Date of airing: November 6, 1994 (NBC)
Nielsen ratings information: 25.2 million viewers, 15.6/23 in Households
With the recent activation of this review blog, I figured it was a perfect opportunity to not just get into non-American television shows (if I can find a few good ones that aren’t necessarily British or Australian), but also a little bit into the somewhat forgotten history of US television, from time during which most of today’s streaming TV audience wasn’t even born yet. They won’t know that CHINA BEACH ever existed and would probably be bored to shreds by its slow narrative. They won’t even know that EARLY EDITION is a great way to marry the fantasy genre with television for the entire family, morale lessons included. So many good shows came out of the 1990s and I barely know any of them, because my mind has been filled with shows from the twenty-first century, for obvious reasons. In addition, no one is even talking about the shows from the 1990s and earlier anymore, and maybe that should be a thing in need of a change. Also, I’m a kid of the 90s, and while I didn’t grow up in America, I’m about ready to get into the popculture of the 1990s that went beyond the likes of the Backstreet Boys, Take That, Spice Girls, FRIENDS, Jerry Bruckheimer, Bill Clinton, the death of Lady Di, and Eurotrash music. It’s time to get into the thick of it and start understanding what made the decade tick that changed television for the twenty-first century. After all, people seem to believe that 1994, the year EARTH 2 premiered, is a landmark year of American television. With ER, FRIENDS, and PARTY OF FIVE, all of them premiering that year, I somewhat understand the notion of 1994 being a top year for television, as they became ratings hits or critic darlings. EARTH 2 could have rung in the advent of science-fiction of that decade, with television taking the genre more seriously than ever before.
Somewhere down the future, our planet is inhabitable. Humankind lives on space stations, readying themselves for a 22-year trip to a new planet they can call home: New Pacifica. Sabotage and evil politics change plans for the Eden colony, and after blasting off into space hours earlier than planned, they quickly find themselves alone on their travels to their new home. But because this is the pilot episode of a new science-fiction television show, the problems don’t just stop happening right after launch. 22 years of cryosleep later, the first thing the colony does is crashland on New Pacifica and have to think about surviving with the bare minimum of hardware. Under the leadership of Devon Adair (1994 sci-fi television bringing you a woman leader before the Star Trek franchise ever had the chance to do so), the colony is on its way to its physical home, to prepare for the arrival of the 250 families that are 26 months behind. But during the first few nights on the new planet, it soon becomes clear that dangers lurk under every stone and that dreams can be a gateway to relations with a whole new species.
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| The trip hasn't even properly started, and she is already getting annoyed by her husband. |
I decided to start watching EARTH 2, because I have never seen a second of it before (not that I can remember, because the show did air on German television during the 90s, but I don’t know if I ever tuned in), not even to check if the digital copies I possessed were solid and not fake. Also, this is in the science-fiction genre and maybe that was what I needed after deciding to get into 1990s television. And I must say, I was quite impressed with the pilot episode. In fact, I was so impressed that I didn’t understand why the ratings crashed after the pilot and the show became something of a flop for NBC. These 95 minutes intrigued my brain, it activated my mind, it had a terrific cast (though, as it was normal for the 90s, only one black cast member in an ensemble cast, in a role that could easily be written out or replaced), some great moments of mystery, and the show even stands the test of time a little, although it looks more like STARGATE SG-1 than an actual science-fiction show. Yes, the first 30 minutes looked very much like a TV show from the 1990s would look like with a bit of a bigger budget, but after the crash on the planet, the nearly constant outdoor settings created some fine imagery, and with the survivors beginning their nine-month journey to New Pacifica, there was even a chance for a constant change of settings. In one episode, the colonists could be in the middle of a desert, in the next they could be surrounded by trees. A few episodes later they could sleep it off in caves – it’s the promise of constant movement that makes EARTH 2 an intriguing show already, and shows like that were basically non-existent in the 90s. They still are.
