Series End
The story ends with the final episode of the second season. In desperation, Malzor makes a final attempt to eliminate all life forms native to Earth. Fearing for his human friend Debi, the young alien boy named Ceeto attempts to interfere. Blackwood and his team are introduced to a faction of aliens willing to make peace with the human race. Together, they use a device that stores the history of the aliens' homeworld.
In that history, Malzor is shown to be a scientist who creates crystals needed to power starships. The crystals provide a wealth of energy but require much energy to produce. Studying other planets, they discover on Earth the signs of an engineered nuclear explosion, suggesting the existence of a burgeoning technological society on Earth. The leader of the Mothren - Malzor's father-in-law - orders a major expedition to Earth, to be led by Malzor's wife and powered by large quantities of Malzor's crystal. Malzor is reluctant, not only because he fears for his wife, but also because he knows the dire consequences posed by large-scale production of the crystal. His fears are realized on both counts. The expedition is a failure - the Mothren are shown dying in large numbers, their ships failing. Worse, in mass-producing and empowering the crystals, the Mothren have severely altered their own planet's ecological and meteorological systems. Enraged by the Mothren leader's insistence on the expedition, Malzor murders him and usurps his position. Obsessed with Earth, and resigned to the destruction of Mothrai, Malzor accelerates crystal production needed to power a second invasion. The history comes to an end with Malzor preparing a last-minute escape from the doomed world.
Learning the truth, the aliens turn on Malzor. Ceeto is killed by Malzor, further alienating Mothrai. When the Blackwood group finds the aliens, Debi shoots Malzor dead, preventing his plans from reaching fruition. With this, the Morthren call off the war, and the heroes walk out into a suddenly sunny world.
Many facts concerning the Morthren past revealed in the episode contradict various aspects of the mythology established both in previous second season episodes, and especially those from the first season. Mothren are shown observing the catastrophic end of their expedition of 1953 from the safety of their homeworld - but the images they observe are taken from the last few minutes of the 1953 film, suggesting that it had been the Mothren all along who had invaded the Earth, and not the Mor-Taxians. Many fans have also pointed out the contradiction posed by the finale - in which the clearly warlike behavior of the aliens in 1953 grew out of what had been a mission of exploration.
Read more about this topic: War Of The Worlds (TV series)
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