why do networks do this? Spend tons of money to make a show, play episodes out of order and then cancel the show when viewers give up? They did the same thing to FIREFLY and CRUSADE.
Because of fragile egos. So many producers and executives that start and leave at networks all have their own agendas. If one show is successful, then will there be budget for another executive’s pet project? Sometimes, but usually not, depending on its scale or casting needs. So of course, that existing show has to fail. Other times, an executive thinks they know better than the show runner or writers. “Let’s air the train heist episode instead of the next intended one. Because it’s cool.” Pettiness and selfishness.
Never doubt how much trouble can be created by mixing Ego, Stupidity and Power. It's not just good shows that get ruined. You'll find the same thing behind the failures of grocery stores, pharmacies, hedge funds, governments and many others.
I remember watching this show when it came out. It was a very unique season. It was for me, the introduction of many wonderful actors, and what they contributed through their acting career.
From what I remember, this show suffered from constant changing airing times. One episode was scheduled after a football game that went into overtime. When the episode played it was half over.
LOVED this show so much - rewatched it a few years ago - some of it landed, some didn't, but glad they took the shot. The flash forward episode was excellent.
I did love this show, and I also bought the DVDs after 2012. In the days pre-internet, it wasn't always obvious why a show was cancelled, so I'm glad for you and your channel.
This needs a reboot. Either starting over or give us a season 2. There were so many plot threads left dangling. I randomly thought about it a year ago and ended up watching the whole series. I think given the right leadership, they could make the show work today.
The bright side to its abrupt ending was that its primed for a season 2 to just pickup where season 1 left off. Though at this point you would need to completely refilm season 1 with a new cast to maintain consistency, or pull some wacky time skip BS to account for why everyone looks different.
One of my favorite theme introduce from the series back then was marriage having term limit, and only extended if the couple wanted to. Made sense and save the trouble of problematic divorces.
I was 8 when it premiered in Germany. It was the first series that I consciously chose and watched from start to finish. For me it was really great cinema and to this day the series has a special place in my heart. I was shocked when I found out that the series had been canceled. Thanks to E.T., Earth 2 and SeaQuest DSV, Spielberg was my hero and my heart was addicted to sci-fi. Unfortunately, I recently had to go through the same experience again with the cancellation of "Raised by Wolves" by Ridley Scott.
NBC did have some good sci fi show in the 90's. SeaQuest I think aired at the same time. It was kinda star trek but under water, but the ecological and narrative aspects of the people was really good. It's a shame that at the end of the first season they blew up the sub and essentially did soft reboots each subsequent season. The entire aliens thing that pervaded season 2 and 3 should have never been done, as they could have continued on with the usual international conflicts that the UEO had to moderate, along with exploration episodes. Earth 2 was a great series covering the aspects of a small colony/wagon train idea across a new world. Almost a sci-fi western before Firefly was a thing. As for similar, but more modern shows, I miss that Terra Nova was cancelled. Bit Jurassic Park, but with time travel and a conspiracy regarding the technology.
Terra Nova was unable to compete VS Falling Skies mainly because Steven Spielberg was initially involved with Falling Skies, but past the main storyline, design of some of the props and aliens, and being hands on for the pilot, I'm pretty sure he wasn't much involved from there on.
The answer is NBC. They partnered with Spielberg and made an investment in sci fi with this show and SeaQuest but didn't follow through on it when costs were higher than anticipated and the ratings weren't exactly blockbuster. Fun fact: The show creators actually pitched a season 2 that would take place at the main colony site on the planet and was more like a "Wild west in Space" theme. They tried to amp up the action in order to get the network to pick up the show for season 2. They also would've dropped the characters of Yale and Morgan in favor of some newcomers. There is a video of the season 2 pitch on TH-cam.
I loved this show when it aired. When i started watching this video, i was thinking this was the kind of show I would've loved when i was a young teenager, it took seeing Clancy Brown to remember I'd actually watched it, in full. Time to revisit! Love that your video about this came up in my recommended videos on YT.
I really loved that show it had a ton of potential. There was another Syfy show a few years later called Defying Gravity that had tons of potential but was canceled after the first season.
