Date of airing: April 2, 1995 (NBC)
Nielsen ratings information: 9.0 million viewers, 5.9/11 in Households
written by: Théo Cohan
directed by: Michael Grossman
In-between the efforts to tell some serialized stories, or having events from previous episodes affect future episodes, and episodes that were entirely stand-alone, this episode comes around, which sort of went into the proceduralized world of television, but made use of the world already established. After the terribly weird love story of Sheppard and Devon, I would not have expected the human community from yesteryear to return to the narrative, but they did in this episode and served up some exposition, to give Devon answers to questions she was asking, and to give Alonzo a chance to fight an evil Terrian beast in the dreamscape, because action scenes apparently needed to find their conclusions on another plane of existence, deformed into 4-frames-per-second scenes.
The idea of the story was solid enough, however, and had some intriguing elements to it. EARTH 2 went back to the supernatural realm of storytelling, and decided it was a good idea to introduce demons, which may or may not be a cliche for a genre show like this. But it turns out it was a good idea, because the show already introduced ghosts a few episodes ago, and everything that is missing now is some vampires and/or werewolves. In fact, when the big thing in the block of ice was first depicted on screen, I was thinking it might be some form of a werewolf, thanks to the bright yellow eyes that were shining through the ice. But the beast in the big block of ice was just an episodic threat to the characters, and it turned into a generic threat, using genre cliches that can be found in every show that deals with the supernatural. For a planet that does not like to be disturbed, it was quite a surprise that the beast in the big block of ice was just a disgruntled Terrian from 300,000 years ago, angry enough about what has happened to him that he would slip into a human and act like one. Because writing a storyline about a supernatural possession for a 1990s genre TV show seems to be easy and a given for a writers’ room.
 |
| Alonzo wants to stab something. |
I am not even sure if the climactic act of the episode made sense. One of the last things Alonzo said in his voiceovers was that Danziger did not remember anything when possessed by the ancient Terrian, but I cannot imagine that the Terrian knew everything and anything about humanity and Danziger to perfectly portray him, minus a few violent outbursts here and there. It would have been logical if Danziger had some form of control over his mind and body and that his mind may have just been corrupted by the soul of the ancient Terrian, since I cannot imagine that the Terrian was fully taking over Danziger’s body, and Danziger himself was in the sunken place or something like that. Maybe it would have been a less troped-up episode and a more interesting one if Danziger was fighting the ancient Terrian inside himself, instead of making Alonzo the hero at the end. It would have helped to establish Danziger as the big action hero of the series, considering the fact that Alonzo is only being defined by the mystique of his presence in the dreamscape. And suddenly this episode also made him an action hero?
The mystery story throughout the first half of the episode was good, though it was reminiscent of a THE X-FILES episode. Things were happening, all considered creepy, but there was no way to figure out what was going on, up until the Elder was brought back to answer all questions Devon was asking herself, making me wonder how the Elder even knew about everything. As an Earthling, he seemed to have great knowledge about the Terrian past, almost turning it into folklore himself.
Meanwhile, I liked that no one at Project Eden was safe from what comes around the corner, and I loved that the background characters (or at least some of them) finally got names in this episode, even if I could not remember any of them and even if I believed that they were properly introduced to the audience, so that they can serve as redshirts later in the episode. But yes, it was about time for Project Eden to consist of more than seemingly a dozen people, since there are always more on screen, walking in the background, serving to portray a busier world than it is with just the central characters. What a shame that, as soon as the backstory was explained, and Danziger and Devon were hunting a demon amongst themselves, the episode lost those background characters and it became the same old show with the same old characters.
It also became a more absurd episode. It started with Danziger behaving foolish and evil when checking out Alonzo to see if he has the evil Terrian spirit inside himself, telling Devon that his machine, which did not work, was suddenly reacting to something. It continued with the fact that Devon did not even realize during the first stages of the story that Danziger was the bad guy. Danziger clearly was out to do more than just “ice” Alonzo and end the nightmare for the settlers, and Devon not noticing it did not make her look very good in hindsight. And it ended with the silly “fight” in the dreamscape, in which Alonzo just needed to take a Terrian weapon and shoot it for the evil ancient Terrian to fall apart into a CGI fest that was not given the necessary attention and budget to look better.
 |
| There is a werewolf in the settlers' camp. |
It is kind of weird though when you think about that scene a little longer: There was a random Terrian standing there, with its speer, and Alonzo had to fight to reach his hand out and take the speer, instead of the random Terrian giving it to him. After all, the ancient Terrian was also invading the dreamscape of all the other Terrians – why would they not want to help Alonzo fight the villain on their own turf? I wonder if the story may have looked better in the finished product if the Terrians were a little more active in the dreamscape and had helped Alonzo fight. Would it have served a narrative that establishes the Terrians’ interest in humankind being present on their planet? Would it have proven that Alonzo can do more with the Terrians than just talk with them in the dreamscape?
