Alien Nation: Dark Horizon
A long-canceled series returns to resolve its cliffhanger.
Alien Nation: Dark Horizon is a television film that continues the storyline of the Alien Nation television series, which originally aired for a single season on Fox. The film was produced after a change in management at Fox, four years after the series was canceled, and was originally written as the second-season premiere. It was directed by Kenneth Johnson and written by Andrew Schneider and Diane Frolov.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Science Fiction; Drama
- Based on
- Alien Nation, Rockne S. O'Bannon
- Writer
- Diane Frolov; Andrew Schneider
- Director
- Kenneth Johnson
- Starring
- Gary Graham
- Eric Pierpoint
- Michele Scarabelli
- Terri Treas
- Theme music
- David Kurtz
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
Facts from the source article.
Did You Know?
- The film was the only one in the series to be released on VHS in the United States, priced for rental.
- All five television films were released in a Best Buy exclusive DVD boxed set on April 15, 2004.
Plot
The film retcons the series' cliffhanger by opening with Susan Francisco and her daughter Emily falling ill from a new viral infection. This virus was created by human Purists aiming to exterminate the Newcomer species. A parallel subplot introduces Ahpossno, a Tenctonese Overseer who lands on Earth seeking surviving Tenctonese to re-enslave them. The idea of a signal sent into space by surviving Overseers had been explored in the episode "Contact."
The series finale "Green Eyes" ended with contaminated flowers delivered to the Francisco family and Cathy informing Matt of their hospitalization. Dark Horizon restages these events with George Francisco absent and a slightly different version of Cathy's arrival at Matt's apartment. Ahpossno eventually comes to appreciate the freedom Newcomers enjoy on Earth, but he has already alerted his superiors. He sacrifices himself by being poisoned by the tainted flowers and returns to the approaching Overseer mothership.
With his dying breath, he claims all Newcomers are dead due to Earth's toxic atmosphere. An Overseer supervisor smells the flower he brought back and reacts, confirming the story.
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