‘Solar Opposites’ Might as Well be ‘Rick and Morty’

At some point everyone has inevitably thought about what would happen if aliens came to Earth. Would they invade us, ignore us completely, or make us their slaves? In Hulu’s Solar Opposites, there are aliens who want to do all three. When a family of aliens sees the destruction of their home world, they have to find a new desolate planet to live on, but instead they end up crashing their ship on Earth. They must assimilate into everyday human life, and they have to do normal boring people things, like going to a housing-association meeting or high school.

Solar Opposites feels like a mix of Rick and Morty and your stereotypical sitcom. It’s a sitcom-style TV show. There are kids and adults, and a non-talking fifth character, their pet. There are hilarious side characters, as well as an entire side plot about people living in terrariums.

But giant lasers and alien monsters end up enhancing normal sitcom situations tenfold. Every episode has ridiculous science, just like in Rick and Morty. Justin Roiland, also the voice of Rick in Rick and Morty, voices Korvo, one of the main aliens. It quickly becomes apparent how much Rick and Morty influenced the show, with not only a similar animation style, but also the same type of random sci-fi humor that makes Rick and Morty so popular.  There’s an overarching plot, but it’s very loose and the majority of the show is various alien antics.

Solar Opposites is not a show based whatsoever in reality. It has that cynical, yet light feeling that Rick and Morty has. There’s lots of dark humor and death in the show; every episode, hundreds of people die with no realistic consequences. But for the whole time it remains upbeat, witty, and funny. I watched all of Solar Opposites in a day, it was very entertaining and not even for a second did I want to turn it off.

However, the show is not without its flaws. I couldn’t help but think the whole time that I was watching it that Rick and Morty had done very very similar plot lines before. When the aliens from Solar Opposites have to go to high school, it feels all too similar to all the high-school scenes from Rick and Morty. It takes classic sitcom tropes and puts a spin on them, which isn’t bad and can sometimes make the show very funny. This in no way ruined the show for me, but if you’re looking for a show that is 100 percent original and fresh, Solar Opposites is not the way to go. It’s very entertaining, but at the same time it lacks authenticity and can occasionally feel recycled.