Random Thoughts – Randocity!

In the mid-late 1990s and after Gene Roddenberry’s untimely passing, Majel Barrett Roddenberry pitched a new Sci-Fi series which was conceived by the late Gene Roddenberry based entirely on Gene’s notes. That series? Earth: Final Conflict. Let’s take a retro dive and explore and review this series.

Premise of Earth Final Conflict

Aliens arrive on Earth bearing the promise of peace and gifts to humanity. It seems ideal. Yet, that’s where the series begins its subtext and subversion. After all, the series is called “Final Conflict”. Thus, there must be some level of “conflict” involved or the series isn’t correctly named.

Season 1

As the first season unfolds, it is clear that the concept and execution is both rough in some areas and polished in others. Much of the first season, then, seems to have been lifted almost directly from some of Gene’s notes; notes which crafted many of the episodes. Most of the episodes were, for the most part, well written. The pacing and situations unfolded in a logical and progressive manner. Every story tended to build upon the last, laying groundwork and foundation for what could make a very profound series. In this first season, there was hope for something positive. There was nothing given away in Season 1 to indicate the endgame, but the series itself was, as I said above, mostly well written.

With William Boon (Kevin Kilner), Lili Marquette (Lisa Howard), Ronald Sandoval (Von Flores), Augur (Richard Chevolleau) and to a lesser degree Jonathan Doors (David Hemblen) rounding out the “Human” cast of characters in this series, the stories worked reasonably well. The Taelon cast primarily consisted of Da’an (Leni Parker) and, later in the season, Zo’or (Anita La Selva). Majel Barrett Roddenberry also lent her acting hand as basically a “Doctor Chapel” to help implement the Taelon medical agenda on Earth. However, her character was effectively dropped before the end of season 1.

For the stories throughout season 1, the Taelons were mostly in agreement on how to move their agenda forward, with only differences in how the agenda would be implemented by specific companions.

That’s not to say the series was perfect at this point. There was definitely some inane writing involved at times. The most prominent writing problem was focusing on Da’an as the “primary” Taelon. To understand this further, it became understood that Da’an was the “North American Companion”. What about the South American Companion, the Asian Companion, the UK or even the Russian Companions? Where were those companions? Why did we never get to see those or, indeed, hear their sides of this agenda? Why weren’t their inputs as important as Da’an’s? There’s a big plot hole here which could have been rectified by season 2, but it wasn’t. Instead, the series attempted to capitalize on this disparity, instead of trying to explain it.

Season 1 wasn’t perfect, but it was a very first and important step in explaining why the Taelons had come to Earth, why a growing faction of “Resistance” had formed and how both parties would interact with one another as the series progressed.

Cast Changes

Unfortunately, by Season 2, the producers had introduced their own agenda. They wanted a younger (and hopefully larger) audience and in so doing began one in a series of rather odd personnel changes. Let’s stop right here and discuss this aspect.

Personnel changes in series can be the kiss of death for a series. While some series have been able to endure personnel changes to some degree, the series is never the same after. The most prominent personnel change in a series was in Charlie’s Angels. This series lost Farrah Fawcett after one season to her demand for more pay. Because the producers were unwilling to agree to her demands, but also because she was locked into a contract to complete a certain number of episodes, a compromise was met. Farrah would appear in fewer episodes over a longer amount of time, making it so she received the same pay as she did when working in every episode. Effectively, she got her raise, but worked less and made less money overall.

This change was the beginning of the Charlie’s Angels series tanking. Farrah’s departure opened the door to a revolving cast of wannabe actresses moving in and out of the series. From the progressively worse Cheryl Ladd to Shelley Hack to Tanya Roberts… with Cheryl Ladd being the one who was able to hold her own most of the time, but could be just as awkward at times. Even still, the amazing and iconic chemistry between Jaclyn Smith, Kate Jackson and Farrah Fawcett was undeniable and was entirely lost as a result of Farrah’s departure. The producers should have kept Farrah with the series at all costs, yes even agreeing to her higher salary. Yet, failed to do so.

Getting back to Earth Final Conflict, this same situation unfolded on this series. At the end of Season 1, the William Boone character was killed off. It is unknown why Kevin Kilner (who played Boone) left the series, but it has been theorized that the producers were looking for a younger face as a leading man. Apparently, at the time, Kevin Kilner was around the age of 40. He certainly didn’t look it on small lo-res TV screens, but apparently the producers may have thought so. To that end, William Boone was killed off, leading to a completely preposterous scenario to literally born a new character in Liam Kincaid for season 2.

