Episode Guide
The Matter Transfer Array The Unstable Grey Hole The Quantum Ring The Booster Manifold The Lavatic Reactor The P.A.T.R.I.C.I.A. Device Terry and Korvo Steal A Bear Retrace-Your-Step-Alizer Solar Opposites is essentially an alien sitcom version of Rick & Morty. The characters are drawn in much the same way, the violence and bloodshed is abundant and the meta jokes and storytelling follow the same sort of plot beats. If that’s the sort of animation you enjoy, Solar Opposites is most definitely the show for you. Even if it’s not though, there’s actually some pretty decent episodes here, with episode 7 a wonderful stand-alone tale in its own right. With a second season already green-lit and plenty of scope for future episodes, Solar Opposites establishes itself as a competent animated effort. Much like many good animations, it does take a few episodes for this one to find its feet and settle into its own rhythm. At the heart of this are aliens Terry and Korvo. Desperate to fix their ship and leave our miserable and over-populated planet, they work together to try and work out whether it’s in their best interest to stay on Earth and learn our quirky ways or fix their ship and head back to their home planet. Most of the episodes revolve around this duo hitting the same comedic beats as Rick & Morty, with stand-alone episodic content held together by a consistent overarching narrative. This narrative comes in two forms. The first sees alien children Jesse and Yummyulack collecting and shrinking an array of different humans, collecting them up as pets and placing them inside a glass wall in their bedroom. This blossoms into its own endearing narrative as the inhabitants of “The Wall” try to adapt to this new, bleak world they find themselves in. The other narrative comes in the form of the apocalyptic time-bomb Pupa who joins both duos of alien during their adventures, usually vomiting or getting into trouble. The show leans heavily on its bloodshed, violence and shock dialogue for a lot of the characters. Expect plenty of swearing right the way through the different episodes and while this sometimes works really effectively, early on it does feel like Solar Opposites throws these instances in for the sake of shocks rather than narrative cohesion Ultimately though Solar Opposites takes a while to warm up and certainly deserves some patience to get to the good stuff. The opening few episodes are a little rough around the edges and the jokes don’t always land. It’s not until episode 3 where things actually start to settle into a good groove and even then, the best material is held out for the final few episodes. These really dive into the familiar mind-bending and meta territory Rick & Morty has become synonymous with, and given the penultimate episode takes place exclusively inside The Wall and the finale throws time travel into the mix, these are worthy ways to end the season on a bang. If you’re on the fence about Solar Opposites, the show does just enough to stand out from Rick & Morty while still clinging to the same tropes that make that show so interesting and enjoyable. It’s not perfect but it’s a highly enjoyable series nonetheless, and with a second season on the horizon there’s enough here to certainly look forward to that in the future.
