fter five years, an old friend returns for Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict's big series finale. As the story opens, Renee (Heitmeyer) has been summoned to the Taelon mother ship for a clandestine rendezvous with Raj'el (Helen Taylor). Raj'el tells Renee that she is about to face her
"final conflict" and that it is her destiny.
Renee is tired of Raj'el's cryptic messages and is determined to leave. However, out of the shadows steps former Resistance leader Liam Kincaid (Leeshock). Renee is shocked. She was sure Liam was killed during the Taelon/Jaridian joining. However, Liam explains that he was absorbed into the universal consciousness of every alien species, including the Taelons and the Atavus. He has returned to help Renee and has gathered knowledge on what has been going on during Renee's battle with the Atavus. Also, because he's linked to all alien species, he knows the location of the Atavus' lost starship, which is buried deep below ground in the Siberian plain.
As Liam gathers a crew to dig to the starship, Renee goes back to Easter Island to get Howlyn's son Yulyn (Daniel Clark) out of stasis. Renee knows that Yulyn can help guide them through the starship. Renee and Yulyn arrive just as Liam gains entrance to the ship. But Ronald Sandoval (Flores) and Howlyn (Van Sprang) aren't far behind, and they are determined to get control of the ship and the stasis chamber full of sleeping Atavus.
Renee and Liam know that it's a fight they must win, because if Howlyn regains control of the starship, Earth will never be safe again.
A conflict that's final,
but disappointing
Television's most inconsistent series finally bows out after five seasons having never realized its potential. Upon occasion great, but ultimately disappointing, Earth: Final Conflict could have been so much more if only it had had a strong guiding hand. While the series finale, "Final Conflict," does a fair job at wrapping up this season's storyline, it would have been impossible to bring Earth to a satisfying conclusion.
It is nice to see Leeshock return to the action, even though the explanation of his return is about as ridiculous as was his initial introduction to the series in season two, in which he went from being born to becoming a fully functioning adult freedom fighter in a day. However, it would have been even better if Kevin Kilner's William Boone, season one's hero, had been brought back for the episode, too. The series' three leads together (with this season's hero, Heitmeyer) might have allowed the series some real resolution.
Unfortunately, the entire "Final Conflict" doesn't seem all that much bigger or more interesting than any of the other non-final conflicts the series has been through, although there is a nice exit for at least one of the major players. If this had been done as a two-parter, it wouldn't feel quite so rushed.
Still, even though "Final Conflict" could never offer resolution for a series that worked so hard through the seasons at heading its story in different directions, there are some wonderful moments when you can feel the potential. And those are the moments to remember.
