"What Did You LIKE Or HATE About "Alien Nation"???" Topic

Liked:

I liked how the humans felt threatened by the intelligence and strength of the Newcomers (Tenctonese), and the way human purists seem to band together to fight the alien "threat" too. Very well done.

The idea that the human and newcomer digestive systems were different, and that the newcomers are forced to land on a planet made up of a substance toxic to them (sea water) was also interesting.

Hated:

What I didn't care for was how the writers kept adding and adding more alien aspects not seen or mentioned in original film or in the first episodes of the series, such as the male "pregnancy" and "third sex" things. None of those things were even hinted at in the beginning and seemed (to me) as a weak ploy to keep some ratings.

link
link

CC
TMP link
TMP link
TMP link

So we're talking about the TV show and not the movie?

Both actually. Though I did prefer the movie.

CC

One of my all time fav movies.

The seres lost me when the male carring the baby started.

I'd like to see another movie based on the first movie. Like if the owners come looking for their slaves. there could be a three way fight going on then. Earth people, the slags, and the owners duking it out! What would the owners race look like? I don't remember if they ever said did they?

as always

Hairy Haggis

With a completely different physiology and reproductive process, why do Tenctonese females have human-like breasts?

Allen

"What would the owners race look like? I don't remember if they ever said did they?"

Good point. I know that the film never showed them, but not sure if the series ever did (either in the episodes or the made-for-tv movies they did afterwards).

Does anyone know?

CC

What Did You LIKE Or HATE About "Alien Nation"???

- the ridiculous premise that we would allow an alien species to integrate into human society. Lets face it, most societies have problems accepting immigrants from our own species.

The fact that the aliens were vulnerable to salt water, a liquid that covers most of the earth's surface.

I'm not sure there was a owners race, some of the tv series/movies (the tv movies were set after the series ended) hinted that the overseers were actually the owners.

The overseers just used the threat of a mythical alien race that conquered the slaves as a way to stay in control (you can overthrow the overseers but then the owners will come and get you sort of thing).

I only ever watched the series on Fox in 1989-90. I never saw the original movie nor the TV movies made in the '90s. I worked a lot of late nights in the mid-90s. The series was a favorite of mine and I made a point of tuning in every week.

The only quibble I had was that the Tenctonese were played by human actors in heavy makeup. I put up with that because directors have only human actors to work with. It did make social interaction between humans and human-looking Tenctonese more superficially plausible.

One thing I liked very much was the hints, mostly very matter-of-fact remarks made in passing, of truely alien physiology, psychology and culture for the Tenctonese. A few of those notions seemed contrived to merely be the opposite of conventional human behavior (Male pregnancy being one such, but I really enjoyed the interaction between George and Buck when George had that baby. I have a son.), but others were well imagined and played, like the organs for receiving affection that Tenctonese have in their temples.

I like to meet people who are different from the ones I already know. I like it when writers help me do that. Larry Niven and Poul Anderson are two of my favorite writers for this reason, and Alien Nation was also a favorite.

I enjoyed how the Tenctonese worked to find a productive, rewarding place in human society, in spite of very real differences. Of course that was a metaphor for all the immigrants who have come to the United States. Alien Nation flattered us with the idea that American society and culture is so attractive, open and strong that we can even absorb a shipload of people from another world. That may not be true, but it's a beautiful thought, and the more we believe it, the truer it becomes.

The Overseers spooked me on a deep level. They were ordinary people (Tenctonese) who had been shaped into monsters by a cultural practice (binding their temples as children) that intentionally destroyed their ability to feel love and empathy. What hells their own lives must have been. What must the ordinary domestic lives of an Overseer family be like? And most chilling is that the Overseers too are a metaphor for human behavior.

I was touched by the attempts by humans and Tenctonese to develop relationships, in spite of differences. Matt Sykes and his Tenctonese girlfriend Cathy Frankel were the recurring example, though not the only one. How could Matt and Cathy play out the psychologically necessary role of male protector (both of them needed this role-play) when Cathy was physically strong enough to toss Matt around one handed? How could they even go on a dinner date when they couldn't eat the same foods? In the end their relationship failed.

Perhaps it was Matt and Cathy's ultimate failure that gave this series its edge for me. That and the looming threat of Overseers and Owners coming to Earth. Maybe it's because I never saw these issues resolved in the '90s movies that this series remains in my mind like a lost…opportunity.

Only thing that really bothered me was the idea that sea water is corrosive to them.

They drink water. They eat salt (or nearly all human food would be poisonous to them)… but add the two together and they melt?

Yeah, yeah, I know there are parallels in chemistry, but that one thing just stuck in my craw.

why do Tenctonese females have human-like breasts?

