This Friday on 'Earth 2' ep 12 'Moon Cross'

As I said elsewhere this is right out of the Space 1999 drawer , mysticism and vagueness, but very entertaining,just don't think about the plot too much.
The two moons crossing (Space 1999 ep. Another Time Another Place) ,caves spear carrying natives ,retrograde human, (Sp1999 Full Circle) ,disembodied spirits (Sp1999 The Troubled Spirit) ,unexplained plotlines, how did Uly exactly heal the Terrian/Outsider rift?.
What was that shaft of light beaming down to the planet surface as the moons crossed? Were Mary's parents really ghosts? Who cares!? It WAS FUN
By the way I love Space 1999
Imitation is the sincerest flattery . 6/10

Well, predictably this wasn’t as good as the last two episodes, but it was okay. The Terrians return again, and a lot of the problem is that our crew doesn’t really understand what they want and expect the worst from them. (They really should know better by now.) Uly is wanted for some ceremony taking place at the crossing of the planet’s two moons. He is totally unfazed about it; even describes his previous time with the Terrians of being “put in the dirt” as fun and relaxing. Devon is the one freaked out and saying “No one is taking my son!” I also liked her logic about the previous deal with the Terrians. “They saved Uly, then we helped them with Gaal. So they have no right to ask for anything else, right?” she proposes. Yes. Flawless logic. “Doctor, you cured my son’s cancer, but I helped set those mousetraps in your house to get rid of your pest problem. So we’re even!”

Adding to the mix is the traditional “child raised by wolves” character, in this case a little girl raised by the Terrians after they killed her parents. We’re not sure how her parents died exactly, whether accidental or intentional. But two Terrians were apparently blamed for the deed and banished for life from the tribe as punishment. The tribe has taken care of “Mary” for the last ten or fifteen years or so. She can speak a modicum of English and communicate with the Terrians as well, but they still seem to communicate with Alonzo via dreams better. Clearly, he’s the only one besides Uly they can communicate with. That’s why back in “Water” they couldn’t just tell Devon and Danzinger to stay away from the electrified water and instead resorted to tying them up.

The colonists try to “adopt” Mary, clean her up with a bath (which reminds me of a funny story I’ll tell you at the end), and invite her to join the team. But she prefers the Terrians, even though she could never link with them like Uly. They still have a nice little niche in their cave which gives her the sensation of flying, to make up for their lack of affectionate touching. Perhaps she can’t link with them simply because she’s a female, and we were told earlier on that all Terrians are male. At least there’s no love triangle brewing here, as Alonzo clearly likes Julia, but seemed to be growing fond of Mary before she voluntarily bowed out.

Anyway, Devon relents and lets Uly partake in the Terrians’ ceremony. Well, not really, he takes the dune-rail car and joins them on his own. It’s a harmless ceremony allowing them to renew their life energy apparently. It had been earlier compared to “death” but it was anything but. What worked out nicely is that Uly convinces them to let the banished Terrians take part in the ceremony. The outcasts are forgiven for their crime and become part of the tribe again. Thus, they are no longer full of anger for being outcasts and stop attacking people and other Terrians. Forgiveness – what a concept!

Other tidbits: Yale discovers that the project that Mary and her parents were related to is some bad memory from his past, and may come back to haunt him as soon as next week. Meanwhile, the planet seems to leave residual images of its past human inhabitants. Devon clearly sees Mary’s deceased parents appear and disappear and in one scene they even comfort their surviving child. Dead may not mean totally dead on this planet.

I was going to give this a six, but the little forgiveness tale boosted it up to 7 watering cans with “Mary” written on them.

Oh, the funny story I promised: Back in 1976, MAD Magazine was doing a spoof on the remake of A STAR IS BORN starring Kris Kristofferson as a grungy rock star and Barbra Streisand as his manager. In one scene, the two of them were in a bathtub together. Kris says, “I’ve never done anything like this before. This is fantastic!” “You mean hot sex in the afternoon?” asks Barbra. “No,” he replies, “Taking a bath!”

