Earth 2 – The Boy Who Would Be Terrian King

It’s Uly’s ninth birthday! It’s also sixteen years in the future! It’s Earth 2’s first time travel episode!

Because the planet G889 has the strange metaphysical connections to dreams that it does, Devon is able to receive dream messages from her son in the future. The future version of Ulysses needs her to send little Uly on a mission, alone, to hide some of his DNA in some Terrian tunnels. Devon has to grapple with sending her little boy on a dangerous mission, but she does and Uly does fine.

We spend a lot of time in the future in this one. They give the standard line about how it is a “possible future” but nothing in this episode does anything to convince me that this isn’t the actual timeline the show is building toward (and since the show was cancelled after this season, I doubt they ever do anything to say otherwise). In the future, Uly is indeed leading a faction of Terrian rebels who are fighting against oppression by the humans. It turns out that the colonization of New Pacifica worked and the planet is now home to humans who are expanding into Terrian territory. For some reason (racism?) a lot of the parents of sick kids, who came to this planet to be healed, refused the help of the Terrians and are living with synthetic treatments. The humans are trying to “civilize” the Terrians and Future Uly and his Terrians (and Future True is with them!) are working against the humans. But then Ulysses is captured and, though Future Devon (a politician who hasn’t spoken to her son in too long) is there to rescue him, the baddies successfully take away Uly’s Terrian abilities, but luckily, because he dreamed into the past and got little Uly to stash his DNA in a safe place, he is able to get the powers back.

Other stuff: 1) There’s a subplot about True finding a Koba (again) and enlisting Yale’s aid in caring for it. It doesn’t really contribute much to the episode, but it’s nice to know that True respects Yale much more than she did back when she hated him for trying to make her learn. 2) It’s established that Terrians won’t hurt Uly because he has Terrian DNA. This checks out, given that they wouldn’t hurt Gaal because he wore a necklace of Terrian bones and Uly’s DNA was caused by the Terrians. It does interest me that this tribe of Terrians actively (at first) dislikes that Uly is a connection between their kind and humanity. I like seeing that the different tribes of Terrians can have different opinions. It adds complexity to them, as a species. 3) It is also suggested that Ulysses can do the time-travelling dream because of the emotional connection between him and his mother, and Terrians don’t have such emotional connections, so they can’t do it. 4) In this episode Devon sneaks around and doesn’t tell anyone about her dream from the future or the mission she is sending Uly on. I don’t know why. Embarrassment? Probably would have been helpful to consult Yale or Alonso in situations like this.

Earth 2 – Brave New Pacifica

Spiders, spiders everywhere, and not a drop to drink. (That said, a Grendler does almost drink a spider in this one.)

The Eden Project people are still camped out awaiting winter to end, which is getting to annoy them because they aren’t making any progress in getting to their destination, the coastal region they’ve named New Pacifica. So when a couple of human blood-addicted Grendlers bring fresh fruit to them that must have come some long distance very quickly, the group looks into it. It turns out that there is a tunnel nearby that is part of some sort of space-folding process that can allow the Grendlers to travel all the way to the coast nearly instantly! There are complications and what ever, what with the Grendlers being addicted to human blood, but none of it really matters so let’s just jump to the end: it turns out that the magic cave actually goes the wrong way. It brings them all the way to the opposite side of the continent than they are trying to get to. With that potential travel system no use to them, it’s back to camping out the winter.

ALIEN STUFF:

  • We get new animals on G889 finally! Though because they look EXACTLY like Earth spiders, I couldn’t tell for much of the episode if they were supposed to be Earth spiders that accidentally stowed away with the colonists or not. Turns out not. These are some weird darn spiders, even if they look just like Earth ones and spin webs. It turns out they are magic! (Inasmuch as the weird metaphysical properties of G889 are “magical” but being filtered through a sci-fi lens here.) There are two species, considered “opposites” and each with some mystic connection to a concept of attraction. One species is about things coming together and one is about them coming apart. They build webs that create forcefields and that is what causes the weird space-folding effect, naturally. But also, if one of the attraction spiders bite a human (or a Grendler) then that person will fall in love with the next person it sees. Presumably a repulsion spider can cause hatred or at least aloofness. These are, indeed, some weird spiders.
  • The Grendlers, as I say, play a big part in this one. We’ve not seen Grendlers who are addicted to blood since the ones that Gaal was keeping as henchmen and I don’ t know if these ones are supposed to be those same ones or not. Either way, they don’t know where blood comes from, so they spend much of the episode trying to get Dr. Julia to create it for them. That said, one of them does see her bleed, so it is possible the knowledge could spread, which would not be good for our heroes. For the record, the Grendlers are still speaking in Doom sound effects. I assume that’s just gonna be like that forever and it makes me very happy.
  • As I said, these new spiders are disappointing because they look just like Earth spiders and the show had, until now, done a decent job making the aliens look alien. I’ll have to allow them this one though, because for the most part they’ve not created new aliens since the Grendlers first appeared. So far we have two seemingly sapient species (the Terrians and Grendlers) and those little lizard puppets from the pilot that the Internet tells me are called Kobas. We’ve never seen what is making the ever-present Eagle Sounds, but I’m hoping it is some freaky looking bat thing. Devon also mentions that she hasn’t gotten used to the insects on this planet, which indicates tiny life forms we’ve not seen and I sure hope they are some weird little guys.
  • That’s right, I’ll bother doing real bullet points for an Alien Stuff section.