In Season 4, probably due to cost cutting measures, Richard Chevolleau’s role as Augur was replaced by a new female lead in Juliette Street (played by Melinda Deines). Unfortunately, you get what you pay for. Deines was apparently so overjoyed that she landed this role that she incessantly smiled for the vast majority of her performances, as though she were some kind of EFC cheerleader. Her “better than Augur” technical persona was so overwhelmed by her scenery chewing deliveries, her character just didn’t work well for the vast majority of the episodes where she appeared.

I won’t even get into the inane naming of this “Street” character in replacement for Augur. While Richard Chevolleau’s performances steadily improved throughout the first 3 seasons to the point where his deliveries actually became more or less acceptable, the series producers forced us viewers to start all over with yet another very green actress to play yet another Augur character. So what was the point in all of this anyway?

These are by no means the only examples. Oh, no no no. Season 4 ushered in a nearly brand new cast of characters, replacing the Taelons and everything we had come to know about the series. Keep reading below for more details on that immense mistake.

Acting

Before I get into season 2, let’s discuss a hot topic that has been widely debated about this series. Yes, acting was a problem with this series. That’s to be sure. Not so much in Leni Parker or Anita La Selva (Taelons), but in the human actors. From Doors, to Augur to Marquette to Boone, the acting was fair. It was utilitarian enough to carry the stories forward, but there was nothing award winning about the acting. This is partly due to the directors. Some directors are able to draw out excellent performances from mediocre actors, but not in this series.

Kilner’s William Boone, for example, had a delivery that sounded like he was in dress rehearsal reading the lines for the first time. His delivery is so dry and unaffected, it’s occasionally difficult to watch. Augur, on the other hand, delivered lines like he was in a Saturday morning children’s show. With his clownish outfits and his near chewing the scenery, Richard Chevolleau’s Augur made for a difficult watch at times.

Howard’s Marquette delivery ranged from decent to excellent for most of her episodes. Her delivery worked well, mostly, and she was able to hold her own with the material. In fact, I’d say that Lisa Howard’s Marquette, being one of the strongest of the actors involved in the series, was the glue who more or less held the “human” cast together.

Leni Parker and Anita La Selva worked well within their “Alien” constraints as Da’an and Zo’or, respectively. From the the hand gestures to the head bobs to the constraining costumes to the prosthetic makeup, this left the acting constrained to specific “Alien” mannerisms. These constraints, when combined with the “Alien” attitudes, delivered a more stilted performance… which is more or less what we got. Whether this delivery was intentional or a product of the costumes and prosthetics remains unknown. For the sake of this article, I will assume that the alien mannerisms and stilted performances were all intentional, as the role demanded to sell the Taelons. I’ve not seen these two actresses work in other acting parts, so I can’t speak to their full range or abilities. However, as Taelons, their subtle and constrained delivery worked well… particularly Leni Parker, whose occasional smile said volumes about Da’an.

Speaking of smiles, well smirks actually, Robert Leeshock’s incessant smirk after delivering a line of dialog is not only annoying, you can’t even tell the seriousness of the delivery. In his own way, Leeshock replaced Kilner’s dry, flat affect with his own level of oddly smirky, but also dry, flat delivery.

Season 2

Here’s where things start to get rough. This sophomore season didn’t help the series much at all. The first thing to notice about Season 2 is the cast change from William Boone to Liam Kincaid. As I discussed earlier, Kincaid’s setup was entirely preposterous. At the end of Season 1, Ha’gel (a Kimera who looks like a Taelon) impregnates the Irish protector, Siobahn Beckett (played by Kari Matchett). The fetus and then the baby to child to adult grows at an astonishing rate. From birth to adult is no more than a couple of hours.

Because Ha’gel is Kimera, the baby (who becomes Liam Kincaid) is half human, half Kimera. Why this plot device was included is entirely unknown. However, the writers failed to explore Liam’s Kimera abilities the vast majority of the time in season 2 or even 3, eventually explaining it off as his “Kimera” side is disappearing. Yeah, right, whatever. Whenever Liam is placed into a combat scenario, he reaches for a gun 90% of the time rather than using his innate Shaqarava… with the Shaqarava being primarily used as a palm embedded energy projectile weapon. Though, I believe the Shaqarava could be used for other purposes, like healing or as a telepathic instrument.