They were a bio-engineered race, right? So their designer liked breasts?

I always thought the show was merely okay, but my wife has always been a big fan. She was thrilled when I bought her the series on DVD.

"How could Matt and Cathy play out the psychologically necessary role of male protector (both of them needed this role-play) when Cathy was physically strong enough to toss Matt around one handed? How could they even go on a dinner date when they couldn't eat the same foods? In the end their relationship failed."

They certainly didn't interrogate traditional sexual stereotypes.

I didn't watch the show much because it made me feel uncomfortable in the way it looked at these issues. In some ways it trivialized them and in many ways it reinforced them.

What it did show was that whether you are an immigrant or a member of a "native" subculture you only have two choices: integrate yourself or segregate yourself.

"Purified water and have their own food. They don't consume salt."

Nope. That *is* a glitch. Tenctonese diet consisted primarily of small terrestrian mammals, shellfish, and insects. All those contain salts, including NaCl. Impossible to raise them as a food source without salt content; impossible to consume them if salt is toxically acidic to them.

"With a completely different physiology and reproductive process, why do Tenctonese females have human-like breasts?
So they could feed the infant after birth, don't recall the male doing this like a pigeon."

Again, the physiology is so different from ours that the Tenctonese foetus has an exoskeleton and claws. So why mammalian, and specifically human, breasts?

My conclusion is that the writers felt a need to make them sufficientky "weird" as to give them clawed foetuses. But on the other hand, they could titillate the audience with Sykes' lust for alien "boobies". Both are examples of pandering to an unsophisticated TV audience rather than a Sci-Fi audience. As Saladin suggests, very trivialized.

Allen

Saladin: …the show…made me feel uncomfortable in the way it looked at these issues. In some ways it trivialized them and in many ways it reinforced them.

You're entitled to your opinion. The editorial slant of the show was classic Clinton-era progressive liberal optimism, like the Star Trek universe. Yes, the writers clung to many stereotypes while undermining others. I liked that Alien Nation set its plot problems among the lives of ordinary modern Americans. I related to that better than to strange planets of people who are parti-colored in opposite polarities.

Saladin: What it did show was that whether you are an immigrant or a member of a "native" subculture you only have two choices: integrate yourself or segregate yourself.

Actually there's a third choice, which the Overseers pursued: Colonize and transform the native culture. The colonization might be hostile and exploitive or benign; it might be done by military force or by offering an attractive alternative, so that the colonization is voluntary.

Ordinary Slags never had conquest as a goal, but it seemd within the powere of the Overseers.

I loved it, and still do. I have the series on DVD and watch it several times a year.

They did a great job of placing the Newcomers into society . Very well done. It's a shame there is nothing even close to being as good today.

"The editorial slant of the show was classic Clinton-era progressive liberal optimism, like the Star Trek universe."

I think LBJ gets to claim the timeframe during which the Star Trek "vision" was launched.

Allen

Can we at least agree on 'progressive liberal optimism', Allen? Pople of good will should be able to work out their differences by frank, open discussion and compromise. Shouldn't we?

i enjoyed the show and it was certainly more realistic despite its faults than the other aliens among us series of v both the mini movies and series with mark sanger

lizards from sirius who needed water and food preferably live food who wore skin suits and lingerie so they could make whoopee as humans in skin suits to humans or as love lizards

they were both scifi movies that became series and both had their pros and cons

the v series was sorta a reimagining of the nazi stuff from what i understand but alien nation was supposed to be a way to reexamine how we deal with different cultures and taboos and stuff

if you wanted to rpg them why not make the v lizards the overlords bosses and take what you like from both series and matt and kathy did finally get together in the last episode though they had to take a special class to have interspecies sex without her killing him in an alien version of kama sutra

and so it goes

One more point . . .

I found it refresing that it was a ship of a quarter of a million of them that force-landed on the Mohave Desert. I guess I was tired of only one or two aliens always making it to earth.

CC

CC, did you ever see this: link ?

Just a short film, but it starts from the same sort of premise as Alien Nation.

I first encountered Alien Nation via the novelisations. I only saw the series quite later on, and even then, only 3 or 4 episodes, since it was on in the UK at about 2 am, briefly.

Andrew Paul,

I cannot thank you enough for that link! That short film is absolutely fantastic.

link

Almost makes me want to try and sculpt a "Poleepkwa" head!!!

CC
PS. BTW, DWW is not going to like the way his brethren are being treated in S. Africa. :)

CC, Google "Tetra Vaal" for another cool video.

Plainly, this series is another reason that aliens have not landed on Earth, and never will.

"Have you seen their broadcasts? What will we do when they try to have sex with us?"

