Welcome back to a series we’re calling “Must See,” a collection of editorials on TV shows, movies, or anything you watch that we’re suggesting you see. Reviews would fit a single episode, but some shows or movies require a broader discussion. Let’s say there’s a TV show you must see (pun intended), but one episode doesn’t do it justice, or a movie with one scene that’s only described by: fantabulous or dreck.

This article is about a possibly controversial pick, as I’m going to talk about a show I’m not going to say many lovely things about. I’ve not seen the full season, and I don’t intend to. I have, however, watched a few episodes and skimmed through the rest. Some might say that I can’t give an opinion on something I haven’t fully watched, but when you are a one-trick pony dancing on the tip of your penis, I know what you’re going to do next time. Today I’m talking about Alien News Desk.

The premise of this show is that a coalition of alien lifeforms have sent two reporters on to the edge of earth’s orbit around the sun. The two are reporting back to the collection of planets in your standard news format, informing them of the planet’s inhabitants and what is happening there; seemingly suggesting this is done with other planets and species, though is never really shown to any great degree.

It is fully animated, using stock footage and live-action clips of reality shows, sports, and everything in between. It is about the aliens seeing us as alien and reporting back their misunderstandings. Played as a satire it is strange, funny, charming, and possibly the best thing SYFY has done in a long time. That said, I did refer to it as a dancing pony with a very strong penis, strong enough to dance with no less. As far as satire and general comedy go, it is funny the first few times, though sometimes it is just sad to watch someone beat a horse with itself.

Once you start thinking about the series for more than a nanosecond, which is all it gives before moving on to the next misunderstanding passing as a news piece, you see its; cracks. If they are alien, why do they slip in and out of their own made-up words and then back to English? Where’s a field piece or two? Why isn’t there a weather report? For all the ads parodying our own products and advertisements, why don’t we get stories of aliens inserting them in themselves? 

With only two actors, heavy dialog, and a relentless number of jokes, it is worth catching an episode just to see it. The brilliantly timed and perfectly written misunderstandings of pronunciations such as U.S.A. pronounced “Us-A,” N.Y.C like “Nike,” and Popeyes as “Pope Yes.” It is well made, well written, and executed greatly, but the issue stands of its desire to focus on humans.

Creating a whole show to point directly at us, when there is theoretically a whole universe or even multiverse, feels like a lack of scope. There may be a slight cut of a city underwater on an alien planet, or indeed, a reference to other species and systems. Yet, the only newsworthy planet in the entire universe is our one of shaved semi-formed dwarf monkeys clinging to a dying rock dropping in the empty vacuum of space? I want interviews with alien rapists, a robot uprising against planetary destruction, I want Spider-man god damn it!

Ok, I’ve made my jokes, I’ve given slight opinions, I’ve done the references, what’s my actual opinion overall? Well, I was first caught by the name, assuming it would do something of an alien comedy/drama about news anchors covering hellish topics as their world is destroyed. Instead, I got a half-baked alien parody of our current news cycle, all the way down to the comments on the president and his government going against the status quo.

There’s a segment about the events happening on an axial rotation of a previous solar orbit indicating our own perceived linear interpretation of time, which is too long to name, makes for a good joke about looking back at our history. The problem is how the whole show is based on that premise without the verbose title to make fun of 1920s footage for two minutes. It is smart enough to make SYFY’s usual audience of stoned teenagers not studying sojourn, but a second of thought breaks the entire concept.

To wrap this up swiftly, I like the idea of the show, it could have great potential. Though I feel the grand scheme of the show could be expanded upon tenfold, with a slight respite from poking the shaved dwarfs, a little fiction that could pace out episodes a lot more. The 20-minute format does it wonders, though every single minute is choking to death on jokes. I’d say a single episode is a must-see as a master class in short joke-telling, though without a momentary break, none of the jokes have weight behind them.

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