Other Stuff: 1) The “will they/won’t they” for Devon and Danziger continues in this one. She’s over her dream man from a while back, time to start having feelings for the one the audience is gonna root for. The “they will” for Alonso and Julia also continues. Good for them. 2) I do like that the crew seem to take care not to harm the spiders. Considering they’re basically always intent on taking this planet from the Terrians and Grendlers, seeing them do minor nice things to the local life helps.

Earth 2 – The Greatest Love Story Never Told

The human population of G889 continues to prove itself much larger than first assumed. This time we come across a veritable village’s worth of humans living in caves. This group, made up of penal colonists and their descendants, was taken in by a tribe of Terrians who felt they had the potential to be redeemed. Also, the Terrians are once again sharing some of their mystical powers, though unlike with Mary, it isn’t the ability to travel through dirt. Apparently Terrians hibernate in the winter and, by touching their immobile forms, the humans can access the dreamscape of the Terrians and project themselves anywhere, even back to the stations around Earth.

And that ability is how Governor Shepherd has apparently met Devon decades ago in her dreams and inspired her to come to the planet in the first place. Though she didn’t believe he was a real person back then, just a dimly remembered dream, he incepted the idea that going to G889 might help heal her son Uly. Also, in dreams they fell in love, so Shepherd has been waiting for her arrival on the planet for decades.

But the thing is, he had problems during those decades. His sister Katrina, also a penal colonist, had a malfunction in her sleep chamber when sent to the planet and she aged the two decades that everyone else spent in suspended animation. This messed her up and she made Shepherd promise never to leave her. Thus, she’s not happy when Devon arrives and Shepherd considers leaving the village to go with the Eden Project. In the end, Katrina stabs Shepherd rather than lose him, and Danziger kills her by shooting her with a flaregun. The end. (Devon does still see Shepherd in her dreams.)

The paragraph of numbers: 1) To keep suspense in the episode, we get a back and forth on whether Shepherd is a good guy or not. I never found him likeable and I’m glad he won’t be sticking around. 2) In this cave village, True got to hang out with someone close to her age other than Uly for the first time since they left the stations. The culture in the caves is much different, from what she’s used to, though. For instance, they don’t consider family to be very important. True asks the kid “”Don’t you have a dad?” and he just kinda gestures to a crowd of people saying “I guess one of them must be.” 3) This village is only a few hours from where the Eden Project are camped for the winter, so it is entirely possible they encountered Mary, or even her parents back in the day. Could Gaal have wandered by these parts at some point? Why not? The Eden Project made it here in a few months from the area where Gaal was, and there were decades for it to happen. Really, humanity is all over this dumb planet.

Earth 2 – Grendlers in the Myst

The Eden Project gang is still camped in the spot where they intent to spend the winter, which remains a vaguely haunted place. This time the crew are being bothered by dreams of their mothers (or at least a motherly figure) trying to send a message to them. This, it turns out, is because an actual transmission from a mother (Dell Curry) trying to reach her son that is somehow penetrating the planet’s dream-space. Anyway, the episode has the team try to find this mother and son and rescue them, only to realize that the bad guy they were trying to rescue them from is actually the now-grown son, who has been living in the wilds of the planet for decades (in spite of which, he is one of the most clean-shaven humans that has ever existed). The kid-now-man doesn’t end up joining out crew, but he does get the message his mother was trying to get to him, and wanders off into the woods. I have no idea if he’ll be back.

I’ll be honest, this one didn’t grab me too well, but I feel like that may be my fault. Throughout the whole episode, I never assumed, as the crew did, that the transmission was coming from a living person. Maybe it’s just because I’ve seen this kind of story play out on other shows (Star Trek, for example), but as soon as the transmission first appeared, I assumed it was years-old from someone now dead. I assumed that was what I was supposed to think. I didn’t realize I was supposed to assume otherwise until the character started looking for Dell as if she were alive. Ah well. It is extremely hard to come up with fresh sci-fi concepts, so I can’t fault the show if one of them doesn’t land for me.

What I can fault the show for is that the eagle sound effect, which I said I was gonna ignore, appears about twenty times in this episode! There’s a three minute span where it is heard about six times! It’s madness! I swear the creators of the show in the 1990s did this on purpose just to rankle me in the 2020s!!! Anyway, they use more Doom sounds for Grendlers again in this one, so that’s cool.

