Like many other series before - and since - "Alien Nation" was adapted for the small screen from a big screen motion picture, in this case starring Mandy Patinkin and James Caan, if you can believe that. Gary Graham reprises the role played by Caan of Det. Sgt. Matt Sykes, a bigot LA cop. Graham, of course, is probably best remembered for the good job - well, okay, adequate job - he did in "The Hollywood Knights" and the not so good job in "Robot Jox". Like the movie, the series concerns itself with a shipload of basically human-looking aliens, who are in fact escaped slaves, that arrive on Earth and try to adapt to human culture. They have their quirks, like getting drunk on sour milk, and their weaknesses, like dying horribly on contact with salt water, but basically they just want to get along. In their efforts to do just that, they adopt human-sounding names, which leads to one of the show's running gags. Sykes' alien partner, for example, is Det. Sam Francisco. Once, it's cute. But more than once, or even occasionally, it can easily get out of hand, and did, with characters like Pete Moss, Mike Raphone, et al ad nauseum. Did this show get silly and tedious at times? Yup, but no more so than other sci-fi series, like "Timecop", the brainchild of Harve Bennett (yes, THAT Harve Bennett), "RoboCop", "Mantis", "Viper", and a whole raft of other sackrace losers that all fell out of a Crumbum Tree and hit every branch on the way down. Having said this, we actually liked this show, and didn't for one centon believe Fox's reason for cancellation, to wit: the makeup costs of the actors prosthetic headpieces for a weekly show were just too high. Tell it to someone who believes it. This was, in the last analysis, a pretty good show as these things go, and really deserved better
Review of Alien Nation
