The first season and last good season...
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...
Finally, but a bit disappointing
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.
Excellent Program/ Worthy DVD Release
To glance at Earth: Final Conflict, you would likely be overcome with the sensation of "been there, done that" either through earlier shows Alien Nation or V, all of which sound remarkably similar in their synopsis. However, the trademarked title card precursor "Gene Roddenberry's" is a hint of the supremacy fans of science fiction staples such as Star Trek can expect in E: FC. And I can report with confidence that the entire first season delivers on that potential with one caveat: The remaining 4 seasons never manage to capture the magic of the first (reviewed here) and, as you will discover below, thanks to some legal snags in securing the DVD rights to the property, maybe this isn't such a bad thing after all.
Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict, developed on notes and story ideas the late Star Trek creator left behind, turns a common premise into a complex, character-driven tale of tensions between a race of highly evolved aliens who have arrived to Earth with...
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