Tony’s Timeless Thursdays™: Alien Nation: The Sci-Fi Series That Used Aliens to Talk About What It Means to Be Human

Long before television became filled with prestige science fiction about outsiders, immigration, identity and divided societies, there was Alien Nation.

At first glance, the premise sounded like the setup for a cool buddy-cop show. A spaceship carrying alien slaves crashes on Earth. Years later, thousands of those extraterrestrial refugees—known as Newcomers—are trying to build lives in Los Angeles. One of them becomes a police detective and is partnered with a human cop who is not exactly thrilled about working beside him.

You could have stopped there and made a perfectly entertaining science-fiction crime drama. Alien Nation wanted to do something bigger. It wanted to ask what happens after the aliens arrive.

Where do they live? Can they get jobs? Do their children attend human schools? What happens when their traditions collide with ours? Can humans and Newcomers fall in love? What does prejudice look like when the person being discriminated against really did come from another planet?

Those questions helped make Alien Nation one of the science-fiction shows that stayed with me.

And this week gives us the perfect reason to remember it. Today, November 12 marks 30 years since Alien Nation: The Enemy Within continued the story of George Francisco, Matthew Sikes and the Newcomers in 1996.

They Were Aliens, but the Story Was About Us

The franchise began with the 1988 movie Alien Nation, but when producer Kenneth Johnson developed the concept for television, he saw something beyond the original buddy-cop premise.

The Newcomers had arrived on Earth aboard a slave ship. They escaped bondage only to discover that freedom did not automatically mean acceptance.

That changed the entire story. When the television series premiered on Fox in September 1989, Eric Pierpoint played Detective George Francisco, a Newcomer trying to build a career and raise a family in a society that often viewed his people with fear or hatred. Gary Graham played Detective Matthew Sikes, George’s human partner.

Sikes was important because the show did not make him instantly enlightened. He carried assumptions. He could be uncomfortable with Newcomer customs. Sometimes he said or did things that revealed prejudices he probably did not even realize he carried.

George challenged him. And Sikes challenged George. That relationship allowed the series to explore prejudice without pretending that overcoming it happens in one inspirational speech. People have to know each other. They have to confront what they have been taught. They have to recognize the moments when their own biases are showing.

That made the partnership much more interesting than simply “human cop meets alien cop.”

The Francisco Family Made the Newcomers Feel Real

One of the smartest decisions Alien Nation made was spending time away from the police station.

George had a family.

His wife Susan, played by Michele Scarabelli, was not merely “the detective’s wife.” Their children, Buck and Emily, had their own experiences trying to understand what it meant to grow up Tenctonese in a predominantly human society.

Suddenly the Newcomers were not an abstract science-fiction concept. They were parents trying to raise children. Teenagers struggling with identity. Families arguing about tradition. People trying to determine which parts of their old culture should be preserved and which parts of their new world they should embrace.

Buck especially embodied that tension. He sometimes resented humanity and struggled with the pressure to assimilate, while Emily encountered prejudice at an age when children should have been worrying about school and friendships.

Those stories made the metaphor impossible to miss. The Newcomers could represent immigrants. Refugees. Racial minorities. Religious minorities. Anybody who has walked into a room and immediately been treated as “other.”

That was the brilliance of Alien Nation. The characters were extraterrestrials. The emotions were completely human.

Even the Differences Became Part of the Story

Alien Nation also had fun creating an actual culture instead of simply putting makeup on actors and calling them aliens.

Tenctonese biology, relationships, language, food, religion and family traditions were different from those of humans, and the series constantly used those differences to create humor, conflict and sometimes surprisingly thoughtful conversations.

Even reproduction worked differently. One memorable episode, “Real Men,” explored pregnancy and masculinity by turning familiar gender expectations upside down. Rather than treating the unusual Tenctonese biology as nothing more than a joke, the show used it to ask what actually defines manhood.

That was something Alien Nation did extraordinarily well. The science-fiction idea would get you through the door. Then the episode would quietly start talking about something real.

George and Sikes Were Both Capable of Prejudice

One of the things I appreciate even more looking back is that Alien Nation did not suggest prejudice belonged exclusively to humans.

