EPis0dIC! - Alien Nation "The Spirit of '95" (Se01E13) 1990

The episode begins with Buck and Susan visiting the campaign headquarters for the "Alien Vote Amendment", which aims to allow newcomers, all of whom have been granted citizenship and indefinite leave to stay in the united States, to have the right to vote.

Both Buck and Susan believe strongly in newcomers right to vote, as does "Wyatt Earp", the newcomer campaign manager and Jesse, the human campaign manager.
Susan and Buck both volunteer to help the cause, and their assistance is welcomed, however both Jesse and Wyatt are more interested in having George, a respected newcomer police officer, speak out on the issue. Although Susan says she cannot promise she can get any assistance form George, Buck is more enthusiastic, however just as Susan begins to feel ill from her ongoing pregnancy, the campaign headquarters has to be evacuated due to a bomb threat, one of several that have happened since the campaign began. Up until now though, all the threats have been hoaxes, but this time round, as everyone waits outside, the building explodes.

Sikes finds he has been voted in to be the chairman of his apartment blocks residents association, much to his displeasure, however he has no time to worry about it as he is called to investigate the bomb. As it turns out, Jesse says that he received a phone call from someone claiming to be a representative of the "United Purist Party", a right wing ultra conservative political movement dedicated to denying newcomers any rights to vote, or indeed, any right to exist as free sentient beings.
George is disgusted that people would go to such lengths to deny people their rights, and reminds Sikes that the countries foundations were based on people standing up for their rights, however Sikes states that matter doesn't interest him, as he generally doesn't vote.
Their investigation is made somewhat easier by the arrival of Max Clay, the head of the UPP, at the station. Max threatens Sikes and George with litigation if they make any statements directly linking the UPP with the terrorist bomb threats, as they have no direct evidence linking the incidents to him or representatives of his party. Max also states that it is the UPPs party line that direct threats and use of violence is neither encouraged or condoned, however as George points out to him, they have, in the past, made carefully veiled threats of violence against newcomers. Max launches into a monologue about how the Bible states that God created man in his image to have dominion over the Earth etc etc, and it is the Purists intention to keep mankind's "destiny" on course by whatever means necessary, even if that includes being violent or inhumane toward newcomers..George swears and leaves in disgust.

Buck is out canvassing with Wyatt while Susan helps Jesse set up the campaign headquarters in the Fransisco house (George isn't terribly pleased by this) however after having a few doors slammed in his face, Buck is shocked when Wyatt is kidnapped off the street, seemingly by some purists, who almost run him over in the process.
George is outraged at this, the second attack on his family that day, and heads over to UPP headquarters to politely "remind" Max Clay that violence can work both ways, and if anyone associated with the UPP attacks or threatens his family ever again, he will personally take care of the matter.
Meanwhile, Sikes is called to the scene of another kidnapping, this time Jesse has been taken off the street by the same vehicle car took Wyatt, however his investigation is cut short when he is called back to the station to receive a reprimand for Georges threatening behaviour towards Max Clay.

Sikes returns home to find he has to sit as chair at a meeting of the residents association, which quickly devolves into an argument between the other residents over whether they should pay $700 for an elderly resident to have a ramp installed on the back door, which apparently Sikes said he would look into at the last meeting, but hasn't because A) he is too busy with his police work and B) he doesn't care. As it turns out though, the weird old lady who has asked for the ramp has lived there since the place was built, brought up 3 children there and her husband died there, so she feels an attachment to the building itself in a way none of the other residents do. As it turns out later, Cathy paid for the ramp to be fitted out of her own pocket.

At the station the next day, Sikes arrives to find George giving an interview to Burns, the stations almost resident hack journalist. Burns is quite happy at George giving some very strong views on the purists, but Sikes steps in and stops him before he says something stupid.
Just then, Wyatt is dumped outside the station, having been badly beaten. Although he says that he does not know where he was taken, he says he knows that Jesse was there with him, and the people who held them, who identified themselves as purists, drew lots over which one of them to release. Unfortunately, Wyatt isn't able to give a description of his captors as he claims he was blindfolded all the time, but then he shocks both Sikes and George by insisting on giving a press conference right there and then to "expose" the treatment the UPP is meting out to newcomers.