1) Yale says there is a chance this year’s winter will be a “Leap Winter” which is twice as long as a regular winter. This is bad, but even worse considering they don’t know how long the regular winter is yet anyway. 2) Casual mention is made of something called the “STIM Program” which can save personality traits from a person and implant them in someone else (presumably someone mindwashed like the Yale cyborgs) which continues this show’s trend to casually reveal that back on the Earth stations they have very impressive sci-fi tech. In any case, Danziger at least realizes that the person who has the implanted traits wouldn’t be the same person, not really. 3) When the whole camp is being bothered by dreams of their mothers calling out to them, we learn that True has never met her mother and knows almost nothing about her. This is revealed to be because she had been in an accident not long after becoming pregnant. In the end, Danziger lets True see her comatose form via VR. No mention is made of how this is affecting Uly. Is he, the only person in camp whose mother is actually there with him, just like “That was a weird dream.” 4) Oh yeah! The episode begins with the Eden Project team stealing from what they assume to be a Grendler stash of goods. Danziger mentions that he ought to maybe feel a twinge of guilt about this, but the fact they need them to get through the winter makes the guilt go away quickly. 5) Morgan is very active as a team-member in this one, both during the raid on the Grendler stash, and during the search for Dell. Hopefully, after the events of the two-parter, his redemption arc has really begun in earnest.

Earth 2 – Better Living Through Morganite (Part 2)

This second part of the two-parter picks up, as one would expect, where the last one left off. Morgan has activated a geo-lock that petrified a chunk of the planet, and a Terrian with it, and now the rest of the Terrian tribe is going to punish Morgan, Bess, and Yale.

Mary the Human Terrian is back! I honestly didn’t realize that would happen, but it seems obvious in retrospect. She gives the Terrians a human face they can use to talk to the Eden Project group. Anyway, the Terrians send Mary out to tell them that the geo-lock has done bad damage to the planet and as a result, the three humans they have captured are going to be punished at dawn. Devin and Danziger argue about how to deal with this. Devin wants to talk to the Terrians and ask for more time so they can deactivate the geo-lock, which is complicated by the fact that the petrification of a portion of the planet has disrupted the Terrian’s dream-space communications, so Alonso has trouble talking to them. Danziger’s plan is to use the remaining geo-locks to threaten the Terrians that they’ll do it again unless the hostages are released.

Meanwhile, Yale is concerned that he’s gonna go cyborg-violent and he is happy to see a chance to die protecting others. He convinces the Terrians that what happened was his fault (a complete lie) and that Bess and Morgan are innocent. The couple are released and Yale stays behind to accept the punishment. This plan is complicated when Yale learns that the sunstones (which is what the Terrians call the “Morganite”) can help him recall his pre-mindwash memories. It turns out that he was not a vicious killer of innocents. When Yale was a soldier (named Braden Coye or something close to that), one of his fellows was going to shoot on unarmed people, and Braden shot that guy to protect them. Still, he was deemed a criminal and mindwiped into a servant cyborg. I assume this is why he never went bad, though. He wasn’t a violent type even before mindwashing. But learning this, Yale (who isn’t yet prepared to call himself Braden) doesn’t want to die.

When Bess and Morgan make it back to camp, Danziger wonders if it wouldn’t be worth it to just let the Terrians kill Yale. After all, he still sees the cyborg as a risk. But Devon won’t have it and she goes to talk to the Terrians to buy more time. She fails, but luckily Morgan feels pretty darn bad about what he did and he attempts works hard to deactivate the geo-lock, even though it is actively shocking him to prevent tampering. Alongside this, Dr. Julia learns that the sunstone, being a part of the planetary equivalent of a neurological system, is able to communicate in a rudimentary manner such as binary. Using his VR gear, Morgan is able to team up with the rocks and they unlock the geo-lock and unpetrify the land. Even that one Terrian who got got is back to life.

The unpetrification came just a moment too late for Yale, who had been brought into the earth to die. But Mary saves him just after the unpetrification, then Yale tries to get Mary to join the humans. Mary refuses, but the Terrians take away her ability to traverse through the dirt. I can’t tell if this is because she rescued Yale or if they think he’s right that she ought to join the humans, but either way, she still refuses to join and runs off into the woods to attempt to rejoin the tribe.

Stray thoughts: 1) I like that, in all her dealings with the Terrians here, Devon never once says “Well, Morgan did it!” even though it was true. She always tells the Terrians she wants to fix what “we” did, accepting the actions of one of her people as something done under her leadership. 2) After it’s all said and done, Danziger gives Morgan a handshake to show he respects that he helped save the day. Granted this is also a chance for him to squeeze Morgan’s hand, which is covered in burns from the shocks he got, so this is the best of both worlds for manly Danziger. 3) The intended method of killing the hostages for the Terrians is to pull them into the earth, presumably to suffocate and be crushed under the pressure and such. This is quite similar to what the Terrians did to Gaal. And it isn’t that far off from the way the Terrians liked to die during Moon Cross, to become one with the planet again. In fact, in that last one the outcasts who were refused death were punished by not getting to be brought into the earth. Does this mean the death of Gaal and near-death of Yale are meant to be merciful by Terrian standards?