Well this episode did not keep my interest at all. It felt very much like a kids show. The themes are there but everything is very dumbed down.
How can you throw so many stories in?
Ghost story
Evil Tarrian’s
A mystery woman
Who turns out to be a ‘wolf child’ (you know abandoned and raised by wolves)
Throw in a bit of Pygmalion,
and still I was not the least bit interested.
Maybe you all saw something I didn’t. I will be interested to see what you all have to say.

4 out of 10 for me

Brimfin
I see we both got the raised by wolves vibe.

Perhaps she can’t link with them simply because she’s a female

Devon clearly sees Mary’s deceased parents appear and disappear and in one scene they even comfort their surviving child. Dead may not mean totally dead on this planet.

The Cons

First of all, I don't like new age ghost stories, especially when the context of the movie or show is now supernatural. If ghosts can manifest themselves, then this is a supernatural story in a fantastic context, so other dead people might manifest themselves (hello, O'Neill, nothing to tell us?). And this would affect the core of the humans' belief system, as dead people would remain relevant and, even after death, the characters could continue as part of the ongoing story. But to make ghosts appear when it's convenient for the plot, when it's a more spiritual-inclined episode, doesn't work for me.

Another this is the fact that a new element is introduced in the Terrians' nature: the death pool that is like heaven or something. Outcasts condemned to a "life without death," which they make sound terribly bad, but the Terrians whose bones Gaal showed, were dead dead and no Terrian seem too happy about that. It seems that now, we have to add this new element and reinterpret everything we knew about the Terrians, which is fine, except that the writers seem to be doing the very same thing.

I also didn't like that Mary didn't stay with the humans. She would be a great addition for the main cast, as long as she ditched her ghost parents, of course, and I would like to see her input on things on a regular basis, and how her relationship with hunky Alonzo would play out, even if tis is a family show.

I'm not sure how I feel about astronomical phenomenon carrying mystical meaning, as I'm not fond of astrology, and those moon cross regularly, so it should be an event as exciting as a regular eclipse.

Also, the way Terrians change human children seems too convenient and miraculous. There should be some things Terrians do that humans never could and things that we do that Terrians will never be able to. I remember Orson Scott Card's "Speaker for the Dead," a book in which the aliens "Little Ones" (or "Pequeninos," or "Porquinhos") would turn into trees after dying. Which was a great touch. And humans could never do that and never would, and that difference was vital for the interesting outcome of the story.

Finally, if they could see two giant moons in the sky like that, the consequences, with their gravity pull, would be catastrophic, and Earth 2 would be a very geologically unstable world, and wouldn't look like the American Midwest.

The Pros

First, Kelli Williams. She's been around for quite a while (she was 25 back in '95). The first time I really noticed her was a couple years after this episode, in The Practice, as a promising new talent. And more recently I saw her in Lie to Me and she still looks great, and practically hasn't aged. I think she made the Mary character very interesting and in a touching way, human and Terrian at the same time.

As usual, Bess has the best ideas. The first time I saw Mary I thought those Terrians have a deep understanding of nature and spirit, but sure don't know the miracles of some good shampoo with aloe vera, for a naturally silky hair.

Even though I'm not a fan of such mystical stories, this one was cozy and nice. I felt good watching it, and can't define why.

I'm glad Devon didn't stand in the way of Uly's job for too long, because we all knew that there would only be a story if Uly did his thing with the Terrians as he was supposed to, but in a more realistic situation Devon would have resisted much longer and perhaps wouldn't have let Uly help the Terrians, considering how protective she is and how she said the colonists owed nothing else to the Terrians.

All in all...

The story was engaging, though under the light of day it doesn't show much substance. It better be appreciated under the moonlight anyway as it was meant to. Six moments of new age moonshine.