With all the clues pointing to UPP involvement in the kidnappings and bombings, Sikes is a little surprised to receive an invitation for him and George to come and see Max Clay at their campaign headquarters. Clay explains that he personally instructed all members of the UPP to not make any violent action against anyone by letter a week before the trouble started, and he also presents Sikes with the proposition that maybe Wyatt and Jesse planned the bombing and kidnapping themselves, as despite the press conference and all the negative press about the UPP, the AVA movements approval ratings have only risen by 14%, as opposed to the expected 25%. George dismisses this notion as laughable, but Sikes sees his point. George asks why Sikes is so cynical about politics, and he explains that several years ago, a lobby group campaigned to outlaw chemical weapons, a motion which was passed through congress and lauded as a step towards the end of the production of weapons of mass destruction, however the money saved on developing, maintaining and building chemical weapons was funnelled straight into the development, maintenance and building of nuclear weapons instead of being used for peaceful means. Sikes says it was this incident which caused him to lose faith in the political system.

A report comes in that the car used in both the kidnappings of Wyatt and Jesse has been spotted, so Sikes and George follow it, only to find Wyatt at the wheel when it pulls up at a cheap motel on the outskirts of town. As it turns out, Wyatt confesses that Jesse planned the bombing and the kidnappings as a way to get free publicity for the AVA and to turn popular opinion against the UPP, however Jesse is ill and called Wyatt to come and take him to the hospital. They enter Jesses room to find that he has been beaten to death.

Now having a murder investigation on their hands, George and Sikes immediately suspect Wyatt, as the tyre iron from his car was used to kill Jesse, but no motive can be found. Sikes calls the phone company and asks for the call records from both Wyatt and Jesses telephones, however he finds that there has already been a wire tap made on both phones, seemingly without any authorisation.
Their investigation leads them to the phone company, where one of the employees there, a staunch purist supporter, had put a tap on the phones at the request of Max Clay, however he denies committing Jesses murder, saying he only told Max Clay where Jesse was when he had called Wyatt to ask him to take him to the hospital.
The vote comes, and the motion to allow newcomers to vote is passed in 32 states, meanwhile, at an investigation committee, the UPPs activities linking them not only to violence towards newcomers, but also to the murder of Jesse are brought to light, and the UPP loses all public credibility as Max Clay repeatedly takes the 5th whenever he is asked about his involvement. The judge ends the proceedings by ordering all the UPPs records to be seized and a full investigation into their activities be carried out.


This is one of the best episodes of the series in my opinion. firstly, it deals in a none too subtle way with the topic of racism in human society, and the efforts of those who use this racist attitude in order to further their own desire for power over others.
Secondly, it also deals with abuses of the political system to allow people to achieve their aims, regardless of the costs.
A very well written episode this be!.

Alien Nation : The Series (1989-1990)

Following on from the original film , the Alien Nation TV series continues the story of a "future" (the series is set roughly in 1991/1992) United States which becomes inhabited by 250,000 aliens after their ship crash lands in the Mojave desert.

Although the series was intended to be a direct follow on to the film, there were numerous small changes made to characters and back story, for example, the two main characters, Matthew Sykes (renamed "Sikes" in the TV series) and "newcomer" Sam "George" Fransisco (renamed simply "George Fransisco" in the series, his original pun name said to have been foisted on him by a bored immigration official) are now played by Gary Graham and Eric Pierpoint as opposed to James Caan and Mandy Patinkin respectively.
In addition, Georges family was slightly changed, With his son now being named "Buck" instead of "Richard" as given in the film.

