he battle for Earth continues as Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict returns for its fourth season. Can the Resistance movement led by Major Liam Kincaid (Robert Leeshock) and Renée Palmer (Jayne Heitmeyer) challenge the Taelons? And just how do the Jaridians fit into things?
Executive producer Paul Gertz takes time out to reflect on E:FC's evolution and ruminate on where the show is going.
Can you catch viewers up on the mythology as the show enters its fourth season?
Gertz: Originally, we weren't sure what [the Taelons'] agenda was.
We knew they were doing nasty things to humanity; we weren't quite sure if they were benevolent dictators--or if there was a problem that they had that they weren't sharing with us. What we found out in years two and three is that their species is perishing, and it's perishing at the hands of another species called the Jaridians, who are related biologically to the Taelons.
And that in some way, humanity fits into that equation between these two species. The destiny of humanity is to be that solution.
What can you tell us about what you have up your sleeve for season four?
Gertz: Humanity is starting to take matters into their own hands, being less victimized by the Taelons. For the first several years of the show, the Taelons enjoyed widespread support, and it was fairly easy to dupe the world populace. And now that some of their deeds have been exposed, the tides will start to turn in the other direction. I think that we'll start to see cracks in the Taelon facade as well. Their increased time on Earth has rendered them exposed to a lot of human foibles that they had not seen in their culture; we started to play with that in year three, and will hit that a lot harder in year four. We also have a new recurring character, a young girl named J Street (Melinda Deines), who comes on to assume some of the responsibilities that Augur (Richard Chevolleau) had.
When the show initially launched, there was talk about a five-year plan. Does that five-year plan still exist?
Gertz: The goal was always to take the show to five years. We do have an idea as to where we want to end the show after five years. However, you never know [whether] you going to get to five years, or are you going to get beyond five years? It's hard to do it exactly, so you have to stay a little bit fluid, because you certainly don't want to either not give your fans a satisfying ending if you end early, or end too early and not have an opportunity to extend the story to where you can possibly take it. I think we'll look again at how things are going this year, and see how the show's doing and where we're at, and then determine again where we end the show and whether we go an additional year or two years or whatever.
Are we going to learn more about Liam's mixed Taelon-human heritage?
Gertz: We introduced that idea in season two--clearly, you can't have a part-alien character be born and be the lead of your show and not expect to go somewhere with that. We didn't go as far with that as we originally planned. In year three, we just alluded to it; we found that the show worked better when we were focusing on the more human elements of the show. My feeling is that year four will be the same. We will [have a] payoff; it just won't be the centerpiece for the show.
With each year, the show's central characters have changed to match the changes in the cast. Where do you see the core character relationships at this stage?
Gertz: As with so many other things on our show, even the structure of the ensemble has changed over the course of time. And I would say heading into year four now that the main relationship on the show is Liam and Renee--they are certainly the centerpiece of the show. Everybody else is sort of surrounding them in that orbit. The aliens have always had their issues, but I would say their relationship now, the relationship between Zo'or and Da'an is troubled, as always, but more front and center than it was last year, where we had more of the Liam-Da'an relationship.
Laim and Da'an have always had a very dynamic interaction, each teaching the other.
Gertz: And we'll continue that, but the things Da'an learns about humanity through Liam will be in less of an Obi-Wan Kenobi-type [of advisory role], and more it will come out of character and come out of conflict.
Early on, the character of Lili Marquette (Lisa Howard) was key to the resistance movement. How is she going to be handled going forward?
Gertz: We had to deal with Lisa's pregnancy and what she wanted to do when she had her daughter, Sofia. So in the first episode of [season three], we had Sandoval send her off to another planet, which allowed us to do an episode with her in the middle of the year. And then of course, we brought her back for the last episode of the year. And we've given ourselves maximum flexibility to utilize her [in future episodes].
Do you know certain elements that you want to work towards wrapping together in the end-run?
Gertz: I think we've pretty much had the elements that we're going to have for Earth: Final Conflict. We've called the show Earth: Final Conflict, so I think the fan base is expecting a final conflict, and of course it will have to involve the Taelons, the Jaridians and the humans--and in some way have the fans be satisfied with all of their issues.
We have all the elements in place. In terms of the action engine for the series, this final conflict between these species--I think that will be the ultimate resolution.
