Date of airing: February 5, 1995 (NBC)
Nielsen ratings information: 13.0 million viewers, 7.8/12 in Households
This was an intriguing episode. I wondered when the writers would deliver an episode with the NELL premise, because it seemed natural that there would be humans who have been living with the Terrians since they arrived on the planet, considering the backstory is that humanity has been trying to colonize this planet for decades, figuring out how to properly do it without necessarily starting a war with the Terrians. The possibilities for an orphan to be raised by Terrians were simply too obvious to not be used in the series sooner or later, although maybe it is luck that it has been used this “early” in the show – if the writers were planning to have a foundling be the central premise in an episode somewhere down the road, they would have been stopped eventually by NBC quickly canceling the show in 1995.
Mary was a great character, and here’s to hoping that she might return for a later episode, as her story is not fully told yet. Her backstory is solved, but her involvement with the Terrians can lead to much more. She could help Uly and humanity to connect with the Terrians, and help both species survive as the changeling she kind of is, especially since Uly is still in the middle of ... I don’t know what the Terrians are doing with him, and it seems like he can barely remember anyway. But with Mary, the Terrians have an actual spokesperson that knows the species, instead of continuing to use Alonzo who constantly asks questions and is generally both annoying and boring as a character. If there ever happens to be a “30 years later” season of EARTH 2 on Netflix (they continue to reboot TV shows like no other, so why not?), she better be in it, having turned into a warrior of sorts. Anyway, while I liked Mary, I didn’t like that she was used as a plot device to turn Uly into a mediator at the end of the episode, continuing with him not remembering anything about stopping a civil war between fractions of Terrians. She could have done that all by herself. But then she wouldn’t have been in this episode, since the Terrian issue was happening in the background, right?
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| Terrian-raised human is about to learn human traits. |
It is kind of weird that I am thinking about a wholly different premise for an episode like this, and how it may have worked better that way. Mary could have discovered her human past after being discovered by the colony, while Uly could have had a look into his future as the savior of the Terrians, without going into the imagery of Uly being the Terrians’ version of Jesus Christ. Playing with past and future this way could have helped advance the science-fiction premise of this New Mexico-bound production, and remind the audience that this was still a series about a group of people being on a strange planet. When you don’t have a budget to depict space battles, spaceships, and fights between various alien races, then at least play with the timeline, which this episode was about to get into, and then got stuck in the ghostly premise of a Halloween-type episode with Devon seeing dead people (and skeleton remains that looked very plastic-y), while Alonzo likes hanging out with what could be considered a feral child in the body of a young woman who looked much more attractive after taking a bath (because there cannot be a way for a woman to just look the part). I wondered if this episode was originally conceived with this direction in mind, because there were certainly elements of both premises in it, but in the end, both stories didn’t seem important at all for the characters, let alone the writers to highlight them in the show.
The episode started as a ghost story of sorts, making me think if NBC wanted to have a Halloween-like episode in their February 1995 schedule. It was a fun experience because there nearly were some scary moments Devon was nearly facing. I loved the mystery behind that story, even if that part of the episode was spoiled quickly when the human Terrian appeared and I figured that she might have been Mary (two acts before Devon realized she was Mary). And the episode continued with Alonzo making contact with Terrians again, and Mary delivering something that could have been described as a backstory for the Terrian race, even if it looked very low-key. After all, only two Terrians were outcasts and brought back into the Terrian community by Uly in the end, even though the premise could have carried dozens of outcasts, trying to get to Uly, so he could have helped them make peace with the Terrians. The make-up department would have had to make some money available during production to put a bunch more extras in costume, but it would have been a more meaningful story this way.
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| Uly is walking into the mystery fog. |
I liked the second half of the episode, with Mary among the people of Project Eden, taking a bath. Even though I can barely remember the movie, because it has been a long time since I saw it last, it is where I saw the NELL aspect of the story. A human girl, having lived in an alien world for so long, has been returned to human surroundings, and she was not quite sure what to make of all of this. Some might have wondered how Mary was able to form complex language patterns when she was adopted by the Terrians before she turned four years old (the “MJ” markings that True found stopped after Mary turned three), or could even remember parts of her human past and the trauma of losing her family after being “taken” into an entirely different world, but it made Mary an interesting character for the show during this hour.
The ghost story was a little dumb near the end, especially when Mary’s ghost mother was finally reassured that her daughter was still alive and that she was fine. Did that mean Mary’s mother was, in fact, a ghost haunting this garden, because she had unfinished business? Did the show just take a trip into the supernatural genre? I wouldn’t even blame the producers for doing that, since shooting supernatural stuff is cheaper for the budget than coming up with science-fiction imagery.