I remember seeing this and "Defying Gravity" from renting the full-series DVDs on Netflix and they had established such great premises with a unique underlying mystery. "Earth2" not only had the idea of whether the colonists could survive but the future Ulysses set up the idea of what would happen to change him "Defying Gravity" had the idea of something leaving "markers" behind and the detail of one of the astronauts still having issues from an aborted pregnancy
I was a fan of this show when it originally aired. I remember that the official NBC website had dome additional content relating to the show, such as planetary maps. There was also a Usenet discussion group with some participation from the writers.
I loved watching this show as a kid, but I remember always having a hard time finding when it was on. It was like they kept moving the air dates. So I missed a lot of episodes.
Yeah, said the same thing. It was really enjoyable -- first few episodes, but then, after that, I got confused on things bez I either missed some episodes or they skipped things in show.
I remember watching this series, celebrating the unearthly beauty of it's New Mexico setting. It stalled during The Winter Where Nothing Happened. I kept watching, but "Earth 2" was drifting and failed to advance much, leading to a cliffhanger season (and series) ending.
I remember this show very well. Like many others of that era which were already named here, it was cancelled right in the moment it started to get exciting.
It was a good show and was in that run of 90s Sci Fi that as you said burnt brightly but failed... always thought Earth 2 would be perfect for a reboot
@meesalikeu as I'm English living in the UK .. Burnt is perfectly fine ... as The past tense of "burned" is simply "burned"; it is the standard form in American English, while "burnt" is more commonly used in British English and can be used interchangeably depending on context.
The thing I most remember about this show is that the young actress who played the character True had to have a heart transplant and died when she was just 21.
I remember loving the first episode or two but then the show started being impossible to keep track of when it was on. I eventually gave up after missing a few episodes due to the story having moved on. It had great potential but was given no chance to succeed by the network.
An obvious reason for failure is where it aired. Until you have things like the SciFi channel, science fiction shows struggled to get enough ratings to justify renewal. Didn't matter how good they were. Star Trek TOS had to fight for a third season. Babylon 5 had to find a new network to take over production before it had completed the 5-year storyline.
Very good show. I watched it when it came out, but it kept changing the timeslot. And, it seemed to jump from episode to episode, because I got confused about things as I watched it on TV.
I watched this series only once, 1round 1995 or 1996 when it aired in Germany. But it left a lasting impression, mainly thanks to the fantastic cast. Need to find the DVD box, as it isn't available on Bluray or streaming.
NBC has the worst reputation for ending shows early, first and foremost - Star Trek. Earth2 was a great show, but so were Forever, Timeless, Manifest, etc. Sadly, anything that borders on science fiction doesn't survive long term on broadcast TV - (Quantum Leap - and I'm not talking about the reboot). I don't even bother watching shows on NBC, CBS, ABC, or FOX anymore, because I know they will just get cancelled. Likewise I refuse to pay subscription fees for everyone of those networks that puts those types of shows behind a pay wall.
When I was a young man in the 90s, I gladly wanted to buy a cargo vest to look like one of the colonists I think with one or two more changes to the outfit I would’ve looked just perfect as an extra
It was only yesterday that i found out rebecca gayheart killed a kid because she was an angry driver and on her phone. She only got a small fine and no jail time.
I have vague memories of Earth 2. I remember that it existed, and I remember thinking it was weird at the time, couldn't tell you a single thing about the story or characters.
I was vaguely aware of this show but never saw it. When it is spoken about then some people make this sound so cheap and cheesy. This looked good for when it was made with really solid actors. Ambitious is a perfect word to describe it.
Each episode of this TV show was different sometimes it was issues with various crew members, sometimes a species on the planet, and yet at other times xyz. Glad, I own the full series as a part of my home DVD collection.
I really enjoyed the show when it was on. The kids kinda irked me a little early on but they grew with the show to be a bit more serious. The cast of characters was great and the actor brought each of them to life. It was an ambitious project and maybe they crammed too much into it and even ruined it by introducing the prisoners, cyborg soldiers and shadow council. Should have focused on survival and living with the natives.
I watched this and it was a very good show though I can remember feeling as though it stretched out in storytelling sometimes. I wonder if the two dropped episodes were meant to speed things along but just ended up confusing everyone? There was A LOT going on in the overall story. I also feel like maybe it switched nights at some point, which is always a death knell for a series and often why a series ends on such a low ratings point but I can't remember for certain. Anyway it was unfortunate. Nowadays it might have made it a few seasons and given more of a closure at the end.