It gets worse. In the episode Hijacked, a reporter captures Liam’s use of his Shaqarava (palm energy organs) on camera. When confronted, she acts all surprised as if, while standing around on the mothership surrounded by literally tons of Taelons, Taelon implanted humans and Taelon technology, that it’s the most surprising thing she’s ever seen in a human. It’s such stupid and preposterous writing, I don’t even know how the showrunners thought we could swallow this trash.

Yet, this surprise is presented in all sincerity. The only thing Liam needed to explain to the reporter is that it is Taelon technology. It is actually Taelon in origin and he wouldn’t be lying by saying that. It’s just not Taelon technology from these specific Taelons. It was inherited Taelon technology back when the Taelons and Jaridians were one race… which is what and who Ha’gel is (an “old style Taelon”). Worse, why does it matter anyway? Liam acted like his being exposed for having Shaqarava is the worst thing ever. With literally thousands of Taelon implanted and enhanced humans running around, many using Skrill as weapons, Liam’s Shaqarava is something to be concerned over?

However, that’s not the worst of season 2. There were so many bad lines of dialog written, I can’t even document them all here. There were lines delivered by Zo’or that literally made no sense. Zo’or would ask questions of the humans that all Taelons should already know the answer. So then, why is Zo’or asking these questions? It would be one thing if Zo’or were asking the questions sarcastically, but the writers had Zo’or ask them in all seriousness, like Zo’or genuinely didn’t know the answer. It doesn’t make any sense. The Taelons are superior to the humans in practically every way and have vastly superior knowledge and intelligence. Why is Zo’or asking such basic and degrading questions of humans?

There were so many stupid lines of dialog in too many of the season 2 episodes, the writing felt cloddish. It’s clear, the writers had no finesse for the scripts or the source material. They didn’t understand where to take the Taelons and, indeed, attempted to rely on silly and foolish action scenes to carry the weight of the episodes rather on using the story to drive the overall narrative. While the first season was rough, it wasn’t cloddish. However, going into season 2, we began with the absurd and it gets even more inane as the season progresses.

In fact, some actions scenes are so out of place and come from nowhere, I’m at a loss to figure out what the writers were thinking. Is the only way out of a story dilemma to throw a chase and gunfire scene in? I don’t get it. There were so many unnecessary (and unproductive) shootouts, I eventually lost track. Worse, in all of those shootouts, Liam almost never uses his Shaqarava. There are so many times where he has no weapon on him, and yet he takes punches or gunfire like he’s unarmed. It’s like, come on writers, he has the Shaqarava. Let him use it to end the conflict. Yet, Liam almost always ends up on the floor face down unconscious without ever having used his Shaqarava.

The only time he ends up using his Shaqarava is when there’s a stupid plot device involved, like in Season 2, Episode 18’s Hijacked.

Let’s talk about Hijacked again in another way. This episode is so preposterous and absurd, I can’t even fathom why it was written. If the Taelon mothership is so vulnerable to takeover, why did it take this long for the human resistance to abscond with it? The dialog that “justifies” the episode is that, paraphrased, Taelons didn’t design with vulnerabilities in mind. If that were the case, then every Taelon technology is sufficiently vulnerable to takeover.

There is zero chance a dying race as advanced as the Taelons would be that naïve towards technology vulnerabilities. Claiming that and then writing an episode around the mothership being taken for a joy ride is jump-the-shark preposterous. It’s as preposterous as the first episode when Liam Kincaid comes into existence.

It’s like the showrunners for season 1 were fired and replaced. Then, new showrunners were allowed to retool the series to their own whims and desires. Season 2 felt like it was simply a playground for the “new” producers, not to tell a story, but for them to put up all action stories that the writers can devise, stupid or not.

Atavus

Before I get into season 3, let’s talk about this specific season 2 episode. The stupidity of this episode should be understood immediately. We need to understand this episode to further understand how it shaped seasons 4 and 5. The primary mistake the writers made with the Atavus episode is that the series had already established that Taelons don’t revert to an atavistic state upon severance from the Commonality (psychic bond to other Taelons). That fact was established by Ma’el thousands of years earlier. Ma’el didn’t have access to humans to “suck” their minds to keep from reverting. Either Ma’el figured out a way that has never been known to Taelons or Taelons simply don’t automatically revert. I’m betting on the latter.

