo'or and Da'an. The actress who plays Zo'or is amazing at portraying haughtiness and arrogance! I love hating the character!

I am in the middle of Season 3 and find it hard to stop watching one after another. I watched all five seasons of Andromeda two years ago, proclaiming it as my all time fav, but this series has knocked it out of first position. Earth Final Conflict is now my all time favorite and I HIGHLY recommend this series!

I could not trudge through more than a couple of episodes. And apparently, it starts off brilliantly then falls on it's face. It's hard to imagine that. Did they invent technology in the later season to actually punch viewers in the face?

From the start it's just horrible. 1960s soap opera horrible. Wooden acting, but at least they have unconvincing dialogue to deliver badly. Comical effects and prosthetics, which no one can see so they leave in the part where everyone is impressed by the weak spaceships and tiny sets. Impossibly trite storylines. Stupid characters, who cannot see the obvious and argue because that is what is on the page.

I'll give low-budget SF a chance if it tries. Babylon 5 is watchable to me, as an example. Hell, I watched half of The Starlost, and it was badly butchered and is cheap as hell. But no, just no to Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict.

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.

If I had to give two reasons why this show failed I think I'd go with: low budget and bad writers. Unfortunately the scripts are dire, the dialogue is difficult to watch and the science is more than a little sketchy. Each episode tries to play like the x-files but it just doesn't work. They'll introduce one new character and then flood you with endless reams of dialogue with this character that you know is going to vanish in the next episode. At the end of the episode you will come away with one tiny additional fact about the main characters and be left thinking '45 minutes for that'. EFC might have been better as a trilogy of movies as the information revealed during one season could be encapsulated in 90 minutes of video. For its time the scifi was up to scratch and combined with the androgeny of the alien species you are dragged through season one by sheer fascination. However, the novelty fails when nothing changes in season two and the sci-fi budget appears to drop like a bomb. Could have been a very good show - I cant really go into much detail about the isolation of the plot but you'll get the jist in a few episodes.

Their are literally thousands of earth like planets in the universe and for an alien race to pit itself against humanity for this planet seems really unlikely for an advance race that has the ability to transform a dead planet into an actual earth. Their are no bad aliens just bad humans. So many of these movies demonize Intelligent life forms as evil beings which is not plausible at all. Sorry Gene you missed the mark on this story telling. RIP.

Very cozy sci-fi show in TV theater fashion with solid multilayer symbolic meaning, campy action, bold plot twists and simple moral messages. I call this sub genre "Second Wave Invasion" (Aliens don't hide themselves). Many viewers say that Season 2, 3 and 4 don't have the same intellectual level as Season 1. I disagree. First of all, it's TV fiction - my imagination is strong enough to fix any plot hole, and my political background is big enough to understand what was hidden from the casual viewer. Plus, I always assume that I don't have the full data about fictional situation. Second, there are pretty witty and smart episodes in Season 3. For example. Episode 2, when Liam framed Sandoval's blond girl agent. It was great to see stone cold Sandoval being hit with his own weapon. Final episode of Season 3 is pretty interesting too. As a russian I'm glad that our secret "Free Republic of Rostok" owns the Antarctica at last!)) Of course the style of the show makes some things look unrealistic, but political kitchen is well done. I start to get used to budget limitations and primitivism (in a good way), but then goes unexpected episode that shines with very "true to life" modern day conspiracy and tasty special effects. Some people even tried to convince me that Seasons 2-3-4 are not worthy of my "precious" time. Well, they were wrong in my case. I wasted my time on way way more useless things like Elections, Goverment serving, Casino playing and etc. I don't see any point of watching Season 1 without following the Taelon's mistery till the end. The story goes on giving the fuel for my endless curiosity. Season 4 was great in my opinion. Absolute majority of viewers say: "Whatever you think of Seasons 2-4, you should Fear the Season 5! It's not Earth-Final-Conflict anymore, but Buffy-The-Vampire-Slayer!" I will wait and see. I have nothing against Buffy, so I may like it. Let it be Buffy The Vampire Slayer then! Based on my current experience (Season 1-4), I give it 10 out of 10 (as I always do with watchable sci-fi movies and series). This litle medium budget sci-fi show has fantastic smooth designs, beautiful music, topical conspiracy themes about corruption, Invasion, LGBT, religion and etc. I'm hetero sexual earthling and I find nothing bad in Aliens being hermaphrodites, Aliens being good, bad and ugly. It's not SG-1, not enough humour and scale. It's not DS9/Voyager, not so epic and dramatic. It's in the field of Alien Nation, original V, Sliders and Seaquest. Watch it only when you finish the big shows.

P. S. Many people say Earth Final Conflict needs remake. I disagree once more. This show is Perfect in it's pleasant averageness. You can't reproduce it. It was done before 9/11 during the last golden era. It breathes 90s cable sci-fi aesthetic. And don't forget unique girls who played Taelons! Leni Parker and Anita La Selva - they did phenomenal job. Other actors were very good too. How can you "remake" them? I am strongly against remake in this case. Continuation is what I like in most cases.

UPD. At last, I have watched Season 5. I understand the confusion of many viewrs. It was like a shadow of the previous seasons filled with melancholia and withering. I believe - it was the point. It is the Final Conflict. When you are alone, and you struggle with yourself refusing to face your fate. Aside from philosophy there were some couple fun episodes, for example, I enjoyed the time travel and erotic romantic themes. I will borrow all 5 seasons on DVDs, it is nice peace of TV sci-fi history, in my opinion, and worthy of saving. No doubt, it would be censored or taken down for political reasons in the future.

Because technology is what it is now in 2022, looking at this 1997 series is laughable..., but enjoyable. Kincaid is hilarious! Augur is more hilarious!

One of the best things about this series is there is no PC scripting, no cookie cut characters, and no over sexualization.

If this show is ever rebooted, I'll probably hate it, but I really would like a good, well written reboot.

I had intended to watch this show for years, I finally started a few months ago. Now I wish I had not, the writing and the acting are beneath soap opera standards. Pitiful.

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.