Firefly had it even worse with terrible advertising and constantly shifting its time slot around so it was never on at the same time two weeks in a row.
@@Joe-xq3zu Before Firefly started airing, FOX barely advertised it and only used content from the rejected pilot *and* narrated the ads with a laugh track to make it seem like a comedy. Meanwhile they incessantly ran ads for "John Doe". I never once saw a Firefly ad on FOX's FX satellite network but they ran lots of John Doe ads there. I never watched the final episode of John Doe. From what I read about it, its ending is up there on the stupid scale with the endings of the Battlestar Galactica reboot, and Enterprise, and Earth^2's final episode. The last aired episode (but not last produced) of the original Lost in Space tops them all of course.
Same thing happened to Firefly and Crusade. They mess up the story, then use the resulting drop in ratings to justify cancelling the show ... only to do it all over again. JUST TELL A GOOD STORY! That's all we want!
Fun Fact, Star Trek Discovery stole a story line directly from one of Earth 2's episodes. The one where the mucus of that alien bull thing was the cure to a virus? They did the same thing with the Tardigrade in one episode.
The problem for this and so many others is that they become soap operas. I prefer episodes that stand on their own instead of having to watch them in an exact order.
Which is why I don't watch M-She-U movies. You have to watch each and every one to figure out what's going on, and it's all about DEI/The Message/Girls Rule! in the end.
I remember watching this show as a child, and to be honest, not really digging it. Other shows, around that time, were better. Especially Star Trek: TNG. But I also preferred shows like Space: Above & Beyond, and Earth: Final Conflict. However, Earth 2 _did_ have a pretty interesting vibe to it, which still lingers in my mind. And this same premise would also work well as a videogame.
I'm one of the ones who watched early on but then dropped out. Her son was sick not because of any missing vitamin, essential amino acid, fatty acid, whatever. It was just "artificial." The planet was supposed to vibrate strongly on the metaphysical realm or such. Not necessarily a bad show, but not a show for me.
Shows with story Arcs had a rough time until streaming came along. If you missed one episode. There no going back in time. You wouldn't know what's happening the next time you watched. Then people would lose interest. Then ratings would drop.
i liked it alot growing up!, as different & real scifi! and the networks sadly dont "get it" .... they need to commit to atleast a couple of season, to see how it ends up! all these 1 season cancellations are just sad & ruin the genre!
I watched this show... it was okay. I have observed over the years that this happens time and time again. Executives only see dollar signs, nothing else. So they'll buy a show like this, or, say, Airwolf. It will do well but not knock-out. So they decide they want to dumb it down to appeal to a wider audience. And so they ruin what made the show good in the first place. Airwolf was amazing in season 1, okay in season 2, bad in season 3 and then there was that horrific "season 4" on USA network made up of little more than stock footage. Remember Sliders? They kept trying to make it appeal to an even wider audience and it got stupid. Did that to Knight Rider too. Others here have mentioned Space Above & Beyond, that was great too. What's worse is it's happening even now on streaming services. There have been several great shows that Netflix canceled because they either didn't have enough control over them or weren't making as much money as they wanted, despite the shows having strong followings. Dark Matter was one of them. AND I'm still waiting on more Orville.
this is why traditional TV died. Things like this are not cancelled on streamers after 1 year. This was a great show. They also made too many eps a year then.
i like the metaphor of getting to a new alien planet and then finding out that our govt was already there for years doing experiments, just like mars, i think we went there already in the 1980s and now we are going there "for real" even though the govt has been there already
It was that super stupid final episode and the ongoing plotline leading up to it. Orbital mechanics dictate when seasons happen, not a fungus infected animal or person falling into a magic hole in the ground which then technicolor yawns spring onto the planet. A couple of effects gaffes are notable. The open sores on the horse's chest were very obviously a poorly made prosthetic appliance that appeared to be about to fall off at any time, with gaps between it and the horse. Making things stick to horse hair is difficult but simply mixing up some cottage cheese and strawberry jam with a swirl of blue food coloring to smear on the horse would've been an effective and completely safe "makeup" effect. The bullet that self-rotated to screw itself farther into the person shot *was turning the wrong direction*. Years earlier, Disney had the same thing with a projectile in their rejected "Earth Star Voyager" series pilot, and made exactly the same wrong direction turning error.
