Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict - Season 1 [Import]

The first season offered Babylon 5 storytelling quality. Rich characters, even characters who you think of in terms of good/bad, black/white, will throw you for a curve. The main character, Boone, begins his journey into the Taelon mystery with a clear delineation of the Taelons as "bad guys" only to discover that Taelon/human relations are much more "shades of grey" filled with individual (human and Taelon) agendas.

All of which is tossed out beginning season two for a straight forward good human, bad Taelon, let the fighting begin and "oh yeah can the women of the show wear tighter sweaters and shirts?" Welcome to late 90s syndication sci-fi/fantasy storytelling. Keep it simple, keep it sexy.

Rather than ranting on; I'll merely offer you a single season one episode, "Sandoval's Run". Watch that Sandoval character in that episode versus the schemer and megalomaniac they turn him into in the later seasons. Season one Sandoval is a much more interesting character versus the one dimensional "bad guy" he turns into.

I remember back in the beginning of the season two days, a bunch of us fan boys and girls threw a fit on the usenet group over the simpler storytelling (dumbed down) the show descended into only to be told by a show rep the the creators were worried the season one storytelling complexities would chase new viewers off in later seasons who didn't follow it from the beginning. Well the new direction chased me off.

If you saw later seasons and didn't like it or thought it just never lived up to its full potential, try season one. I love it so much I bought it...

...but only season one.

As with many other fans, I have the ADV release of seasons 3,4 & 5. I was disappointed that after the dust settled with who really owned the rights to season 1 & 2, the winner released season 1 in full screen and only stereo. The 3 seasons from ADV are in widescreen and dolby 5.1. The resolution on the ADV seasons also look cleaner. I wonder how long we'll have to wait for season 2 to complete our sets.

Many fans of this series (including me,) have waited a very long time for this season to be released. Earth: The Final Conflict seasons 1 and 2 have been held up in a "rights" war. Basically, two studios were fighting over whom owned the rights to the series' first two seasons. Seasons 3 and 4 were not in dispute and therefore no "conflict" (forgive the pun,) held up their releases. Finally, it looks like all that legal crap is resolved and Season one is coming. This was an awesome show!!! Fantastic special FX and epic story telling. It is a MUST have for any sci-fi fan.