When Ma’el came to Earth to learn about humans, he severed his ties to the Commonality. Yet, he didn’t have the luxury of near death humans to sustain him in Taelon form. He also didn’t revert to an Atavus. Or, if he did, he quickly figured out a way to revert back to Taelon form. However, it was never established that Ma’el ever became an Atavus or remained in that state after severing his ties to the Commonality. That means that Season 2, Episode 2 made no sense for when Bel’lie comes to Earth from a different Taelon colony strictly to become an Atavus.

That either means that Ma’el was immune to becoming an Atavus or this whole “become an atavus” thing was made up by the writers for sheer convenience strictly for this silly Season 2 episode.

Season 2 also employed one entirely questionable and throw-away episide in S2E8’s Redemption. This episode consisted almost entirely of flashbacks combined with maybe 5-8 minutes of “new” content to carry the segments. It wasn’t even handled by a primary character. It was handled by the tertiary character, Siobhan Beckett (Kari Matchett)… as if we actually cared about the fate of this character? This also wouldn’t be the first or last throw-away character that the writers would devote an entire episode to.

One other extremely bad episode to call out is the final episode of Season 2. The entire story is so dumb, I don’t even know why the idea was greenlit. The whole series up to this point had been grooming Jonathan Doors (played David Hemblen) to become President of the United States. In fact, Zo’or was nearly ready to profess his loyalty to Doors. Yet, this episode sees Zo’or with his right hand man, Sandoval, lead the charge to assassinate Daniel Thompson, the then President of the United States in the series. The assassination was to be carried out during the presidential debate. In fact, what we come to find later was the plot intended to injure Thompson and pin it on Doors with the intention of discrediting him. Why is it bad? Because while the Taelons are malevolent in a very hands-off way, this plot shows the Taelons to be not only overt in their dangerousness, they’re fully willing to play with people’s lives to further their agenda, they hadn’t ever done this so overtly prior.

Honestly, the show would have been better had Doors won the election. This convoluted plot kept Thompson in office, an actor (Barry Flatman) whose bit parts were okay, but nothing to write home about. Now, we have to have more involved plots with this actor more and more. David Hemblen’s acting was far superior to Barry Flatman. Why the producers chose to sideline David Hemblen’s character in lieu of Barry Flatman’s character is beyond me. Yet more stupid showrunner decisions.

Season 3

More personnel changes. At the opening of Season 3, we come to find that the Season 2 prophetic vision of Augur’s holographic computer interface being pregnant and having a baby actually served a real life purpose. Lisa Howard was apparently pregnant and showing towards the tail end of season 2. Showing Augur’s computer character as pregnant and then having a child would have allowed Lisa Howard to continue her dual role, playing both Lili Marquette and Augur’s holographic computer assistant in the shape of Lili Marquette.

Going into Season 3, we come to find Lili has been killed… or at least, so we’re told. Behind the scenes, Lisa Howard had apparently requested maternity leave from the producers for the first half of Season 3. The producers were apparently somewhat obliging to her request and reduced her role significantly. Not only did Augur delete his holographic interface, so too did Lili Marquette mostly disappear from the series… appearing only in a few episodes in Season 3. This allowed Lisa Howard the time she wanted to be with her new family member.

Unfortunately, this personnel change put a hole in the series for a leading lady character. In that effort, they hired actress Jayne Heitmeyer to play Jonathan Door’s new right hand, Renee Palmer. Lisa Howard apparently claimed that Heitmeyer wasn’t intended to be a replacement for Lili Marquette. While that statement may have seemed true in some small way, that’s not really how the series turned out. In fact, by Seasons 4 and 5, Heitmeyer’s character, Renee Palmer, had become the primary lead character who carried the entire series (along side Sandoval). So, yes, Renee Palmer did eventually come to replace Lili Marquette and most of the rest of the “human” cast.

Season 3 is just as ludicrous, unfortunately, as season 2. This is mostly because of the newly introduced Renee Palmer character. When this character appears, there’s no questions, no background checks, nothing. She’s so readily accepted into the fold, it’s as if she’s been there all along. This is part of the reason I despise personnel changes in TV series. The writers could have at least had the Taelons perform some kind of fiduciary responsibility around Renee’s appearance. Yet, crickets.