The SFX in this show still stand up today. It's amazing. OK, one of the aliens was maybe a tad iffy, but it was supposed to be an alien afterall. A shame your video is such low-quality since there are DVDs available.
Thanks for watching. Apologies for the low quality of the promos of the show they are not available in better quality. The rest of the footage has been ripped from the DVDs and the quality seems fine.
i really liked the show when it was on, it lost a little muster in the middle with a boring episode about sick people in a pod, i missed the last? episode, i was working and i think my vcr didn't record it like i programmed to? or something went wrong either the channel got changed on it or something, so i never not to find out what happened until the 2000s with dvds
I remember the setting of the show more than anything else. This may have been a falt of the show as I was more intrested in the sitting than the plot.
I remember watching this when it came out….well like the whole month and a half it was out. Was a neat idea kinda looked forward to seeing more…..and cancel hammered
I suspect it was just not able to complete with the near monopoly Star Trek TNG had. It was too low tech and had too many trees for what TNG had mainstreamed - and a hard SF fan will roll one's eyes at it being easier to switch solar systems than build an air filter on Earth no matter how badly polluted. Additionally it was NBC synergy programming with Seaquest - which was trying to be TNG underwater but was not must see watercooler conversation stuff. Obviously both shows had their audience - even Star Trek needed twenty years of original series reruns to get TNG to where it was and that's not realistic to expect from a new franchise.
Hadn't thought about this show in a while but remember really enjoying it and was disappointed in its cancellation. The few things I think contributed to it not getting renewed was that with an ensemble cast so much of the focus was on the kids, jeez that piercing scream the little girl had was annoying. Also, as much as I love Tim Curry in about everything the creepy pedo vibe towards the little girl was a bit over the top, 'Ello Poppet.
why do networks do this? Spend tons of money to make a show, play episodes out of order and then cancel the show when viewers give up? They did the same thing to FIREFLY and CRUSADE.
Why isn't watching our show 😂😂
Because of fragile egos. So many producers and executives that start and leave at networks all have their own agendas.
If one show is successful, then will there be budget for another executive’s pet project? Sometimes, but usually not, depending on its scale or casting needs. So of course, that existing show has to fail.
Other times, an executive thinks they know better than the show runner or writers. “Let’s air the train heist episode instead of the next intended one. Because it’s cool.”
Pettiness and selfishness.
Brimstone was another one they did it too. It had a lot of potential
Never doubt how much trouble can be created by mixing Ego, Stupidity and Power. It's not just good shows that get ruined. You'll find the same thing behind the failures of grocery stores, pharmacies, hedge funds, governments and many others.
@ Brimstone was awesome. John Glover is still my favorite Devil.
It and Space Above and Beyond on air about the same time and both cancelled before their time.
so true
Yes, I agree 100 percent. Both full TV series are in my home DVD collection. (smile ... smile).
And both can’t be purchased on streaming. Very unfortunate.
"Take a chance."
oh man I loved those 2 shows....
Those underground creatures where terrifying when I was kid
This show was also the first thing I recall seeing Clancy Brown in post "Highlander" 😄
I remember watching this show when it came out. It was a very unique season. It was for me, the introduction of many wonderful actors, and what they contributed through their acting career.
From what I remember, this show suffered from constant changing airing times. One episode was scheduled after a football game that went into overtime. When the episode played it was half over.
Yeah I actually recall that I hated football but wanted to see this and got half a episode
This is still, to this day, one of my favorite shows. I was super pissed when they canceled it. Show was way ahead of its time.
loved this show as a kid sad it didn't get more seasons
LOVED this show so much - rewatched it a few years ago - some of it landed, some didn't, but glad they took the shot. The flash forward episode was excellent.
Young teen me was in love with Rebecca Gayheart as Bess.
I was older so it was Jessica Steen for me.
@@dwbaz I might have a hormone imbalance or something, because for me it was all of them.
I did love this show, and I also bought the DVDs after 2012. In the days pre-internet, it wasn't always obvious why a show was cancelled, so I'm glad for you and your channel.
Holy crap I had completely forgotten about this. I remember enjoying it at the time. Thank you for reminding me of an interesting little show
This needs a reboot. Either starting over or give us a season 2. There were so many plot threads left dangling. I randomly thought about it a year ago and ended up watching the whole series. I think given the right leadership, they could make the show work today.
