The Aliens

Another Britain. One where forty years ago a spacecraft crashed into the North Sea carrying human-like aliens. Now after the culture shock, those visitors and their descendants are forced to live in a walled ghetto, regarded with fear and hatred by humans.

The Aliens was first broadcast on E4 in 2016 and ran for one season of six episodes. Channel 4 had recently had a popular and critical success with their robot drama Humans and had hopes that this new series would continue the trend, promoting it with a viral campaign amongst E4 adverts. Written and created by Fintan Ryan, who’d previously written episodes of In the Flesh and Hustle amongst other dramas. It was produced by Clerkenwell Films, who were then best known as the makers of another Channel 4 fantasy series – Misfits. Filmed at the Nu Boyana studios in Bulgaria, popular with makers of urban action films. However this location proved problematic for some of the black members of the cast, due to racism.

It was a pleasure to invite Rebecca Wray back to discuss this episode, along with her sister Danielle Wray. Along with John Isles, the pair have hosted the Tripodscast and I Don't Do Sci-Fi podcast.

Useful Links

• IMDB listing
• E4's The Aliens website (archived at The Wayback Machine)
• Michael Socha and Michaela Cole talk about the programme on Alan Carr - Chatty Man
• Michaela Cole talks about a racist assault on her during the filming of The Aliens, her experience making Chewing Gum season 2, and why she turned down a $1 million Netflix deal
• Clerkenwell Films webpage for The Aliens
• Behind the scenes article (The Guardian 2 March 2016)
• The Aliens for sale DVD on Amazon UK