"The Overseers spooked me on a deep level. They were ordinary people (Tenctonese) who had been shaped into monsters by a cultural practice (binding their temples as children) that intentionally destroyed their ability to feel love and empathy. What hells their own lives must have been. What must the ordinary domestic lives of an Overseer family be like? And most chilling is that the Overseers too are a metaphor for human behavior."

Paging Dr. Phil…. Paging Dr. Phil….

;)

Both movie and series were pretty good. Not great, but I enjoyed them.

Things I liked:
Salt water = acid.
Rotten milk = alcohol to them
The details of the newcomer's culture, including their "adult film" industry, interspecies romance, and stuff like that.
The funny names given them by immigration (Sam Francisco? Classic!)

Things I didn't like:
The cheap production values & mediocre special effects (they haven't aged well)
The writing of the police material was actually a bit weak
The hippy uncle (or whoever he was -- I thought the tie dye t-shirt was stupid)
His rebelleous teenaged son plot -- boring
I never really thought, even back then, that the pervasive liberal mindset in America would allow the government to force them to change their names. There were bound to be more bleeding hearts who would insist that they NOT be forced to assimilate, but to keep their native tongue and names

aecurtis, "The editorial slant of the show was classic Clinton-era progressive liberal optimism, like the Star Trek universe."

Sorry, Allen, incorrect. The movie was Reagan-era (1988), the series is Bush Sr. era (1989-1990), five Alien Nation novels were done in the Clinton era, but no movie/TV episodes.

Sigh. You're quoting me, Mardaddy, not Allen.

Oh dear. I'm being contradicted and even mocked. How ever shall I bear it?

"lizards from sirius who needed water and food preferably live food who wore skin suits and lingerie so they could make whoopee as humans in skin suits to humans or as love lizards"

At least the Visitors wouldn't dissolve when they had sex with humans!

The 'salt water as horrific corrosive' thing was agonizingly stupid. They could hardly live on this planet outside of environment suits – physical contact of any kind with humans would be fraught with danger. Imagine shaking hands with someone who sweated sulfiric acid.

I liked the idea of first contact being with refugees. Trying to make humanoid aliens 'Different!', though, is difficult at best.

For once, I'd like to see the 'first contact with alien humans' be handled like the tantalizing mystery that it would be. When did they get out there? How? How have they changed since then? If someone came and got them…where are they now?

Maybe the Newcomers landed on Earth knowing that no Tectonese in his right mind would visit there anyways…

I liked the fact that it showed people who drink sour milk and eat possum as intellectually,physically and spiritually superior to the norm.

(They were matriarchial,too!!!)

They should have shown some Tenctonese down South and done a
more overt/less preachy examination of the slavery/slaver comparisons.

Now,if only Firefly and a few other series could use the AlienNation precedent and the way series are shown on cable and on the BBC,etc. to show up as needed instead of being limited to either year after year of 22 straight episodes or oblivion.

You know, the "salt water is corrosive" thing is silly but salt is composed of two rather reactive chemicals. If something in the Tenctonese physiology, an oil or other excretion on the skin, breaks down the salt and leaves them in contact with the free chlorine and sodium, it'd burn them. Not as quickly or as completely as on the show, to be certain, but some dramatic license should be allowed. That might explain how they're able to take some salt internally in their foods too.

Well, kinda.

Darn it, I almost got through this all and was going to mention those great "rotten milk drunks" and mmitchell "spoiled" my fun.

I can only comment on the feature film, it was directed by the father of a friend of mine, one Graham Baker. His daughter was an actress in my first feature film which we were working on together some years after it came out, so I got to meet him. He was deeply unhappy with the final cut of the film and had little say over the way it was edited, in the final car chase if you watch it between the cuts, the cars switch sides from each other without actually moving to do so. The American cut of the film differs greatly from the UK version, like DIE HARD II which was also cut from the 18 version to the 15 version in the UK around the same time, Alien Nation had all it's gore trimmed. Which was a big shame.

I only saw one of the TV shows and I can't remember which one it was. The main problem I had with it was the actor who replaced Mandy Patankin, he did a great job, but Patankin is an actor hard to beat on any level.

As a concept at the time I didn't think the show itself was especially orginal, though I did like the idea of the drug. Salt water killing them was perfectly plausible, it can kill enough things that live on the earth already so that's not exactly far fetched. I would have liked to have seen an episode based on them going back on the ship that landed – prehaps they did one? As I said I only saw one.

Ultimately, for all of its cheese, I preferred 'V'

Liked the solid TV show. The social messages were a little too preachy at times.

Check this out:

link

CC

More vids:

link
link

CC