Debuting tonight on E4 is The Aliens, a new sci-fi comedy drama that’s worth your time. Coming from the producers of Misfits, it does a similar thing of taking a sci-fi concept and using to look at modern day Britain. The high concept this time is that in an alternate UK, aliens have landed and integrated with society. They look and sound like us, with a few notable quirks (the most important to the plot being that their hair has become a very common illegal drug for humans). And while the aliens work regular day jobs, they are forced to live in a slum, behind a big wall. As satire, it’s pretty on the nose, but considering the treatment of refugees and immigrants in the media, making your intentions very obvious for all to see isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The meat of the action focuses on Lewis, a boarder guard of works on the wall keeping the aliens in check (played by Michael Socha, who you might recognise from This Is England). Do you think the series might be about him finding out that the aliens are actually people with feeling and emotions and rights and such? Well done. The first episode sees Lewis get mixed up with an alien gangster played by Ashley Walters in full supervillian mode, accompanied by Top Boy co-star Michaela Coel.
The first episode doesn’t quite hit the heights of Channel 4’s best shows like Top Boy, This Is England and Top Boy, but it’s a lot of fun, and there’s a lot of potential. First episodes always have to do a lot of world building, and the cliffhanger means it could go in a lot of interesting directions.
The Aliens is E4 tonight at 9pm, and then will be All4.
