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In the future the Earth is toast. With the planet little more than a dead rock in space with orbiting space stations supporting the bulk of the surviving population of the planet, Devon Adair (Debrah Farentino) pays for an expedition to a recently charted Earth-like planet 22 light years away when a mysterious illness begins to slowly kill her son Ulysses. When the ship crash lands thousands of miles away from its intended landing area, Devon, Bessme rather unpleasant native lifeforms on the planet including Grendlers and a race called the Terrians who seem to have some sort of link to both Ulysses (Joey Zimmerman) and the pilot of the Alonzo (Antonio Sabato Jr). The expedition must travel to the other side of the continent to reach their supplies and are led by Devon and John Danziger (the marvelous Clancy Brown ho also does the cartoon character voice for Mr. Krabbs on “Spongebobsquarepants”, the videogame voice for Dr. Neo Cortex in the “Crash Bandicoot” games and appeared in the classic film “The Shawkshank Redemption” among many others) on the long difficult journey.

Along the way these settlers encounter a number of rather unpleasant native life forms including Grendlers and a race called the Terrians. The Terrians can sprout out of the ground instantly like weeds which and appear threatening at first. They also seem to have some sort of psychic link to both Ulysses (Joey Zimmerman) and the pilot of the Alonzo (Antonio Sabato Jr). ***

“Earth 2” always reminded me of “Lost in Space” during it’s first season with its story of a group of colonists trapped on an alien world and at the mercy of its environment. No series like this would be complete without its own Dr. Smith and we get one in the form of Morgan Martin (John Gegenhuber). A thoughtful, well written show that used the science fiction genre as a parallel of the settlement of the American West, “Earth 2” received the short end of the stick with NBC yanking and moving the series around so often on their Sunday night schedule that fans finally gave up trying to find the series. That’s too bad as the ensemble cast had just started to gel and the series egan to pick up steam mid-stream suggesting a lot of interesting developments in the story arc developed for the show. ***

Although the network DID express some interest in bringing the show back, evidently NBC wanted to retool the show making it more of an action-adventure series. I’m guessing but I suspect they also would want to recast many of the key roles for the series as well. Perhaps it’s just as well the series didn’t survive into a second season although fans were cheated out of a resolution to the grand finale of season one. ---

We don’t get any featurettes or vintage interviews in the set which is a bit of a surprise. We do get deleted and extended scenes however and a blooper reel of outtakes from the series’ first and only season. There’s also a cross promotional effort going on with this set as it includes an episode of the cheesy and fun series “Cleopatra 2525” and an episode from “Sliders: The Complete 3rd Season” entitled “Rules of the Game”. The episode of “Cleopatra 2525” “Quest for Firepower” is the pilot from the series created by Robert Tappert and R.J. Stewart (“Hercules”, “Xena”). Although the series didn’t last more than a season, it did revive the career of “Firefly” and “Serenity” star Gina Torres (as well as “The Matrix Revolutions” and “The Matrix Reloaded”) who first got her start on the cult series “M.A.N.T.I.S.” back in 1994. Image quality of the pilot episode of the series is very good although the effects appear a bit cheesy even by the standards of the year 2000. ***

“Rules of the Game” is one of the best episodes from the third season of the Fox cult series “Sliders” which quickly declined in quality as writer/co-creator and co-producer Tracy Torme left the series after conflict with the Fox network and was replaced by writer/producer/director David Peckinpah who radically retooled the show killing off a major character (and eventually getting rid of a second major character) and generally recreating the series in his vision.