The bright side to its abrupt ending was that its primed for a season 2 to just pickup where season 1 left off. Though at this point you would need to completely refilm season 1 with a new cast to maintain consistency, or pull some wacky time skip BS to account for why everyone looks different.
One of my favorite theme introduce from the series back then was marriage having term limit, and only extended if the couple wanted to. Made sense and save the trouble of problematic divorces.
I was 8 when it premiered in Germany.
It was the first series that I consciously chose and watched from start to finish.
For me it was really great cinema and to this day the series has a special place in my heart.
I was shocked when I found out that the series had been canceled.
Thanks to E.T., Earth 2 and SeaQuest DSV, Spielberg was my hero and my heart was addicted to sci-fi.
Unfortunately, I recently had to go through the same experience again with the cancellation of "Raised by Wolves" by Ridley Scott.
NBC did have some good sci fi show in the 90's. SeaQuest I think aired at the same time. It was kinda star trek but under water, but the ecological and narrative aspects of the people was really good. It's a shame that at the end of the first season they blew up the sub and essentially did soft reboots each subsequent season. The entire aliens thing that pervaded season 2 and 3 should have never been done, as they could have continued on with the usual international conflicts that the UEO had to moderate, along with exploration episodes.
Earth 2 was a great series covering the aspects of a small colony/wagon train idea across a new world. Almost a sci-fi western before Firefly was a thing.
As for similar, but more modern shows, I miss that Terra Nova was cancelled. Bit Jurassic Park, but with time travel and a conspiracy regarding the technology.
Terra Nova was unable to compete VS Falling Skies mainly because Steven Spielberg was initially involved with Falling Skies, but past the main storyline, design of some of the props and aliens, and being hands on for the pilot, I'm pretty sure he wasn't much involved from there on.
The answer is NBC. They partnered with Spielberg and made an investment in sci fi with this show and SeaQuest but didn't follow through on it when costs were higher than anticipated and the ratings weren't exactly blockbuster. Fun fact: The show creators actually pitched a season 2 that would take place at the main colony site on the planet and was more like a "Wild west in Space" theme. They tried to amp up the action in order to get the network to pick up the show for season 2. They also would've dropped the characters of Yale and Morgan in favor of some newcomers. There is a video of the season 2 pitch on TH-cam.
I loved this show when it aired. When i started watching this video, i was thinking this was the kind of show I would've loved when i was a young teenager, it took seeing Clancy Brown to remember I'd actually watched it, in full. Time to revisit!
Love that your video about this came up in my recommended videos on YT.
The only thing I remember from this show is unbelievable stupidity and lack of the basic reasoning of its characters, plain even for a teenager.
The main theme is so great, i love it! 🖖
I really loved that show it had a ton of potential. There was another Syfy show a few years later called Defying Gravity that had tons of potential but was canceled after the first season.
I remember seeing this and "Defying Gravity" from renting the full-series DVDs on Netflix and they had established such great premises with a unique underlying mystery.
"Earth2" not only had the idea of whether the colonists could survive but the future Ulysses set up the idea of what would happen to change him
"Defying Gravity" had the idea of something leaving "markers" behind and the detail of one of the astronauts still having issues from an aborted pregnancy
I was a fan of this show when it originally aired.
I remember that the official NBC website had dome additional content relating to the show, such as planetary maps. There was also a Usenet discussion group with some participation from the writers.
I liked it. I was disappointed when it was cancelled.
I loved watching this show as a kid, but I remember always having a hard time finding when it was on. It was like they kept moving the air dates. So I missed a lot of episodes.
Yeah, said the same thing. It was really enjoyable -- first few episodes, but then, after that, I got confused on things bez I either missed some episodes or they skipped things in show.
I remember watching this series, celebrating the unearthly beauty of it's New Mexico setting. It stalled during The Winter Where Nothing Happened. I kept watching, but "Earth 2" was drifting and failed to advance much, leading to a cliffhanger season (and series) ending.
I loved Earth 2
I watched the show only for "Pilot" and "Kurgan." Fans of Captain Power and Highlander will know what that means.
Yes! I know Pilot, but who was Kurgan?
@@nicks.5552 "The Kurgan," Clancy Brown's role as the villain in Highlander.
Oh, I’ve actually never seen Highlander. Earth 2 was my introduction to the amazing Clancy Brown.
I remember this show very well. Like many others of that era which were already named here, it was cancelled right in the moment it started to get exciting.
this and so many other scifi deserved so much better like space, above and beyond. and viper.