I first encountered this show as part of Yorkshire televisions "late night" weekend slot, as it usually aired on a friday or saturday night during the early/mid 90s. Itwas strange as i thought that there were at least 2 or 3 series of this show made, the series itself consisted of a single series of 22 episodes, each lasting 47 minutes, and the concept is explored further than it was in the film.
Several new aspects are added to the background of the "newcomers", whose race is named officially as the "Tenctonese", although the pejorative terms "Slag" or "Spongehead" are used by people to refer to them on occasion, a point which in the first episode, George explains to Sikes that calling him a Slag is the equivalent of calling someone a "nigger" or a "kike". Although the newcomers show they too have prejudice by referring to humans as "terts".

The series does have a couple of plot arcs, and each episode generally consists of two story lines running simultaneously in some way.  Themes explored include:-

• The culture shock that ensues from humans suddenly having 250,000 completely alien people dropped on them, which leads to various racist themes being explored, such as jealousy that the newcomers are generally stronger, smarter and more resilient than  humans. So much so that during the course of some episodes, a human centric "purist" movement is shown to exist, which spreads various rumours and lies about the newcomers. The irony of this is is that many black, oriental and Hispanic people end up repeating the same things about newcomers as what was once said about themselves, for no other reason than to express hatred towards something different.
• The new types of crime that spring up once the newcomers begin integrating into human society. Although a lot of this crime is pretty much the same as human crime (drug traffiking, prostitution, theft, murder, gang warfare etc) the problems end up becoming more complex being as that they involve an alien culture, and as such, many of the human characters do not always understand what is happening. 
• Inter species relationships are also explored, with Sikes slowly becoming more and more attracted towards his newcomer neighbour "Cathy", as well as a few episodes depicting both aliens and newcomers in mixed or same sex relationships (it is also shown that the newcomers have no taboos about same sex relationships amongst either their own people or inter species, although some do have prejudice about mixed sex inter species relationships).
•  An interesting sub plot throughout the series is the introduction of a ruling class of newcomers called "overseers", nearly all of whom went unnoticed on their arrival on Earth and all of whom seek to once again take control of the "lesser" newcomers. George finds the overseers detestable, as do most of the other newcomers once they have been freed from their influence. One episode deals with a terrorist obtaining a cannister of the mind control gas that the overseers used to keep the slaves in line, and several episodes deal with the police finding and closing down operations to create "Jabroka", a drug which has roughly the same effect on newcomers as crack cocaine does on humans.
• Sikes and Georges ongoing struggle to make arrests despite interference from the ambitious and somewhat buffoonish Captain Grazer.

The series is unashamedly a "buddy cop" type program, but also has elements of being a sci-fi soap opera, with many of the "B" plots being little more than simple "aliens/humans not understanding each other" type affairs, but for some reason, it really works well, and quickly establishes a core group of likeable characters performing believable actions within their almost normal environment.
There are numerous examples of comedy in there as well, ranging from simple cultural misunderstandings (such as Georges wife being utterly repulsed by the concept of Halloween), right down to instances of heavily satirical and/or black humour. 

But, despite how well the series was received, its days were numbered as after only a single series. This came as somewhat of a surprise to viewers, and to the production crew, who had expected to at least get a second series based on the shows approval ratings. The problem was, the show aired on FOXs "Fox Network" during its early days as a prime time TV channel, and, due to the network not attracting as much investment from advertisers as they had expected, cuts had to be made to the network budget, and, Alien Nation, being an expensive show to make due to the large amount of special effects and make up needing to be applied to actors playing aliens, ranked as one of the shows which had to go in order to save money.

The story didn't end there though, with five feature length TV movies being produced between 1994 and 1997 which picked up from where the series left off and resolved all the unfinished story lines.

The show still enjoys somewhat of a cult following today, and is one of my firm favourites.

Dystopiarama - Robot Jox (1990)

A bit of a bizarre entry for this sub heading but this film is, nonetheless, a Dystopic film.

