The Solar Opposites gang is back with another round of hilarious episodes on Hulu, and below are my thoughts on this fifth season of the adult-targeted animated sci-fi sitcom.
Solar Opposites, as you’ll recall, concerns an alien family that has moved to planet Earth with the intention of terraforming it into something closer to their doomed homeworld of Shlorp. But that process takes time– especially how they do it– so meanwhile they’re adjusting to life and culture on our planet, embarking on numerous sci-fi-based adventures along the way. The voice cast of the series includes actor Dan Stevens (from Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast) in his second season replacing co-creator Justin Roiland as Team Leader Korvo, Thomas Middleditch (Big City Greens) as Terry, Sean Giambrone (The Goldbergs) as Yumyulack, Mary Mack (Kiff) as Jesse, newcomer Sagan McMahan (presumably the son of the other co-creator Mike McMahan) as the Pupa, and Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip) as the aliens’ ship computer system Aisha. Season five begins with these characters having relocated from Earth to another planet that they like much more, except Terry is certain there’s some evil underbelly soon to be revealed as a twist. You can probably guess that this kick-off story ends with the family back on Earth for the remainder of the season, but it sure is entertaining to see how it plays out.
Other episodes this season involves Korvo and Terry discovering what a “honeymoon” is (after having finally tied the knot last year) and then artificially extended the Earth’s revolution around the sun so that their vacation never ends, the aliens activating a “Live Die Repeat” device– formerly called the “Edge of Tomorrow” device, naturally– so that Korvo can relive and hopefully correct an embarrassing moment at a local hardware store, our protagonists starting up their own exclusive private school to compete with hoity-toity neighbors, and Jesse revealing that she has been creating all her boyfriends using the Shlorpian technology and then dumping them on a deserted island when she grows tired of them. There’s also a fun Looney Tunes-homage romp involving Korvo’s blood feud with Yumyulack’s bully’s father, and an episode that might be my new favorite from the entire run of the show, involving an extremely clever twist on the “What If?” concept utilized in other animated sitcoms like Futurama (but don’t say that out loud or the Solar Opposites might get an email).
Of course we also get a continuation of the saga of “The Wall” and its unwillingly shrunken human denizens, which has now expanded out into the Wild West of the aliens’ backyard. Character actor Clancy Brown has a recurring role in those segments that makes the ongoing narrative feel even more epic in its miniature scope. Less interesting on the whole is the relatively new “Silvercops” plotline (a parody of the largely forgotten 80s kids’ show SilverHawks), which might be the only part of this season that didn’t fully maintain my interest. Otherwise everything in Solar Opposites is really firing on all cylinders this time around, and the jokes-per-second rate must still be among the highest in TV history. Stevens has really settled into his lead role, and Middleditch remains appealing as the rapid-fire pop-culture-reference-spouting Terry. The supporting cast has really been fleshed out over five years as well, as evidenced by the Simpsons-inspired character poster below. All told I’d say this latest season of Solar Opposites is an unlikely success story, considering how the series has both survived and thrived in the aftermath of Roiland’s departure. I know there’s a sixth season coming up next year as well, and if the trend continues this show might very well eventually cement itself among the ranks of the best, most consistently funny animated sitcoms of all time.
The fifth season of Solar Opposites debuts Monday, August 12, exclusively via Hulu.