Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Solar Opposites’ Season 5 on Hulu, Featuring The Continuing Cartoon Misadventures Of The Shlorpians (And The Wallians…)

As Solar Opposites returns to Hulu for an 11-episode fifth season, it’s with news that the adult-animated alien comedy has already been renewed for Season 6 . Any involvement from Justin Roiland, disgraced co-creator of Opposites and Rick and Morty , is long in the past. Dan Stevens has settled in as the new voice of Korvo, lead scientist and head Solar. And the rest of the displaced residents of planet Shlorp – Terry (Thomas Middleditch), Jesse (Mary Mack), Yumyulack (Sean Giambrone), and their little terraforming alien baby thing, the Pupa (Sagan McMahan) – can be counted on to create more manic hijinks. But that won’t be on Earth. For now. Because season 5 of Solar Opposites opens where Season 4 concluded, as the Shlorpians’ physical selves were assuming more human forms. Greetings and pleasant rotations! It’s time to find out what happened next…

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Joe Rogan: Burn The Boats’ On Netflix, Wherein Podcast’s Comedy Giant Talks A Big Game

Opening Shot: “Come on, Korvo! You can do it!” And fittingly for the sense of humor of Solar Opposites , our point of view rides a puff of Korvo’s flatulence as it fights its way to fresh oxygen.

The Gist: Assuming oxygen is what the residents of Clervix 3 breathe, that is. The Solar Opposites have traversed the galaxy to land on top of a house much like the one they left on Earth, only this one exists on a planet devoid of anything “extra.” (Don’t even try and wonder if anything around here is “bussin” or “cheugy.”) We’re talking simplicity, blandness, and general competence, baby. If Korvo, Terry, and their replicants/offspring Jesse and Yumyulack are gonna survive on Clervix instead of Earth – which their spaceship’s artificial intelligence program AISHA (Tiffany Haddish) calls a “trash-ass planet” – they’ll need to fit in with how middle-of-the-road this place is. And impress the government adjudicator in charge of handing out citizenship, who makes house calls.

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’ on VOD, a Surprisingly Poignant Apocalyptic Thriller Anchored by Lupita Nyong’o (And Her Cat!)

The plotting of Solar Opposites isn’t really linear, like at all, so don’t get comfortable on Clervix. Terry suggests the planet and its society are much too perfect, anyway – like any good Star Trek episode, there has to be a seedy sci-fi underbelly around there somewhere, and Terry sets out to find it while Korvo tries to keep Jesse and Yumyulack on task. (Terry instead approximates Sydney’s look from The Bear and cooks up a very extra Pop Rocks Cheez-It bomb, while Yumyulack paints himself red and attempts to sing.) “Greetings and pleasant rotations!” is the way to say hello on Clervix 3, but with the arrival of “Zazlaz the Mind Freak” – imagine Jabba the Hutt crossed with sentient boogers and random alien tech – it doesn’t seem like the Solars are gonna be staying all that long.

Back on Earth, besides the Solar Opposites’ usual mess of misadventures in our human society, they had also cultivated an entire miniature world inside a pocket dimension known as The Wall. These Wallians developed their own living systems, and in a way, they’ve been thriving. But as Solar Opposites is set to explore in season 5, there’s trouble brewing, with escapes from the Wallian existence as well as returning characters from that physically smaller but no less important side of the series, like the Silvercops.

CLICK HERE TO GET EMAILS FROM DECIDER

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Hulu calls it “Animayhem,” the streamer’s one-stop source for adult animation and anime titles, and it’s a pretty deep catalog. ( Futurama and The Simpsons , The Fable and Mission: Yozakura Family .) Rick and Morty is also said to be returning for its eighth season sometime in 2025.

Our Take: References to pop culture stuff both direct and indirect has always been currency in the world of Solar Opposites , and that continues unabated in Season 5, where Jesse shouts “ Yes, Chef! ” and Yumyulack is looking to Reggie Watts for musical and performance art inspiration. And whether the replicants, along with Korvo and Terry, even make it back to Earth from Clervix 3 comes down to a nuanced reading of the Jurassic Park sequel tea leaves. The references and storylines move really fast in Solar Opposites , but what’s standard is how good everybody in the main cast is at nailing the traits of their characters quickly, so those rapid-fire jokes have some personality to stand on. Dan Stevens, who replaced Justin Roiland as the voice of Korvo in Season 4, is particularly adept at balancing the alien scientist’s temper with a little bit of evolving personal flair, and there are even a few softer moments between Korvo and Terry as a married couple that mesh nicely into the hair-on-fire mania that permeates most corners of Opposites .

In Season 5, that mania will have some new places to break out. It always does. But we’re interested in what’s going down with the Wallians, too, those miniature culture builders stuck in the Solars’ pocket dimension. For a series with episodes that aren’t much longer than 20 minutes, Solar Opposites is skilled at finding exciting ways to fit in all of its creative swearing and madcap storytelling, while consistently doing it in more than one dimension.

Sex and Skin: Nothing here in the first episode, though Korvo and Terry kiss passionately, and later on this season, Solar Opposites will visit the island inhabited by all of Jesse’s ex-boyfriends.

Parting Shot: Were the Solars to crash-land their spaceship on top of any typically suburban-looking house on any planet in the entire galaxy, they would immediately find the means to sow goofy chaos. But for now, it seems like mischievous robot JK Sevens has become their permanent Clervixian stowaway.

Sleeper Star: The funny lines fly at a fast but pretty equal clip between Terry, Korvo, Jesse and Yamyulack in Solar Opposites , so we’ll go with some of their Shlorpian technology as a consistent sleeper star, like the instant pocket dimension Korvo conjures on Clervix 3, or the “extra ray,” which also has an opposite, boring setting.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I don’t get it. We were human, and now we’re Shlorpian again? How did that happen? Seriously, what’s the deal?!” Terry’s questions to the group are framed in such a way as to suggest the potential confusion felt by new Solar Opposites viewers.

Our Call: STREAM IT! Solar Opposites moves comfortably and chaotically along in its fifth season, with the wackiness and foul-mouthery of its Shlorpian family unit still set fully on high. But we also remain curious about the show within the show, that miniaturized world building of the Wall and its denizens.

Johnny Loftus ( @glennganges ) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.

For more entertainment news and streaming recommendations, visit decider.com