It was a good show and was in that run of 90s Sci Fi that as you said burnt brightly but failed... always thought Earth 2 would be perfect for a reboot
burnt 😂
@meesalikeu as I'm English living in the UK .. Burnt is perfectly fine ... as The past tense of "burned" is simply "burned"; it is the standard form in American English, while "burnt" is more commonly used in British English and can be used interchangeably depending on context.
I remember this show.
I loved it and wish that they had at least given it a second season.
This is the first time I remember noticing episodes being aired out of order and confusing me as a kid. I blame that for its death :(
J Madison Wright rest in peace
Did I miss the part where you
mentioned Tim Curry
That said its great how you kept
the video from being too long
Thank you. I did have a little paragraph in the script about Tim Curry but decided to remove it. Thinking about it now I should of left it in.
The thing I most remember about this show is that the young actress who played the character True had to have a heart transplant and died when she was just 21.
I remember hearing about that. It was heartbreaking because she had just gotten married shortly prior to her death.
@@nicks.5552 yes like less than a week before. So sad.
I remember loving the first episode or two but then the show started being impossible to keep track of when it was on. I eventually gave up after missing a few episodes due to the story having moved on. It had great potential but was given no chance to succeed by the network.
I remember this gem of a show. Always wondered what happened to it.
An obvious reason for failure is where it aired. Until you have things like the SciFi channel, science fiction shows struggled to get enough ratings to justify renewal. Didn't matter how good they were. Star Trek TOS had to fight for a third season. Babylon 5 had to find a new network to take over production before it had completed the 5-year storyline.
the SCiFI channel did their share of pulling out rugs too.
@ - True. 😢
I didn't know they released this on DVD, let alone twice. I know what I need to find now.
Very good show. I watched it when it came out, but it kept changing the timeslot. And, it seemed to jump from episode to episode, because I got confused about things as I watched it on TV.
I watched this series only once, 1round 1995 or 1996 when it aired in Germany. But it left a lasting impression, mainly thanks to the fantastic cast. Need to find the DVD box, as it isn't available on Bluray or streaming.
NBC has the worst reputation for ending shows early, first and foremost - Star Trek. Earth2 was a great show, but so were Forever, Timeless, Manifest, etc. Sadly, anything that borders on science fiction doesn't survive long term on broadcast TV - (Quantum Leap - and I'm not talking about the reboot). I don't even bother watching shows on NBC, CBS, ABC, or FOX anymore, because I know they will just get cancelled. Likewise I refuse to pay subscription fees for everyone of those networks that puts those types of shows behind a pay wall.
I watched this with my dad, when I was a kid. I was really into it, and confused when it ended so quickly.
The poor kid the daughter of Clancy Brown's character died very young was very sad
I totally forgot about this show. Thanks for all the nostalgia
I remember this show!
That was a damn good show. Sadly, I never finished it, as I didn't want to invest in another show that broke my heart due to cancelation.
This was phenomenal. I remember taping this on VHS.
When I was a young man in the 90s, I gladly wanted to buy a cargo vest to look like one of the colonists I think with one or two more changes to the outfit I would’ve looked just perfect as an extra
I will admit I partially watched this just to see Debrah Farentino. It was decent sci-fi.
It was only yesterday that i found out rebecca gayheart killed a kid because she was an angry driver and on her phone. She only got a small fine and no jail time.
I have vague memories of Earth 2. I remember that it existed, and I remember thinking it was weird at the time, couldn't tell you a single thing about the story or characters.
Clancy Brown was also in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension and Starship Troopers.
Usually the roles mentioned are for Highlander and Spongebob.
This was one of my favorite shows at the time. I have the DVD set as consolation.
I have absolutely no memory of this show. I might look it up on the different streaming services.
i got the 2005 dvd, i didn't know the episodes were out of order on it, thanks for telling me? a bit late but thanks
I was vaguely aware of this show but never saw it. When it is spoken about then some people make this sound so cheap and cheesy. This looked good for when it was made with really solid actors. Ambitious is a perfect word to describe it.
Each episode of this TV show was different sometimes it was issues with various crew members, sometimes a species on the planet, and yet at other times xyz. Glad, I own the full series as a part of my home DVD collection.