Robot Jox is a 1990 Sci-fi/Action film directed by Stuart Gordon and starring Gary Graham and no one else of any note, well, apart from a very young looking Jeffrey Combs in a role credited as "Prole #1".

This film is unusual for its time as it makes extensive use of stop motion and puppetry in order to portray the battle robots that play a large part in the films plot.

The plot is thus:-
In the late 21st century, the Earth is suffering the after effects of global resource wars, and, having seen the devastation and total pointlessness of nuclear conflict, the remaining nations of the world have formed themselves into two power blocs, The Free Market and the Confederation, and totally banned open warfare.
Instead of fighting in senseless and wasteful war, conflicts are instead sorted via a gladiatorial contest known simply as "The Games".

The games differ from previous gladiatorial contests, as they are fought using battle robots, piloted by warriors known as "Robot Jox".

The rules of the games seem fairly simple (or as simple as I can make them out to be from watching this movie) :-

#1 - Both sides may only enter one robot to fight per battle.
#2 - The robot may be armed with whatever weapons or technology the owners choose, and there is no obligation for either side to reveal what weapons or technology their robot is equipped with.
#3 - Once a robot has entered the battle arena, regardless of who is piloting it, it is considered that the challenge has been accepted. Leaving the arena without referee permission results in disqualification.
#4 - Combat will continue until one robot or Robot Jox is unable to continue.
#5 - All referee stipulations and directions are to be obeyed immediately and without question, failure or refusal to do so results in disqualification and forfeiture of the match.

The "Markets" best pilot is Jim, who fights under the alias "Achilles". Achilles is on the verge of surviving and winning 10 matches in a row, a feat only accomplished by his mentor, the Texan tactical advisor Tex Conway, who 10 years previously managed to destroy the Confederations most powerful robot with what he claims was a lucky shot from his vehicle, which was little more than a super heavy tank back in the days when bipedal walking war machines were unheard of.

Achilles is to fight the Confederations "Alexander", a ruthless russian pilot for the territory of Alaska, which if he wins will mark the end of his contract with the Market, however Alexander says he will kill Achilles and stop him achieving his goal.
Their match gets off to a good start, with both robots exchanging ranged fire with machine guns and missiles, before opening up on each other with lasers.
Alexanders robot fires a long blast from its laser cannon, but Achilles manages to deflect it with a piece of reflective armour located on his robots arms, then he plans to hit back with their secret weapon, the "Green Laser", which their science boffin, Dr. Matsumoto, says should guarantee them victory, however, they soon find that they have a spy in their midst when Achilles fires his Green Lasers, only for Alexander to deflect the blasts using his own reflective armour plates. The referees switch off both robots ranged weapons, so the action switches to melee combat, and Achilles is placed at a disadvantage as Alexander relentlessly pummels him with repeated blows from his robots hydraulic fists, but, just as Achilles thinks he has regained his advantage and damages his opponents robot with a hidden cutting torch, Alexander cheats and reveals that his secret weapon is the ability for his robot to fire one of its fists like a missile, which malfunctions and veers towards the crowd. Achilles throws his machine in the way and manages to block the out of control missile, but his robot falls on to the bleachers, and 300 people are killed. The match is declared a draw, as although Alexander won the match, he broke the rules by using a projectile weapon when at the time they were prohibited, so a rematch is to be fought in 1 week.

Achilles then decides he has fulfilled his obligation and decides to retire, but is alarmed when he is told his place will be taken by a new breed of genetically engineered soldiers called "Gen-Jox", who have superior strength, endurance and reactions, but who are completely inexperienced and extremely arrogant.

As the film goes on, The spy is revealed and Achilles ends up fighting Alexander once more for revenge.

The film is really good, considering its subject matter, and the special effects for the robots are amazing considering not one bit of CGI was used.
That said, the acting is somewhat hammy and the characters spew out line after line of cliched dialogue, but this doesnt alter the fact that this film is a nice, fun film, which will appeal to young and old alike.

If you want to watch this film, you can find it HERE