With its high-concept themes, adult-oriented humor, and (seemingly) semi-improvised dialogue, Hulu’s new adult animated series Solar Opposites beings by actively courting fans of Rick & Morty in more ways than one. That’s no surprise, as the foul-mouthed cartoon hails from Rick & Morty co-creator and voice actor, Justin Roiland, and Mike McMahan, a former writer’s assistant on the very same show. The result, then, is something that will be very familiar to the devoted fan base of the aforementioned show, yet somehow becomes a welcome and often delightfully silly supplement, instead of a potentially inferior imitation.
Roiland and McMahan take the notion of a small-scale alien invasion and turn it into an unruly and often surprising domestic comedy, complete with the kind of TV-MA-level language and extreme violence that can only be pulled off on an animated series. The concept is simple: four aliens, Korvo (Roiland), Terry (Thomas Middleditch), Yumyulack (Sean Giambrone), and Jesse (Mary Mack) have crash-landed on Earth with Pupa, a Baby Yoda-level adorable alien blob whose destiny is to evolve into a planet devouring being. Thankfully, in case you forget what the show’s actually about, a concise refresher is repeated in the opening credits of every episode, with a slight deviation each time, seemingly improvised by Roiland.
Each character is more or less a type, Korvo is strict and demanding, though still prone to being seduced by humankind’s more selfish ways, while Terry is more or less an unrestrained id, in love with earth’s penchant for rampant consumerism and love of shallow popular culture. Their replicants — ostensibly their children — are proto-versions of themselves, but taken to an extreme. Yumyulack is a privileged teen with sociopathic tendencies, who likes to shrink people who annoy him and place them in a wall-sized terrarium, complete with its own surprisingly engaging dystopian subplot. Jesse, meanwhile, is certainly more kindhearted, but alien enough that she still routinely gets caught up in plot-lines involving the wanton destruction of entire neighborhoods and out-of-control monsters that commit murder on a massive scale.
And therein lies the source of Solar Opposite’s success: the manner in which it blends its simple family sitcom setup with a grand sci-fi spectacle that's on par with, yes, Rick & Morty. But the show somehow manages to feel more accessible at times, even as it gets caught up in some similarly labyrinthine science fiction conundrums, like when Korvo’s attempts to generate a fictional television character literally turn on him and he’s forced to befriend a much less successful second attempt, resulting in some David Cronenberg-level body-horror. Later in the season, a twisty time-travel episode takes extreme pleasure in overanalyzing the potential paradoxes inherent in that brand of science fiction storytelling.
Essentially, if you like Rick & Morty, you’ll likely find yourself drawn to Solar Opposites. The two shows are so similar in tone, subject matter, and humor that such a comparison is inevitable, but it’s also kind of the point. It seems clear that Solar Opposites isn’t meant to be a Dan Harmon-less version of one of the most popular shows on TV right now. Instead, Roiland’s other series is simply another way for viewers to get a particular fix. Though, to be fair, the fix isn’t entirely the same; Solar Opposites is far less caustic than its Adult Swim-based older sibling. And that’s saying something for a show that regularly features one bloody rampage or another on a nearly episodic basis.
The fine line between pleasantly familiar and merely repetitive is one that Solar Opposites deftly walks, thanks in large part to Roiland and McMahan’s ability to balance extreme violence, morbid humor, and outlandish science fiction concepts with much-needed moments of unexpected warmth and humanity from some very extra extraterrestrials. The result is a consistently funny series that feels on par with its ostensible predecessor but nevertheless manages to bring something new to the table as well.
Solar Opposites premieres Friday, May 8 on Hulu.