I really enjoyed the show when it was on. The kids kinda irked me a little early on but they grew with the show to be a bit more serious. The cast of characters was great and the actor brought each of them to life. It was an ambitious project and maybe they crammed too much into it and even ruined it by introducing the prisoners, cyborg soldiers and shadow council. Should have focused on survival and living with the natives.
I watched this and it was a very good show though I can remember feeling as though it stretched out in storytelling sometimes. I wonder if the two dropped episodes were meant to speed things along but just ended up confusing everyone? There was A LOT going on in the overall story. I also feel like maybe it switched nights at some point, which is always a death knell for a series and often why a series ends on such a low ratings point but I can't remember for certain. Anyway it was unfortunate. Nowadays it might have made it a few seasons and given more of a closure at the end.
So many shows back then were impossible to watch, if you missed any episodes the whole thing would be baffling
It sounds like it was sabotaged like "Firefly" was. They showed them in the wrong order as well among other things.
Firefly had it even worse with terrible advertising and constantly shifting its time slot around so it was never on at the same time two weeks in a row.
@@Joe-xq3zu Before Firefly started airing, FOX barely advertised it and only used content from the rejected pilot *and* narrated the ads with a laugh track to make it seem like a comedy. Meanwhile they incessantly ran ads for "John Doe". I never once saw a Firefly ad on FOX's FX satellite network but they ran lots of John Doe ads there.
I never watched the final episode of John Doe. From what I read about it, its ending is up there on the stupid scale with the endings of the Battlestar Galactica reboot, and Enterprise, and Earth^2's final episode. The last aired episode (but not last produced) of the original Lost in Space tops them all of course.
show was way ahead of its time
I remember really liking this show when it was out.
I miss this TV series a lot!
Same thing happened to Firefly and Crusade. They mess up the story, then use the resulting drop in ratings to justify cancelling the show ... only to do it all over again. JUST TELL A GOOD STORY! That's all we want!
Loved the show, and it is rewatched on DVD about once every 18 months.
Love this show when I was a kid. I think its worth to give it another take in reboot since original has So short run and didnt meet its conclusion.
I realy liked this show. Very sad it never got a second season, or a movie, or any other option to finish all the open plotlines.
I really enjoyed this series. It sucked that it ended on a cliffhanger.
Fun Fact, Star Trek Discovery stole a story line directly from one of Earth 2's episodes. The one where the mucus of that alien bull thing was the cure to a virus? They did the same thing with the Tardigrade in one episode.
Not true you need to get your facts straight star trek Discovery did not stole nothing
Good show ! You didn't even mention Tim Curry's character he had some mysterious background storyline.
I was a fan of _Earth 2._ When later the show _Lost_ came out, it in a way felt like an unofficial sequel.
I remember seeing this show as a kid and barely keeping up with it, and then it was just gone lol
The problem for this and so many others is that they become soap operas. I prefer episodes that stand on their own instead of having to watch them in an exact order.
Which is why I don't watch M-She-U movies. You have to watch each and every one to figure out what's going on, and it's all about DEI/The Message/Girls Rule! in the end.
I remember watching this show as a child, and to be honest, not really digging it. Other shows, around that time, were better. Especially Star Trek: TNG. But I also preferred shows like Space: Above & Beyond, and Earth: Final Conflict.
However, Earth 2 _did_ have a pretty interesting vibe to it, which still lingers in my mind. And this same premise would also work well as a videogame.
I'm one of the ones who watched early on but then dropped out. Her son was sick not because of any missing vitamin, essential amino acid, fatty acid, whatever. It was just "artificial." The planet was supposed to vibrate strongly on the metaphysical realm or such. Not necessarily a bad show, but not a show for me.
Shows with story Arcs had a rough time until streaming came along. If you missed one episode. There no going back in time. You wouldn't know what's happening the next time you watched. Then people would lose interest. Then ratings would drop.
Jessica Steen! 😍
i liked it alot growing up!, as different & real scifi!
and the networks sadly dont "get it" .... they need to commit to atleast a couple of season, to see how it ends up! all these 1 season cancellations are just sad & ruin the genre!
I just thought it was boring. Especially Sabato's lack of gravitas.
I thought it had potential.
I'm 99% sure that red utility vest Clancy Brown's character wears is the one the would go on to be worn by Leoben in BSG.
I loved when the pilot broke his legs and said he was never supposed to be on land, only space. That was cool.
