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ANALYSIS
"Keep Your Enemies Closer" represents another missed opportunity for Earth: Final Conflict. What could have been a brilliant episode becomes a meandering take on a now-shopworn archetypal story.
It's hard to squeeze much more dramatic juice out of throwback societies that reject the technological confusion of the modern age and elect to live a life of simplicity.
There's always a worm in these passion-play Edens. Despite their principles, those aspiring to the "simple" life prove just as corrupt as the rest of the human herd.
Once you realize these basic rules, there aren't many new places to go with this story. In this case, writer George Geiger took the easy way out by providing a charismatic leader who happens to be a hypocritical whack job with his own personal stash of "forbidden" weapons and technologies.
Byron's supposed visions are revealed as just so much balderdash, he has a conveniently trigger-happy stormtrooper on tap and his devoted daughter rejects what she sees as his "fanaticism" to embrace his "original vision."
These characters are all from central casting, and the plot is threadbare.
Alternative archetypes
If Geiger really wanted to play around with archetypes, he should have kept things a lot simpler. The shuttle crash in the remote wilderness sets the stage for some great interplay between Liam Kincaid and Zo'or.
Throughout the season, we've heard time and again that Zo'or wants to understand humanity. Imagine how much Liam could have taught him during an episode devoted to that lesson.
Doing so might have provided the Taelon with a long overdue infusion of compassion. With the "final conflict" elements of Earth: Final Conflict still on the horizon after 2-1/2 years, it's time Zo'or had a reason to seek an alliance with humans rather than manipulate them.
As it stands, this episode underscores the differences in attitude between humans and Taelons. It would have been more interesting if shared adversity forced Liam and Zo'or to confront the similarities between them.
Granted, this is also a timeless story. We've seen this sort of quiet conflict play out between everyone from Batman and the Joker to Spock and McCoy straight through to Londo and G'Kar on Babylon 5.
In short, there's a lot more potential in this story form than in the "Attack of the Wilderness People" plot.
At least Brainiac 5 occasionally goes mad
While Richard Chevolleau didn't do much in this episode except ensure he'll get residuals, Augur once again proves that he's the smartest man on the planet. That's not always high praise in the world of Earth: Final Conflict, but it's nice work if you can get it.
It's hard to believe that with the combined resources of humans and Taelons working overtime to find Zo'or, lone nut Augur is the only person who came up with a viable theory.
While this was especially obvious in "Keep Your Enemies Closer," it points to a fundamental problem with Augur's character. Augur does things faster, better and more implausibly than anyone else, frequently defying the laws of physics, biology or any of the other natural sciences to do so.
He's more a plot device than a person, and the last thing this show needs is more plot devices.
WHAT WE LEARN
T'than opposed Zo'or's appointment to the Earth delegation.
Zo'or remains convinced of Liam's loyalty.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
Was the shuttle crash really an accident, or did someone arrange it to eliminate Zo'or?
TUNE IN NEXT WEEK WHEN . . .
The power struggle between Zo'or and War Minister T'than turns violent in "Subterfuge".
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