Granted, the characters were second or third-row during the first hour and a half, but the story managed to get me hooked and I was even thinking about some possibilities why things were happening, and why the characters saw what they were seeing. Yes, it was obvious that the survivors wouldn’t be the only people on the planet (there is no way to keep the premise of the show alive for 20 more episodes without that twist). Yes, it was obvious that there would be a quick death to establish the dangers of the planet (though the survivors did not seem not shocked at all that one of them was murdered by an alien lifeform – I guess that happens regularly?). Yes, it was clear that the two child characters would eventually annoy me at one point (and they did when they were rolling down a hill, leading up to Uly’s disappearance), but there is this premise of the humans being called the alien life on this planet that would bring me right into the second episode. Humankind being the aliens has barely been the premise in Hollywood cinema or television and I’m interested to find out how well the writers tackled that idea. Though I’m already expecting they weren’t tackling it at all, because the humans will continue to have all the screentime, while the Terrians won’t. If the humans were supposed to be the aliens in this show, according to Devon’s closing voiceovers, then the show must depict the other species in a more central fashion.
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| The emotions are high on this strange planet. |
I have a few theories about what was happening during the opening episode. Alonzo was naming the creatures “Terrians,” and “Terra” is the Latin word for Earth, so I’m almost sure that the creatures were humans at one point, deformed by whatever happened to the planet in the past, now hiding below the surface like the Morlocks did in H.G. Orwell’s “The Time Machine” (and television was always good in stealing ideas from other works of fiction). I’m also almost sure that Tim Curry’s (surprising) appearance at the very end of the episode is a future look into what could be Uly from the future, establishing what could be called time travel. It would be logical if the planet happened to be human-free, up until the crash of the Eden spaceship, and from here on, the fate of the planet was written. Maybe somehow Uly made it back in time, maybe the other survivors made it even farther back in time, and their descendants became the Terrians that appeared in this episode. And who knows, maybe the Terrians want to help the human race to get off the planet and continue their journey to the other side of the universe, because... well, humanity didn’t come to survive on this planet. It’s a simple idea, one supported by the notion that humans have been on this planet before (according to the “conversation” between the Terrians and Devon in the caves), an easy premise to execute in television format, and I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of my initial thoughts were part of the season later on. And if none of them were used, I just create my own show – which I think I have done already about twelve years ago, not even recognizing that my very own idea had a similar premise to that of EARTH 2.
I have no idea what it means for Danziger to have listened to Devon’s “conversation” with the Terrians when she was actually sleeping on the surface, and whether or not the “meeting” between Devon, Alonzo, and the Terrians was happening in a dream, and I have no idea if the show will ever get back to the fate of the other pods that landed all around the planet. In this episode, only two pods came together midway through the episode, but there were still about a dozen other pods out there, to be discovered by the moving colony, with their survivors ready to join the group and create material for guest stars playing one-off characters. THE 100 would make the mistake that the station parts crashlanded in the near vicinity of each other near the end of that show’s first season, which is why I like this option much better – pods might have landed on the other side of the planet (though that doesn't really make sense, eh?), and there might be no way for them to contact the on-screen survivors for quite a while. But those were questions that have been asked and I’m intrigued to find out if answers were given.
But yeah, the next few episodes should have made sure that a viewer like me would start caring about some of the characters. Because after 95 minutes, I don’t. Maybe I cared a little about Danziger because there is a solid father/daughter relationship going between him and True. In contrast, Devon and Uly were pretty boring as mother and son, being dragged down by the mystery that surrounded the boy. Maybe I cared a little about Bess, but only because I still have a crush on Rebecca Gayheart and my heart was growing two sizes when I saw her name in the credits. Maybe I cared a little about True and her friendship with the cute little creature (who just needed to whip its finger, and the old white-haired commander was dead immediately – thanks, little creature!), because it reminded me of what the first scene of THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK could have been if the main story of that movie had been something like “dinosaur eat human.” Maybe I cared a little about Julia, because she had no experience as the only doctor with the survivors and has to prove herself as a character among people who may not trust her. But apparently, she had everything under control because the premiere episode didn’t even focus on her at all.
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| So close, and yet so far. |
I am however still intrigued. The show is short enough to watch through it without interruption and not have it be a waste of time, so here I am. The science-fiction genre was somewhat underrepresented on network television in the 1990s, because everything that was clear-cut science-fiction (shows set in outer space, or on alien planets, or underwater with fancy-looking submarines) seemed to have been canceled quickly, mostly. I’m just thinking about SPACE RANGERS (gone after six episodes), MERCY POINT (gone after seven), SPACE: ABOVE AND BEYOND (gone after one full season), and this little gem of a show here (gone after a season), because if there was another show quickly being given up on by audiences and networks, it won’t spring to mind right now. The genre was alive and kicking on basic cable, but on network TV, it was a fleeting and expensive genre. Things never changed in that regard.
