Rick & Morty Meets Resident Alien In Hulu's 63-Episode Sci-Fi Series That Needs Another Season

Published Sep 20, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT

Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020.

While Hulu’s Rick and Morty replacement added an element of Resident Alien’s premise to the earlier show’s setup, this allowed the animated sci-fi sitcom to excel without feeling like a mere carbon copy. The success of The Simpsons remains unmatched, with the show boasting numerous historic accolades as the longest-running US scripted prime-time TV series, the longest-running sitcom in American TV history, and the longest-running animated comedy ever.

However, there are a handful of other adult animated comedies that are also incredibly culturally influential. South Park is on its 29th season and still has the power to rankle the sitting US President, judging by the White House’s outraged responses to episodes from 2025’s seasons 27 and 28 of the anarchic show. Meanwhile, American Dad’s 400th episode is on the way and creator Seth MacFarlane’s earlier show Family Guy has already achieved this major milestone, with Bob’s Burgers catching up fast at over 300 episodes since 2011.

Of course, there’s one other animated comedy that came seemingly out of nowhere to become a pop culture sensation that can rival any of these franchises back in 2013. The adult swim comedy Rick and Morty mixes Quantum Leap’s procedural format with R-rated ribald comedy, creating a wholly unique and subversive sci-fi sitcom that is among the most celebrated of the 21st century. While Rick and Morty is a singular series, its Hulu sister series Solar Opposites is also a must-watch for fans.

Solar Opposites Was A Worthy Successor To Rick & Morty

Co-created by Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Mike McMahon and disgraced Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland, Solar Opposites follows the titular family of extraterrestrials who crash-land in suburban America. While their tyrannical but ineffective leader, Korvo, insists that the Solar Opposites must repair their ship and escape to their supposedly superior homeland as soon as possible, the rest of the family are eager to experience Earth’s culture and society, and stay for far longer than anyone intended.

The rest of the family consist of Korvo’s love interest Terry, Sean Giambrone’s Yumyulack, and Mary Mack’s Jesse, a mismatched set whose wacky misadventures call to mind a more obscene, absurd version of the classic sitcom Resident Alien. Where that Alan Tudyk vehicle centered on an alien interested in redeeming humanity, the extraterrestrials of Solar Opposites have no such moral goals. Instead, they are here for a good, not a long, time.

In an era when sci-fi comedy shows like Stuart Fails to Save the Universe are increasingly common, it might be fair for viewers to wonder what makes this Rick and Morty follow-up so special. The answer is that Solar Opposites has even less interest in building a consistent canon with dramatic stakes than its predecessor, making the series even sillier, more surreal, and less predictable than Rick and Morty.

Why Solar Opposites Season 7 Needs To Happen

One major example of the inspired lunacy of Solar Opposites is The Wall storyline, a bizarrely convoluted subplot that takes place in a terrarium housed in Yumyulack and Jesse’s bedroom. After Yumyulack shrinks down numerous humans who annoy him and deposits them in this terrarium, the group start to build an ersatz miniature society. Soon, this goofy subplot has turned into an expansive, unexpectedly serious and suspenseful character drama modeled on The Expanse and The Wire.

That comparison might sound absurd, but Solar Opposites plays The Wall subplot completely straight. Many fans online admit that, in later seasons, they tuned into the show as much for the drama and thrills of the dark Wall subplot as they did for the comedy of the series proper. It is this sort of unique, bizarre experimentation that makes Solar Opposites special, and proves the show deserves to return for a seventh season.

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  Thomas MIddleditch

  Terry (voice)

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  Sean Giambrone

  Yumyulack (voice)