Date of airing: April 23, 1995 (NBC)
Nielsen ratings information: 7.9 million viewers, 5.2/9 in Households
I am going to have to make a list of all the elements of this planet, and what it can do to and with the humans currently colonizing it. Apparently, time traveling in the dreamscape is just another thing a human from planet Earth can do on this strange world, because it does not seem to be a big issue to take over an alien ecosystem that is comparable to a nervous system, and pretty much hack it to use it for themselves, although that sounds like something humankind would definitely do. It was a pretty weird twist, and an even weirder twist of fate when it came to Uly’s protection 16 years into the future, and how present-time Devon was the only one able to help her son in the future. The story for it seemed well-developed and there was almost not enough screentime given to it (as future Uly knew he would be needing the treatment, which means he was manipulating his past mother the entire time to pull off a FREQUENCY twist), but it all seemed rather weirdly cobbled together at one point, as if to tell the audience that there is more to this world and the timeline than meets the eye – which begs the question if the writers decided to go rather nutty into the narrative, knowing that EARTH 2 has already flopped with the audience and will most likely not be renewed for a second season.
First of all, it looked like Uly traveled back in time for the first time in this episode, which means either he got some superpowers throughout his years as the Terrian resistance leader, or time travel was just established right there and right then through the dreamscape, which I find absurd. This might still be a science-fiction series, but the way the writers just nonchalantly included a big sci-fi element into the show that never even needed that element made me wonder if a series bible ever existed for the show or if the writers just wrote as they went along, and took what they needed and later discarded it.
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| Meet your son from the future! |
Secondly, Devon dreamed into the future (which means time travel in both directions is possible in this series universe), which needed to happen with the help of the Terrian she “woke up” with on the other side. That meant the Terrians were able to time travel in the dreamscape as well, though future-Uly mentioned that they could not and only he had the power. Hello, inconsistencies, how have I missed you. Thirdly, future-Uly was established as the Terrians’ resistance leader – a human who led an alien race in a “war” against the human race, but the “war” was all about land. The only issue Uly had with Max (and vice versa) was because of land. One might think this was an attempt at mirroring the Native American experience during the American colonization, having EARTH 2 serve as the science-fiction parable of European history, and getting me to theorize quietly if there would have been a Roanoke episode someday. It would have been an easy one to set up, just say that Earth was attempting to settle the planet long before it was turned into a penal colony, and that one colony mysteriously disappeared.
When it comes to the colonization storyline, EARTH 2 depicted a bit of consistency though. Humanity knew from the beginning they couldn’t just eradicate the Terrians, or else the planet would blow up. Certain deals, therefore, had to be made. And maybe through all of this, it became convenient for the Terrians to have a human representative, who would then turn into their leader of sorts, similar to how AVATAR made attempts at humans joining forces with the Na’vi to battle against the humans. Still, the premise of an alien becoming the titular kind of your species seems rather wild, but maybe I am just putting too much attention on the episode’s title when future Uly was something of a John Connor figure for the Terrians. It’s still an intriguing idea for this series, but unfortunately, nothing much else was done with it, thanks to the show’s cancellation a couple of months later.
The present storyline was okay. Once more, the two kids among the central characters were selfish brats, fighting over the swing at first, and later the sled, and I could not imagine how Devon and Danziger were able to keep their offspring in check. The kids already annoyed me, and I would have just walked out on them and tried to calm down somewhere where it was quiet. Apparently, parents were unable to properly raise their kids in the future either. Especially since it was not the first time True and Uly were bitching over something random and unimportant, which possibly makes them lovers in the future.
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| Have some fun with your present son! |
The episode barely did anything with Uly’s birthday. He was just a kid who turned a year older and was embroiled in an adventure, instead of celebrating his birthday by mentally growing older. The episode also did barely anything with True’s story, as her finding of one of the little gnomes with sharp fingernails turned out to be just a throwaway story, filling airtime, so that the writers would not have to spend five more minutes trying to explain the time travel premise. I think it has been the first true B story that was not at all connected to the A story, which surprised me a little bit. But hey, at least Yale had something to do. Get one of the kids to him and explore the world a little bit, be a helpful guide and teacher.
