Directed by Hirochika Muraishi. Written by Hidenori Miyazawa. Airdate Sep. 28, 1996.
It’s a familiar science-fiction tale: a crew of astronauts on a mission becomes mutated by an alien force and returns to Earth as a deadly, rampaging monster. This is the story of the classic Ultraman episode “My Home Is Earth,” which borrowed it from The Quatermass Xperiment. (Yes, I’m bringing up that movie again. Its DNA is everywhere in the Ultra series, there’s no helping it.) The immense popularity of “My Home Is Earth” has caused many later Ultra shows to attempt their own versions. Here’s Ultraman Tiga’s take.
The episode builds on one of the show’s main themes: Earth’s expanding space exploration and its consequences. Two months after the disappearance of the Jupiter 3 spacecraft and its crew of three, a violent alien monster known as Ligatron arrives on Earth. Ligatron is able to access the computer of the Space Development Department to shut down its shields, which is something only Dr. Ezaki could do — one of the vanished Jupiter 3 crew members. When family of the other lost crew members start seeing phantom visitations from their loved ones, GUTS and TDF suspect Ligatron contains the minds of the Jupiter 3 crew.
It might have been too early in the show’s history for a semi-remake of such a classic episode. “Goodbye, Planet Earth” doesn’t have the same level of tragedy as “My Home Is Earth” or The Quatermass Xperiment, although it makes a good attempt and ends up one of the better of the early episodes. There’s passion and sympathy among all the Earth organizations regarding the situation, and the scene where GUTS discovers a hidden message from the mind of Dr. Ezaki trapped within Ligatron is the cleverest part of the script. The monster action is excellent, with a lengthy, exciting battle between Tiga and Ligatron where Tiga has a serious struggle to come out on top.
Shinjoh has the main character moments, although he’s not the full star of the episode. He’s frustrated that he can’t work with the Space Development Department that’s monitoring the family members of the Jupiter 3 crew because Cap. Iruma knows GUTS can’t intrude on their territory. Shinjoh tells Daigo that because he’s also lost friends in accidents (presumably space-exploration ones) he doesn’t have patience for a bureaucratic approach that seems to disregard the grief of the family members. The entire affair makes him feel that human warmth is being stripped away.
It’s not a well-motivated turn for Shinjoh and doesn’t necessarily follow from the rest of the story. The division between the departments is sensible, and Shinjoh has no reason to believe the Space Development Department isn’t handling the situation delicately. Shinjoh’s conflict would make more sense if he had a personal connection to one of Jupiter 3’s crew members, or a reason to believe the SDD had callously caused the mission to go awry, but that isn’t the case. This subplot exists so Shinjoh can later hatch a plan during the finale that will help Tiga defeat Ligatron. Still, a character-driven subplot is better than having no character moments at all, and I appreciate that the showrunners tried to infuse some of the tragedy of “My Home Is Earth” into their story.
By the way, attempting to appeal to three different astronaut consciousnesses located in one monster is straight from the original Quatermass Experiment TV serial. “Goodbye, Planet Earth” finds a way to crunch together the ending of both the TV serial and the later movie. It’s a neat trick, and the episode’s more positive conclusion matches the generally optimistic view of space exploration in Ultraman Tiga. This universe isn’t as sternly hostile as that of Ultraseven, even Ultraman.
I promise I won’t keep bringing up The Quatermass Xperiment until I absolutely need to again, which might be when I get to “My Home Is Earth.”
Rating: Good
Previous: The Devil’s Prophecy
Next: The Day When the Monster Appeared
The Ultra Project 