Earth: Final Conflict: Boone's Assassin

Boone's back again, and this time he's helping Renee destroy some atavus hive chambers to stop more of the things from making their way out into the bright lights of Earth. Unfortunately, this time Zo'or's back as an atavus to stop him...

The best expression to describe this episode is 'missed opportunity'. Not only is Boone back, but we have a new, sexier Zo'or as well, thanks to Sandoval's oh-so-clever latest scheme to beat Renee. Apparently at some point Sandoval must have swallowed a fly, as he's now sent in the spider (Boone) to catch her and is now forced to send in a bird (Zo'or) to catch the spider. After events here, it looks like he'll be swallowing a cat to catch the bird as the chain of his ineptitude continues to grow. No one in this series seems to be operating with intelligence any more. Sandoval seems to be trying to win back viewers by bringing back old favourites rather than doing anything in character, and once more Boone follows simple orders from Renee. The fact that he hires such an inept unit to assist leads me to wonder if Renee is way better off without him.

Once more writer Paul Gertz attempts to pointlessly get some mileage out of the chemistry-free zone that is the Boone/Renee attraction, with the pair showing no signs of any heat between them at all. Frankly, there's more between Boone and Street. More ludicrous running on the spot, this episode puts two major protagonists back into the mix, then fails to do anything of interest with them. Boone is a soldier, nothing more, and Zo'or is a sex-crazed lunatic who wants to kill Boone yet fails miserably. The fights are ridiculous (note Sandoval's late arrival where Boone and Renee hand him their guns, despite they fact they could shoot him before he did the same, no problem.

At the end, both Boone and Zo'or are alive, so let's hope things will change soon and the pair are brought back to Earth again. There's surely more history to deal with between them but if they're just going to shout abuse like this episode, I can live without it. But with a title like the one this episode has got, shouldn't Zo'or at least make more of an effort to beat Boone? Unless something is going to happen, why bother introducing some old favourites? The only good thing here is Anita La Selva as the superb Atavus Zo'or, sexy and crazy. Hopefully she'll be back...

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