Entertainment
Done With Star Trek? Try These Other Gene Roddenberry SF Shows
By Jennifer Asencio
| Published
After the travesty that has been Starfleet Academy, Star Trek fans are abandoning the franchise and looking for something else to watch. The good news is that if you love Gene Roddenberry’s work, you have alternatives.
Beyond two of his greatest creations, Star Trek’s original series and then later The Next Generation, there is a wealth of ideas that weren’t directly part of the Star Trek universe. Two other sci-fi shows were created from his notes and storyboards. His widow, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, known to fans as Lwaxana Troi and Nurse Chapel, helped produce both series.
Earth: Final Conflict Was Intended As A Film, But Became A 1990s TV Series
Earth: Final Conflict was created by Gene Roddenberry following the cancellation of the original series of Star Trek in 1969. Initially titled Battleground: Earth, it was intended to be a film, but the project never materialized, even after studios expressed interest. This was in great part due to Roddenberry’s scheduling conflicts with Star Trek. Although the show never materialized in his lifetime, it was brought to life in 1997, six years after Roddenberry died.
In Earth: Final Conflict, an alien race called the Taelons have come to Earth offering to help humanity with its problems, especially in the medical fields. We are introduced to William Boone, security for an important public announcement that is interrupted by a business tycoon’s assassination.
As more people die around him, Boone reluctantly agrees to become a Protector for the Companions, a human security agent supported by alien biotechnology. Meanwhile, he is also asked to join an underground resistance fighting behind the scenes for human sovereignty against the Taelons.
The series never paints the Taelons as being entirely good or bad. Many Taelons want to help, while others use humanity as a means to an end.
Earth: Final Conflict was a departure from Roddenberry’s usual fare because the aliens were not always as capable of evil acts as humans, and their interference with human life wasn’t always helpful, even when benevolent. It looked at both the immense potential of alien technology while also highlighting the dark side of interaction with more advanced, intelligent extraterrestrials.
Over the course of five seasons, most clearly at the end of the first season, with the death of an important character that received a bad reaction, fans learned not to get attached to characters, as something always seemed to happen to them. This was in part due to behind-the-scenes issues, including contract disputes and conflicts between actors and producers, leading to serious problems and uneven content.
The last season had the greatest change, as the plot and tone shifted away from the Taelons to the arrival of a new alien race, which ran it into the weeds. Roddenberry wasn’t around to elaborate on his notes, and his vision for Earth: Final Conflict could not continue without him.
Andromeda Is Gene Roddenberry’s Other Space Show
Five seasons is a respectable run, and that success led to another of Roddenberry’s creations being posthumously brought to life. It’s called Andromeda.
Set in the sixth millennium, a much more distant future than Star Trek has ever operated in, Andromeda stars Kevin Sorbo, fresh from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. He plays Dylan Hunt, captain of the flagship of the Commonwealth fleet, the Andromeda Ascendant. The ship is run by a sentient AI named Rommie, played by sci-fi legend Lexi Doig.
The Commonwealth, similar to the Federation, has fallen, and Hunt has been asleep for 303 years. When he wakes up, he meets the rest of the main cast, a group of scavengers, led by Earth: Final Conflict actress Lisa Ryder, fighting for survival in the galactic dark age that followed the collapse of the Commonwealth. Over the course of five seasons, we follow along as Dylan Hunt and the crew of the Andromeda fight to restore the Commonwealth.
Like Earth: Final Conflict, Andromeda had its own issues behind the scenes. Mixed-to-negative reviews followed the show throughout its run. An upheaval in production in the middle of the second season led to showrunners changing due to pacing and character issues.
Rather than exploring the potential of a world where “Starfleet” has fallen, the production company, Tribune Entertainment, wanted more episodic content and more focus on the character of Sorbo’s Dylan Hunt character, essentially making it “Hercules in Space.” It wasn’t all bad, though, as each of its five seasons had 22 episodes, and it was nominated for 39 awards.
Gene Roddenberry’s Legacy Endures Despite NuTrek’s Best Efforts To Kill It
Andromeda and Earth: Final Conflict highlight the enduring power and legacy of Gene Roddenberry. Even after his death, his original creative works, aside from Star Trek, were still being produced by his surviving family and estate.
While the effects on these older shows might be dated and some of the acting iffy in spots, sci-fi fans can still enjoy these hidden gems. They’re better Roddenberry productions than most of what Paramount churned out in the NuTrek™ era, and they’re both free on Tubi.