Alien Nation: Dark Horizon

This TV series was made in the mid 90s, but looks much older. The overall story of the alien slaves reaching the sunny shores of California is a good idea and may offer premises for both social comment and good drama. Unfortunately acting is so conventional, costumes and effects so poor that less than ten years after production this movie looks like an oldie. Hard core fans of science fiction (like myself) better watch an old Star Trek. At least, this was the original. 5/10 on my personal scale.

The first thing that has to be said is that if you're not a fan of the Alien Nation TV series from the late 80's then this film will not only confuse you, but the chances are, you just won't like it. That however is not really a problem, as this film was never made with the intention of attracting a new global audience. Dark Horizon was made for the fans that were truly gutted and disappointed that the excellent Alien Nation TV series (like so many other American shows) was cancelled after the first series. The film is a continuation of the series and so sets out to resolve the cliffhanger ending, further character development and give insight into the 'Newcomers' background. It is also obvious from viewing the film that this was always intended on being the first of many TV films.

The film itself is quite good. It manages to capture the essence and feeling of the original show whilst effortlessly transferring itself onto the big screen. There is a common danger that when TV shows are introduced to the world of films, they end up feeling like an overly long episode that tries too much to impress its hardcore fans, and tries too many new explanatory things to engage others. However, Dark Horizon embraces it's new format and uses it as a platform to further explore the history behind the 'Newcomers' and to show off some of the potential that the series promised. All the original cast members are back, which brings a smile to any fan. Emily (Laura Woodland) and Buck Francisco (Sean Six) were only kids in the series and so are obviously older looking as it has been five years, yet these little discrepancies have to be ignored. Some fans will point out little things that don't add up to the series, or don't exactly follow on from the cliff-hanger ending, but beggars cannot be choosers and it is the reviewers opinion that we should all be grateful that these films were made, that the cast and crew came back and that they give it everything to continue the Alien Nation legacy.

The premise of the film evolves around a ruthless Overseer who is sent from one of their colony ships to Earth, to check for any surviving 'Newcomers'. This is inter-fused with Susan and Emily's attempted recovery from the newcomer killing disease. Like the series, Dark Horizon brilliantly blends the social dramas of family and relationships, with that of racism, police work and all-out action, which in this case involves killer diseases and samurai aliens. The highlight of the film is undoubtedly the relationship between Matthew Sikes (Gary Graham) and George Francisco (Eric Pierpoint). Their cop-buddy routine was the heart and soul of the series and this again shines through within the film. Alien Nation: Dark Horizon is a good film and more importantly an excellent follow up to the short-lived series. If you haven't seen the original Alien Nation TV series, go and buy it right now. Watch it, slag off the TV network for cancelling it, and then immerse yourself in the first of five follow up films: Dark Horizon.

I loved this movie! It gave us a true insight into the background and history of the "Alien" race. It was nice to see the relationship between Matt and Cathy explored. They are a perfect "inter-species" couple. (The book "Cross of Blood" that is sort-of a sequel to this movie was a real disappointment though!) This movie allowed us to see the spiritual heritage of the Newcomers. It was interesting to see the similarities to the "human" world of spirituality! God did create All "Man" in the same light - regardless of whether or not they were born on "Earth"!!

And they never knew it.

This film, the first of five alien nation films made for Fox, serves the primary purpose of settling the cliffhanger from "green eyes".

But where one threat ends, a new threat begins.

This film starts with the ominous view of a huge Tectonese military vessel. The same ship which was detected in the episode "contact", now we know that the signal sent from JPL was successful. The ship carries worse than the KleesonSun (click), it contains highly trained agents that are bent upon retrieving the 250,000 "Drega"- and more.

When we first meet Ahpossno, he appears to be overseer slime. He is slime.

But then something remarkable happens, he meets the "Sam" Francisco family, and all of the people associated.

We start to see that as evil as he appeared to be, he had feelings. But he does not realize this until it is way too late.

It's too bad because this character would have been a great addition to the ever growing Francisco family.

Susanna Thompson, who played the role of the Borg Queen in Star Trek Voyager a few times, takes over the role of Lorraine Clark formerly done by Barbara Bush. She does not convince me that she is the same character and she reveals religious hypocrisy that is quite distasteful, especially to Matt "Sykes".

Sykes was the first one to see that there was something non-kosher about Ahpossno, who infects Susan and Buck with Some bad Tectonese-only ideas. As well as wedging himself in between Kathy and Matt.

It's too bad that they could not keep the character in the series.

Amazingly, everybody who had been in the show reprised their roles- all except for Lorraine. It would not have hurt the story to just omit the very small part she plays.

"Alien Nation" was a TV show based on a movie that in turn had TV movies based on the TV show. Having seen this film, I thought it was just okay. It was weird how they sort of abandoned the plot about the virus killing the newcomers. I understand that this series is fairly popular. It just isn't for me. It's at least passable. It came off as kind of boring to me. It would be easy to dismiss this as just another easy analogy for racism. At the time of the film's release, the trope wasn't nearly as developed.

There are definitely good scenes. I especially like it when the characters talk about religion and God's plan. The newcomers themselves have their own beliefs about souls. They wonder if the aliens even have souls. There's certainly nothing about it in the Bible. I appreciate how it is pretty charming how the human character falls in love with the newcomer. It's interesting to see how they understand Earth culture and it isn't rushed like in most other movies. It's fine for what it is. **1/2