That becomes especially important in The Enemy Within. The 1996 television movie finds Sikes and George investigating the death of an Eeno, a marginalized group within Newcomer society. Sikes is surprised to discover that George himself carries deep prejudice toward them.

Think about what the story is doing there. George Francisco knows exactly what it feels like to be stereotyped, insulted and treated as inferior by humans.

Yet he is still capable of doing the same thing to somebody else. That is uncomfortable.

It is also painfully believable.

Experiencing prejudice does not automatically immunize a person against developing prejudices of their own. Sometimes people who have been pushed toward the bottom still look for somebody they can place beneath them.

Thirty years after The Enemy Within aired, that message has lost none of its power.

One Season Somehow Became an Entire Legacy

The original television series lasted only one season, producing 22 episodes before ending in 1990.

Normally, that would have been the end. Fans had other ideas. The story eventually returned through five television movies: Dark Horizon in 1994, Body and Soul in 1995, Millennium and The Enemy Within in 1996, and finally The Udara Legacy in 1997.

That is remarkable when you think about it. A one-season science-fiction series developed enough loyalty that its world continued for years afterward.

Those movies allowed George, Sikes, Susan, Buck, Emily and the other characters to keep growing while expanding the culture and history of the Newcomers.

The franchise even continued through novels and comic books. Sometimes cancellation ends a television show.

Sometimes the audience simply refuses to let the story disappear.

Why Alien Nation Mattered to Me

This is one of those Tony’s Timeless Thursdays™ subjects that feels especially personal because Alien Nation is among the shows that helped shape the way I think about storytelling.

I have always loved science fiction, superheroes, horror and fantasy, but the stories that stay with me longest are usually the ones doing more than entertaining me.

• Alien Nation had aliens.

• It had murder investigations.

• It had action and futuristic ideas.

But underneath all of that was a story about people trying to understand each other.

As a Black viewer, there was something instantly recognizable about watching characters judged before somebody knew who they were. There was something familiar about conversations surrounding assimilation, cultural pride and the pressure to prove that you belonged.

Science fiction gave the writers enough distance to talk about those issues differently.

That is one of the genre’s greatest powers.

Sometimes putting a problem on another planet—or putting aliens in Los Angeles—allows us to see ourselves more clearly.

The Spiritual Bridge to S.O.L.A.D.™: Soldiers of Light Against Darkness™

That idea also connects naturally to S.O.L.A.D.™: Soldiers of Light Against Darkness™.

Some of the most dangerous darkness people face does not arrive looking like a monster. Sometimes darkness appears as hatred. Prejudice. Fear.

The belief that someone has less value because they are different. Angelo™, Angeline™ and the other Soldiers of Light Against Darkness™ confront supernatural evil, but the greater struggle has always involved choices. What do you do with power? How do you treat people who are different from you? Do you allow fear to determine how you see somebody else?

Faith calls us to recognize value where the world may refuse to see it. Alien Nation approached that question through science fiction. But the question itself is timeless.

Final Thoughts: Maybe the Aliens Were Never the Strangest Part

More than three decades after Alien Nation first came to television, some of its makeup and visual effects understandably belong to another era. Its ideas do not.

• We still debate immigration.

• We still wrestle with assimilation and cultural identity.

• We still see communities suspicious of newcomers.

• We still struggle with stereotypes, prejudice and the temptation to fear people we do not understand.

That is why Alien Nation deserves to be remembered as more than an old science-fiction cop show. George Francisco and Matthew Sikes were solving crimes, but week after week the series was investigating something much larger: Us.

• What makes somebody belong?

• How much of yourself should you have to change to be accepted?

• Can two people raised to see the world differently learn to trust one another?

• And when we finally meet someone who looks, speaks or lives differently than we do, will we see the difference first—or the person?

Alien Nation gave us visitors from another world. Then it held up a mirror to ours. Maybe that is why, all these years later, the Newcomers do not feel quite so alien after all.

And if stories about identity, purpose, prejudice, faith and choosing light over darkness speak to you, those same struggles live at the heart of my S.O.L.A.D.™: Soldiers of Light Against Darkness™ series. You can learn more about the books and begin the journey at www.tyronetonyreedjr.com/the-shop.