That irreverent family of aliens is back for more madcap fun in the third season of the adult-targeted animated sitcom Solar Opposites, premiering on the streaming service Hulu later this week.
Created by Rick and Morty’s Justin Roiland and Mike McMahan of Star Trek: Lower Decks, Solar Opposites focuses on a wacky, maladjusted group of extraterrestrials from the planet Schlorp, which sent out 100 colonist ships to terraform and populate other worlds around the galaxy after being catastrophically struck by an asteroid.
The third season of Solar Opposites drops a few more episodes than the previous two rounds, with new adventures including a search around the Earth for the family’s lost limbs (apparently abandoned in various locations via a series of mishaps), a competition between adult characters Korvo (voiced by Roiland) and Terry (Thomas Middeditch) to see which can best master the hobby of model train collecting, and an entire “bottle” episode spent waiting in line for sneakers– yes, you read that right. The unifying theme of this batch of installments concerns Korvo attempting to enjoy his life on Earth more, rather than fixating on “the mission” and repairing the aliens’ crashed spaceship. This leads to the family taking a day trip to “Hululand”– which they vow won’t be anything like when the Simpsons visited Itchy & Scratchy Land– and experiencing attractions based on other original series like 11.22.63, The Looming Tower, and the Stephen King-inspired Castle Rock. That’s the kind of playfully referential humor Solar Opposites has become known for, and fortunately it remains just as entertaining as ever in this go-round.
But the best episodes of Solar Opposites– again, as in previous seasons– are the departures from the status quo, like when we spend big chunks of time following the ongoing saga of the captive, shrunken humans living in replicant Yumyulack’s (Sean Giambrone) bedroom wall. This is where we see Cherie (Christina Hendricks) and Tim (Andy Daly) have their final showdown, and where the unwilling residents must deal with a new threat involving a deadly swarm of giant-sized– to them, anyway– mosquitoes. There’s also a tangent that details what happens to one of the Opposites’ neighbors after Korvo and Terry shoot him into space for interfering with their acquisition of a keepsake bullet autographed by Star Wars star Mark Hamill– don’t ask. Sure, Solar Opposites can often feel like its writers are just following their own stream of consciousness, but that’s a big part of the appeal. These aliens are far less competent than Rick Sanchez from Justin Roiland’s other show, but they do have access to a similarly unlimited array of technology that allows them to do basically anything that strikes their fancy, which is admittedly fun in and of itself.
The final episode I want to highlight in this review is the one entitled “99 Ships,” in which Korvo, Terry, Yumyulack, and Jesse (Mary Mack) learn what happened to all of the other settlers sent out from Schlorp that fateful day, thanks to the supercomputer Aisha, voiced by Tiffany Haddish. It’s bound to become a fan-favorite, but I loved it because it demonstrates that our protagonists aren’t necessarily unique in their ineptitude to colonize Earth. There’s a running gag that 40-something of the remaining families were eaten by Tyrannosaurus Rexes or similar creatures spanning the galaxy, but outside of that hilariously over-the-top violent streak, the real heart of this episode comes from the Opposites’ realization that they’re not terribly special, except for their singular willingness to embrace the culture of the planet where they ended up. The Earth is a crazy place, made even crazier thanks to the presence of these eccentric and unpredictable characters, but it’s comforting to know that we’re always only one tongue-in-cheek Princess Bride homage away from being reminded how much we all really have in common.
Solar Opposites season three will be released this Wednesday, July 13, exclusively on Hulu.