The Udara Legacy
The final installment in the Alien Nation series puts Detectives Sikes and Francisco at the heart of an investigation into a chain of seemingly unexplainable crimes committed by unconnected Newcomers with no apparent motives. As the investigation proceeds, the criminals are observed to act as if hypnotized, mechanically carrying out their tasks while repeating similar mantras and attempting suicide if detained. After George recognizes one of the mantras as a reference to an extremist Tenctonese resistance force that operated on the slave-ship, known as the ‘Udara’ (meaning freedom), Susan informs him that she was a member of the group.
This revelation creates great tension between the two, as George views the Udara as a terrorist group that selfishly risked many innocent lives and was often the cause of needless deaths, while Susan feels the Udara provided hope and the possibility of freedom to an enslaved race. Susan also reveals that the Udara developed a method of using hypnotization to create sleeper agents who could be activated later with a pass-phase that would act as a trigger to effectively turn the member into a mindless pawn. Realizing that someone has gained access to these pass-phrases and is now using them to activate the Udara sleeper agents for his/her own unsavory purposes, Matt and George begin to track the perpetrator.
The above story alone would be enough to end the series on a high note, but it gets further intense when Susan reveals that the Udara generally used children (always with the consent of at least one parent) as their sleeper agents in order to ensure that the resistance force could be continued by the youth generation even if older members were captured and/or executed. The tension between George and Susan only increases as she reveals one final, and vital, piece of information, namely that she allowed Emily to be ‘programmed’ as a sleeper agent. Now Matt and George, with Susan’s help, must work frantically to find the person activating the Udara sleeper agents before Emily becomes his/her next ill-fated pawn.
Befitting a return to laudably complex and intriguing storylines (again, especially for a made-for-TV movie), The Udara Legacy further rebounds from the mediocrity of Millennium and some parts of The Enemy Within with the poignant commentary characteristic of the series. The most prominently featured issue in The Udara Legacy revolves around honesty and open communication in intimate relationships, with the rift between George and Susan functioning as a representation of the consequences of dishonesty and misunderstanding in such relationships.
However, miscommunication is not the only problem in their relationship, as the two hold fundamentally different beliefs about the Udara. Their diametrically opposed views allude to similar disagreements between the two primary political parties in contemporary American politics. More specifically, their disagreement also references contemporary terrorist/guerilla/rebel groups, and the creators appropriately present multiple facets of the issue, emphasizing that although outsiders may view such groups as violent and murderous factions, others might just as easily sympathize with their quest for justice and equality.
I’m not sure what, if any, instance in particular the creators were attempting to address with this commentary, but the issue is certainly still relevant today, with the ‘War on Terror’ stalled in the Middle East. Although it may not be a comforting thought, it is necessary to remember that America’s enemies in the Middle East are only fighting for their own freedom and independence. I think this is the most powerful message delivered in The Udara Legacy, if not in the entire series, because it emphasizes the importance of approaching issues and conflicts from all possible perspectives, even those that may not necessarily be agreeable to our own personal beliefs.
The issue of politics is further addressed via a storyline involving a local election with a human candidate and a Newcomer candidate running against one another. This subplot allows the creators to address issues of voting and equal rights, the latter of which is an issue that is also broached through another subplot. As promised, this subplot revolves around Buck’s career choice. In The Enemy Within, Buck decides to follow in his father’s footsteps by joining to the Los Angeles Police Department, and The Udara Legacy follows him as he enters the police academy and begins his training.
His career choice, though, only increases the tension between George and Susan, as George is quite proud that his son wants to become a fellow officer, while Susan, who has kept her anxiety over the safety of her husband to herself for years, does not want to have to worry about the safety of her son as well. Buck, of course, faces his own hardships during training, and the series’ creators use his efforts to again address the issue of equal rights, emphasizing the unfair treatment minorities sometimes endure in the workplace and even broaching the topic of affirmative action.
Predictably, the myriad conflicts raised throughout are all resolved by the end of the movie. This predictability isn’t necessarily a unique problem, though, as all the movie’s predecessors are similarly archetypal. And, as noted, The Udara Legacy, as an individual unit, is actually a high point in the series. Unfortunately, as good as it may be on its own, it leaves something to be desired when evaluated within the context of the series, primarily because, despite the appropriately intricate story and poignant social commentary, the movie does not provide any closure for the series as a whole. Overall, the movie is intriguing and still-relevant, but it is a little disappointing and anticlimactic as a series finale.