The bone healing stuff was for the *colonists*. Steely-eyed spaceship pilots broke bones and went to medbays with advanced technology.
@@greggv8 I am sure he did not mind spending time with the doctor :)
It was a great show and still very relevant today. I would love to see a reboot but I fear it would be made way too political if it was made now.
Her son looks like the Borg
I watched this show... it was okay. I have observed over the years that this happens time and time again. Executives only see dollar signs, nothing else. So they'll buy a show like this, or, say, Airwolf. It will do well but not knock-out. So they decide they want to dumb it down to appeal to a wider audience. And so they ruin what made the show good in the first place. Airwolf was amazing in season 1, okay in season 2, bad in season 3 and then there was that horrific "season 4" on USA network made up of little more than stock footage. Remember Sliders? They kept trying to make it appeal to an even wider audience and it got stupid. Did that to Knight Rider too. Others here have mentioned Space Above & Beyond, that was great too.
What's worse is it's happening even now on streaming services. There have been several great shows that Netflix canceled because they either didn't have enough control over them or weren't making as much money as they wanted, despite the shows having strong followings. Dark Matter was one of them.
AND I'm still waiting on more Orville.
this is why traditional TV died. Things like this are not cancelled on streamers after 1 year. This was a great show.
They also made too many eps a year then.
This series was ahead of its time.
i like the metaphor of getting to a new alien planet and then finding out that our govt was already there for years doing experiments, just like mars, i think we went there already in the 1980s and now we are going there "for real" even though the govt has been there already
It was that super stupid final episode and the ongoing plotline leading up to it. Orbital mechanics dictate when seasons happen, not a fungus infected animal or person falling into a magic hole in the ground which then technicolor yawns spring onto the planet.
A couple of effects gaffes are notable. The open sores on the horse's chest were very obviously a poorly made prosthetic appliance that appeared to be about to fall off at any time, with gaps between it and the horse. Making things stick to horse hair is difficult but simply mixing up some cottage cheese and strawberry jam with a swirl of blue food coloring to smear on the horse would've been an effective and completely safe "makeup" effect.
The bullet that self-rotated to screw itself farther into the person shot *was turning the wrong direction*. Years earlier, Disney had the same thing with a projectile in their rejected "Earth Star Voyager" series pilot, and made exactly the same wrong direction turning error.
The SFX in this show still stand up today. It's amazing. OK, one of the aliens was maybe a tad iffy, but it was supposed to be an alien afterall. A shame your video is such low-quality since there are DVDs available.
Thanks for watching. Apologies for the low quality of the promos of the show they are not available in better quality. The rest of the footage has been ripped from the DVDs and the quality seems fine.
I watched this on channel two in my area
i really liked the show when it was on, it lost a little muster in the middle with a boring episode about sick people in a pod, i missed the last? episode, i was working and i think my vcr didn't record it like i programmed to? or something went wrong either the channel got changed on it or something, so i never not to find out what happened until the 2000s with dvds
I remember the setting of the show more than anything else. This may have been a falt of the show as I was more intrested in the sitting than the plot.
I remember watching this when it came out….well like the whole month and a half it was out. Was a neat idea kinda looked forward to seeing more…..and cancel hammered
The show that was the first Pandora from Avatar
It needs a reboot..please..
As a kid when it came out they could have really made this work.
I suspect it was just not able to complete with the near monopoly Star Trek TNG had. It was too low tech and had too many trees for what TNG had mainstreamed - and a hard SF fan will roll one's eyes at it being easier to switch solar systems than build an air filter on Earth no matter how badly polluted. Additionally it was NBC synergy programming with Seaquest - which was trying to be TNG underwater but was not must see watercooler conversation stuff. Obviously both shows had their audience - even Star Trek needed twenty years of original series reruns to get TNG to where it was and that's not realistic to expect from a new franchise.
Impregnating the planet to cause Spring was a bridge too far.
Why was it a failure, the story idea and all the other things were looking really good. I just don’t understand. Why it failed.
Hadn't thought about this show in a while but remember really enjoying it and was disappointed in its cancellation. The few things I think contributed to it not getting renewed was that with an ensemble cast so much of the focus was on the kids, jeez that piercing scream the little girl had was annoying. Also, as much as I love Tim Curry in about everything the creepy pedo vibe towards the little girl was a bit over the top, 'Ello Poppet.