Steven Spielberg Removed His Name From This Sci-Fi Show

The premise for the TV series "Earth 2" is ambitious. When the show gets underway in 2192, the Earth has become environmentally devastated, and most of the human population is now living in high-tech space stations. There, children have begun contracting the Syndrome, a mysterious ailment that kills them before they turn nine years old (although government officials deny the Syndrome exists). When Ulysses (Joey Zimmerman), the young son of a billionaire named Devon Adair (Debrah Farentino), gets the Syndrome, Devon aims to build an escape vessel and find a new planet to live on, theorizing that a lack of an Earth-like environment caused her son's disease. 

Devon's escape vessel is sabotaged, however, and it crash-lands on its intended planet, G889, far away from where it had hoped to land. From there, its surviving passengers disperse and start settling on G889, unable to leave. The rest of the series follows the cast of human characters as they attempt to survive in an extraterrestrial wilderness. Yes, the show's premise recalls both "Lost in Space" and "Gilligan's Island," but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Those series are still well-known to this day. 

This new planet, which is dubbed Earth 2, is actually populated by two native humanoid species. There are the Grendlers, who are primitive imps who sneak into the human camps and steal stuff. And then there are the Terrians, who are tall, lanky psychics somehow spiritually linked to the planet's health. They're similar to the Na'vi from "Avatar" but resemble the Engineers from "Prometheus." 

Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment produced "Earth 2," but Spielberg didn't sign off on the series. As reported in a 1994 issue of DreamWatch Magazine, Spielberg was once listed as an executive producer on "Earth 2," but its disappointing reception led to him removing his name.

"Earth 2" is more than a survival tale, though. For instance, the human settlers also meet Gaal (villain maestro Tim Curry), a former criminal stranded on the same planet. Far from a coincidence, it soon comes to light that G889 was once used as a secret penal colony by Earth's corrupt government, aka the Colony, and it fully intends to come to G889 and do some settling of its own. Indeed, the Colony would love to commit genocide against the Terrians, but in so doing, it would literally kill the planet itself. Naturally, there are further conspiracies besides that.

The show's regular cast includes notable names like Clancy Brown, Rebecca Gayheart, and Antonio Sabàto, Jr., while the likes of Curry, Terry O'Quinn, Virginia Madsen, and Roy Dotrice play either small or recurring roles. Altogether, "Earth 2" was a large project that was clearly meant to be even larger than it became. There were tie-in novels published in 1994 and 1995, indicating that NBC expected it to run a long time. 

All the same, "Earth 2" is quite good, although it suffered the dark fate of having its episodes aired out of order. As a result, viewers were left confused after watching characters be killed or enter a cryogenic stasis in the season finale, only for an earlier episode to debut right after that. Luckily, its episodes were arranged correctly in its DVD set and back when "Earth 2" was streaming on Netflix.

Unfortunately, according to DreamWatch Magazine, the series was initially received poorly, and its release was delayed for several months while its pilot episode underwent reshoots. Apparently, this left Steven Spielberg so crestfallen that he deleted his association with the show entirely.

"Earth 2," as noted by DreamWatch Magazine, was meant to be the lead-in series for the then-second season of the hit sci-fi series "seaQuest DSV." Only '90s sci-fi fans likely remember "seaQuest," but it was essentially a space exploration show transposed to the ocean floor. Coincidentally, while "Earth 2" was delayed for its reshoots, "seaQuest" was also undergoing some overhauls, with a lot of its format and shooting locations being altered. 

"Earth 2" was referred to pejoratively as "Gilligan's Planet," itself the title of a very real animated "Gilligan's Island" spin-off series. You see, as popular as "Gilligan's Island" was, it ultimately came to represent the nadir of culture. One can hear "Weird Al" Yankovic mocking the show in 1989's "Isle Thing" as a cultural indicator. 

Is "Earth 2" as bad as all that? Again, no. It has a harder edge than one might expect, along with a lot of psychic mysticism to undergird the show's general tone of desperation and conspiracy. Moreover, it has a lot in common with the game-changing mystery box series "Lost," which debuted a decade later and also starred Terry O'Quinn. "Earth 2" shares certain elements with the "Star Trek" franchise, too, with its colonists trying to live in peace and harmony despite their desperate situation. In general, '90s sci-fi TV was varied and wild, but a lot of the better, more ambitious shows didn't last very long. Your odds increased if you had the words "Star Trek" in your title. 

"Earth 2" was canceled after only airing 21 episodes from 1994-1995, and it passed into hazy memories. Steven Spielberg may have distanced himself from it, but you shouldn't. It's certainly worth tracking down, especially if you have an itch for '90s sci-fi.