As for Jayne Heitmeyer, her mostly flat affect left the series, once again, mostly without a strong actor to carry the series. The character was mostly utilitarian, just enough to carry the role. It’s the same problem with William Boone and again with Liam Kincaid. The producers kept trying to inject fresh blood into the series, yet kept failing at it so amazingly. While the series started out with a strong enough cast, particularly the Taelons, the “human” cast keeps changing as often as people change their socks.

The character changes don’t necessarily make a series bad all by itself, but when coupled with amazingly bad scripts and no way to properly use these characters, it most certainly does. As I said above, character changes are ultimately the kiss of death for a series… and Earth Final Conflict proves this out in spades. It’s really not solely the cast changes that made EFC bad, but also the bad, bad writing.

As a prime example of this extremely bad writing, in Season 3 Episode 14, Da’an opens the episode by saying, “The Jaridians carry within them the demon of violence which we removed from our species.” This stupid line of dialog is uttered to Liam Kincaid by Da’an one episode after Zo’or kills Ram, the “Latin American Companion” along with a human using an interdimensional portal and nearly kills T’Than, the war minister and another human the same way.

Liam Kincaid is well aware of what happened to Ram and nearly T’Than at Zo’or’s hand having almost been killed himself. Yet, Kincaid’s response? “What you call the demon of violence is the willingness to fight your own battles”. Kincaid was nearly killed because of Zo’or perpetuating violence against his own species, yet Kincaid makes no mention of this fact to Da’an? The Taelons have no more removed violence from the Taelon species than humans have. Yet, the writers aren’t willing to admit this.

In another episode, Season 3 Episode 9 “In Memory”, Lili wakes up and thinks she’s on Earth again. Yet, so many clues tell her strongly that she’s not where she thinks she is. Additionally, her hospital captors seem to forever press her to repair the interdimensional drive in her damaged shuttle, a very big clue in itself as to what’s going on. It’s not like the series hadn’t told both the audience and the characters repeatedly over many episodes that if the Jaridians manage to get their hands on a working interdimensional drive that that would allow the Jaridians to reach Earth much, much sooner.

You would have thought the Lili character was far smarter than this and had a brain in her head. Lili should have recognized these clues, especially those that continually press her to repair the drive system. It’s not like the Taelons haven’t repeatedly warned not only her, but every human around the Jaridian’s plan. Yet, there Lili sits, being asked to do the very thing that could help the Jaridians out majorly, all without a single suspicion? I figured out the ruse in under 5 minutes. Yet, Lili doesn’t figure it out until the very end? I don’t think so. Again, grossly bad tropes and horribly bad writing. Writers must treat characters as if they actually have brains in their heads, particularly when stories have previously demonstrated that they do. Barring that, the writers should have kept Lili drugged up and constantly in a brain fog so that she couldn’t put these pieces together. Yet, nothing in the episode unfolded in this way.

Seasons 4 and 5

I have chosen to lump both of these crap seasons together as one. The beginning of season 4 is effectively where Jayne Heitmeyer takes over as a lone character driving this series. Additionally, the Tealons are gone, replaced by the two Atavus: Juda (Guylaine St-Onge) and Howlyn (Alan Van Sprang). Gone are the characters we had come to know and (ahem) love and in their place we now have a nearly brand new cast of characters we don’t know and ultimately don’t care about. No offense, Juda and Howlyn.

This is truly when the writers had lost their way and had no idea where to take this series. When Earth Final Conflict could have ended with an uplifting story, instead it attempted to turn itself into a competitor TV show to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which that series was effectively in the #1 spot at the time). The producers and writers made a grave mistake with this series, one that ultimately turned the series into trash.

Instead of embracing the roots and uniqueness of what was setup in season 1, they choose to embrace a concept foreign to the series. Effectively, the series turned the Taelons into energy sucking creatures, similar to that campy and crappy 1985 movie “Lifeforce” in an attempt to compete with Buffy the Vampire Slayer on another network. In essence, the series became Renee the Vampire Slayer with Renee Palmer becoming the primary character who runs around slaying the Atavus, much like Buffy slays Vampires.

