Ty Watches: People of Earth

I recently started watching the show "People of Earth" based on a recommendation. Man am I glad that I took that advice and caught up on this show. "People of Earth" is one of these rare, unique shows that comes along once in a lifetime.

The show's premise is simple. We have a journalist that is sent to a small town in New York to write about a support group for people who claim to have been abducted by aliens, they call themselves "experiencers". Wyatt Cenac, who I adore, plays the lead character, Ozzie, who is sent on this assignment. In the pilot episode he keeps having flashes of a deer, which he hit in an accident, driving to this small town. He finally arrives to this group and finds out way, way more about himself than he ever knew.

When he gets to this town, we get to meet all the weird and wacky people that entail this group. The ensemble cast is wonderful. Luka Jones pays a wannabe alien abductee, AKA, an experiencer, but he is the ultimate alien expert in this small town. Brian Huskey plays an experiencer that claims all the world is run by aliens, which he calls "reptilians". Ana Gasteyer plays the leader of the group, and she is great as the main support, but has a troubled past. Alice Wetterlund and Tracee Chimo are an excellent Yin and Yang of people that claim to have been abducted by the same alien. Nancy Lenahan is great as the lonely widowed lady that had her alien experience. Da'Vine Joy Randolph is great as the local mail person that had a run in with aliens. Daniel Stewart Sherman is very good as the hillbilly esque guy that had your typical run in with aliens. H Jon Benjamin shows up as a cop in the town, and he is great.

The people that play the aliens, Drew Nelson, Ken Hall, Bjorn Gustafsson and Michael Cassidy are the absolute best. They each represent a different style of alien. We have your run of the mill, big head, little body alien. We have the reptilians and we get a very tall, very long haired human looking alien. These actors do these roles so well. I love how normal and regular the alien characters act. Sure, they are abducting people and doing random tests on them but they aren't probing anyone, or eating anyone, or even being mean to the people. They just want to study humans, at least that is what I have gathered from the first four episodes. The aliens bicker with each other. They have conversations like you and I have at our regular everyday jobs. They are as normal as aliens have ever been portrayed on TV or in the movies. I love all the back and forth between the aliens.

But, the star of the show, as it should be, is Cenac. He is absolutely wonderful as Ozzie. The interactions that he has with the deer are wonderfully weird and hilarious. He keeps seeing them, and thinks that it is because of his accident, but we come to realize, spoiler alert, that he was abducted by all three styles of aliens, and they made him think that he hit a deer. When he recalls this to the support group, they are all shocked that he had an experience with the three different aliens, and they want him to stay to tell his whole story and stay in the group. Everyone likes him.

Ozzie decides, after revealing everything to the group, that he wants to stay, so he quits his job and moves to the small town to work for their paper. We do come to realize that his boss at the big newspaper is a reptilian, sent to study Ozzie. This sends us into a whole different world of who is real, and who is a reptilian in this planet that this show has created. The friendships and interactions between the people in the group and Ozzie are funny and heartfelt at the same time.

This show is a great opportunity, and the perfect one for that matter, for Cenac's unique sense of humor. He is a very funny, yet quiet person. He was great on "The Daily Show". He has done some excellent stand up specials. He has had bit parts in movies and TV shows here and there, but "People of Earth" is just perfect for him.

I do not want to give too much away because I think people should watch this show. It is really good, and I feel like it will be around for awhile. Watch "People of Earth" so we can get multiple seasons. The show is different from anything you will see, but it is one of the funnier shows to come out on TV in a long, long time. Check it out.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He has suspected that the head editor is an alien, one of those Midwestern balding ones. Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.