Ok this one starts out with the group adjusted to the cold temperatures. It's interesting because these people have mostly lived in the control environments of space stations. The group plans to move to a spot for winter but Uly takes the the group to nearby geodesic dome/shelter that he somehow knew about. The place has a weird greenhouse garden and Devon discovers a water can with "Mary" painted on the bottom. Uly tells Devon that he doesn't really know how he knows the name but he tells her that the Terrarians will one day come back for him. The group decides that this will make a great place for a winter retreat so they set up camp.

Devon hears a strange noise in the Greenhouse so she investigates. It's a little kid's voice yelling out "mom" and then she sees a figure on the dome and then it suddenly goes away. Alonzo is attacked by some Terrarians and he gets away, I don't know it so damn dark. Before he gets away he's captured by a weird looking human girl (Mary?). Alonzo is taken to an underground layer with the Terrariens and the weird girl.

The Terrarians are performing a ceremony called "Moon Cross" which is kind of an odd Terrarian death/earth ritual. They also talk about "The outcasts". Supposedly the outcasts can't go into the pool. The story is kind of strange and feels like an LSD trip or something. Devon keeps hearing and seeing visions of "Mary" in the greenhouse.

Alonzo does some expose to say what they hell is going. Basically the outcasts have committed a crime and cannot go into the pool of death, a sort of life/life sentence. Alonzo takes Mary back to the camp for some reason. While cleaning out the greenhouse Morgan finds some skeletons.

Morgan goes in the vehicle with Mary and it almost seems like Alonzo is going to get it on with her. He takes her back and the group decides to give her a bath for some reason. The mystery comes full circle as Mary was the young girl taken by the Terrarins. Mary tells the group that she is here for Uly and Devon tells her to go screw.

Mary comes back to get Uly and then she starts hearing the "Mary" voice. She goes back and finds her ghost mother. She tells Devon the story of her departure from the camp. It ended up that the outcasts killed her parents so the Terrarians adopted Mary.

Uly runs away for some reason…..Again does anybody watch the kids on this show. Uly brings the outcasts back to the Terrarians and convinces them to let them go into the pool of death. So Uly brings peace to the Terrarians. Then there's some odd reasoning about Mary being an orphan and not capable of being a link??? ok i guess.

Random Thoughts:

*Way too much story here with the need for constant expose and narration. Would have worked better as a 2 part episode with a cliff hanger.

*What's the point of having Yale on this show??

*Bess, Morgan and Danziger are barely in this one.

*Another disposable plot line with a lot of convenient BS to move the plot along.

*Why didn't we hear about "The outcasts" before?

Some interesting things but some of the parts with "Mary" were ridiculous. Overall it came off as very clunky, I give it a 5/10.

*I"m guessing we won't hear from Mary

I've been thinking that if the colonists keep having ghost problems (and that's the second episode this has happened), then they should deal with the problem from a scientific perspective.

First of all, it's well known that ghosts tend to become obsessed with unfinished businesses and cling to this plane of existence when they are supposed to move on. In time they become inconvenient pranksters and even vicious menaces as they haunt a place for too long.

One of the best protections against ghosts is salt. A circle of salt around a tent is something the ghost will find an impenetrable barrier. Shotguns that can discharge loads of rock salt are also effective means to detain a ghost.

Also, ghost are allergic to objects made of iron, so the colonists should always keep a wrought iron fireplace poker within reach at all times. This is an effective tool to disperse any spectrum. It hurts and weakens them, so even if they re-form and charge at a later occasion, they'll think twice before bothering you.

There are specific payers and incantations that will serve to either chase ghosts away, or attract them (in case you want to make a trap). I'm sure Yale must be well versed in a few of them. He might also be able to perform an exorcism, though I don't know if the colonists carry holy water.

Anyway, the best way to get rid of a ghost forever is burn the remains. This is tricky, because sometimes a stubborn ghost gets attached to this plane through simple fingernails in a jar or a locket of hair someone forgets he or she kept in a scrapbook. The important thing is to get rid of all remains with the use of fire.

If the colonists follow these simple procedures, they'll be fine.

Madp
Maybe they needed a Ghostbuster on their manifest.

Now can you help them with the inconsistent storylines?