After the questionable choice of having Taelons merge into fewer characters, who then revert to becoming Atavus, the whole series takes a 180 degree turn. No longer is EFC about Taelons being a friend to Earth. Now it’s about the Atavus let loose on Earth to suck energy from humans to survive.

I can’t even fathom what the producers were thinking. Here you have a show about Tealons who come to Earth and who understand their fate is inexplicably linked to Humans. Then, the producers derail that premise entirely and effectively kill off the Taelons only to replace them with the Atavus; primitive creatures who look like vampires, act like vampires and kill like vampires. It’s then surprising to realize that the Atavus storyline managed to last for two full seasons before the series was cancelled.

Assignment Earth’s ties to Earth Final Conflict

It’s worth noting that Gene Roddenberry attempted to create a spinoff series at the time Star Trek: The Original Series was in production in 1968. This new series was to be called Assignment Earth. It featured an Alien, Gary Seven, who comes to Earth to study humans and human culture and intervene as necessary to keep humanity safe. However, one episode was made in the form of a Star Trek episode featuring Robert Lansing and Teri Garr as what is intended to be the series pilot. Unfortunately, this spinoff series failed to materialize and was not picked up.

How exactly is Earth Final Conflict related to Assignment Earth? Clearly, Gene Roddenberry wanted Assignment Earth to succeed. However, due to the feedback he received after Assignment Earth failed to get picked up, it appears Gene may have retooled the idea into what ultimately became Earth Final Conflict. In the 1960s, limited special effects were available. As Gene moved into the late 80s, computer effects were becoming available along with much better film effects by companies like Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). This allowed Gene to retool some of these previous ideas into concepts which could now be filmed properly with current effect technologies. Thus, the idea of using energy beings like the Taelons could now be realized on video or film.

Even the premise between Assignment Earth and Earth Final Conflict are similar enough to draw correlations between both. For example, Gary Seven is assigned to Earth for as yet unknown reasons, but he is an alien. He is accompanied by his metamorph companion, Isis, who could transform between a house cat and a human form. Clearly, the human forms of Gary Seven and Isis were not native to these Aliens. They are simply using these forms to allow for better interaction with humanity. This same can be said of the Taelons. Their human form was only created to better interact with humans. When Taelons are in their energy form, they only somewhat resemble a human form.

Additionally, the Taelons were effectively “assigned” to Earth to help humanity, the same goal as Gary Seven in Assignment Earth. The parallels between these two story ideas are more similar than they are dissimilar. I won’t dive into all of the parallels between these two series ideas. You simply need to watch both to understand them. These parallels have led this author to believe that Gene Roddenberry had ultimately retooled the original Assignment Earth ideas into what became Earth Final Conflict.

Additionally, the original series title for Earth Final Conflict was to be titled Battleground: Earth, similar to Assignment: Earth. At the time that Earth Final Conflict hit the airwaves, L. Ron Hubbard’s movie Battlefield Earth was showing in theaters. Because of the confusing naming similarities between Battlefield Earth and Battleground: Earth, it was decided to rename the TV series to Earth Final Conflict to avoid that confusion. Thus, it is this author’s opinion that Gene Roddenberry’s original Assignment Earth idea morphed into Battleground Earth, which ultimately became Earth Final Conflict. Thus, even though Assignment Earth was never realized into a series during the 60s, it did finally become a series, as Earth Final Conflict, in the mid to late 1990s.

I’ve seen many comments from fans who have wished that Assignment Earth had come to pass as a TV series. In effect, it did… in Earth Final Conflict.

Overall

It’s too bad that Majel Barrett Roddenberry didn’t retain enough control over the series to keep it from taking this direction. I would really liked to have seen the Taleons return. Then, have the humans help save the Taelons, at least in some small way. Earth Final Conflict should have been an uplifting series, not a dark depressing survival series.

If you ignore seasons 4 and 5 as if they don’t exist and focus on seasons 1-3 as if these are the only seasons that matter, it’s not a bad series. The inclusion of seasons 4 and 5 simply turns Earth Final Conflict into a throw away and worthless series in the annals of science fiction. I’m quite sure that if Gene Roddenberry had been alive to see his creation come to exist, it would have turned out much differently. I’m also surprised that both Majel Roddenberry and Rod Roddenberry allowed for this series to take this unusual and completely distasteful turn at the end.

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