"The Vanished"
Airdate: October 11, 1999

Let me begin with a great big hooyah! The brave Captain Marquette (Lisa Howard) still lives, but is not herself at the moment.

That said, this week's installment of "Earth vs. the Taelons" centers mostly around the disappearances of several Resistance sympathizers. The very first scene puts the viewer immediately into their plight. We see Volunteers invade Lawrence Jantzen's (Greg Ellwand) home, then rough him up in front of his wife and son before carting him off on mere suspicion of Resistance ties.

When Claire Jantzen (Shannon Hile) and her son ask Da'an for the whereabouts of her husband she rightly suspects that the Taelon really can't help her. Luckily, Liam Kincaid (Robert Leeshock) is up to the task and promises to find Jantzen. Secret Agent Woman Renee Palmer (Jayne Heitmeyer) is on the case, too. However, since she works for Team Doors she has to use other means to achieve her ends. First she asks Da'an (Leni Parker) to lend some people for research then later breaks into Agent Sandoval's (Von Flores) flat disguised as a hooker (think Kathleen Turner's look in Crimes of Passion) and hacks into his computer. Under his keyboard, she finds the floor plans of the warehouse-turned-holding cell.

The scene where she sweet-talks her way past the doorman is rare, high comedy relief worth a rewind. Heitmeyer displays good comedic timing and sensibilities.

Kincaid still has trouble trusting Palmer but he teams up with her out of need to save his fellow humans and Resistance fighters. He also gets an extra tidbit of information -- she's Resistance, too. Maybe she's not just in it for herself after all.

Meanwhile back at the mothership, Marquette is out of the pan. With expert deception, Volunteer Erika Vosser (Chandra West) finagles her into commandeering a shuttle. But of course within minutes she's in the fire. In another room in the same warehouse where the other detainees are held, she's fitted with a custom built cyber-viral implant that has installed audiovisual devices in her eyes and ears. She tries to escape but is stopped cold by Agent Tate (Richard Zeppieri). When the confusion, fear, and uncertainty show so palpably on Howard's face after Vosser tells her that her eyes and ears belong to them, it evokes a hope that Marquette will succeed in freeing herself and the other captives. Points should go to Howard and the writers as, in spite of Marquette's abject fear, she still has the presence of mind to try getting some answers from Tate and Vosser.

Besides a Skrill, what is up Sandoval's sleeve? He didn't save Marquette from the Taelons just because he likes her face; altruism isn't in the man's personal lexicon. Now that the world thinks Marquette's dead (the Marquette android sure fooled me), he's free to send her on who knows what kind of spy mission he wants. Given that she's no longer has an Earth-based physiology, is she going to Jaridia, the Taelon homeworld or someplace else entirely? Why did he seem so hesitant to send her off? At any rate, Sandoval sounds confident that he'll see her again and when he does I'm confident that she'll give him the beatdown of his Taelon-loving life.

Everyone gets a happy ending except redshirt Vosser, and Marquette... But at least the detainees got to go home.

--Vivian E. Lee

Earth: Final Conflict is in syndication. Check your local listings for dates and times.

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