Don’t Get Weird Now, People Of Earth Is Wonderful
The new TBS show People of Earth does a fantastic job of balancing sci-fi weirdness, conspiracy theories, and taking a hard stance early on about whether aliens exist while still staying grounded in reality. As weird as that might sound. The show also deals with the subject of support incredibly well, with characters who are very well rounded, have agency, and while many do exhibit behaviour we may expect from a show about people who have experiences with aliens, they are also regular people who have figured out how to live beyond those experiences.
News reporter Ozzie Graham, played by Wyatt Cenac (The Daily Show), sits in on a support group of people who have had “experiences” with aliens — a term they prefer rather than “abductions” because they view these as positive. Through a series of discussions with the experiencers, with his out of touch but caring boss, and with society as a whole, Ozzie realizes the world he thought he knew might be a little more alien than he initially expected.
The pilot episode does everything a pilot episode should — it introduces you to the world we’ll be living in, has a few happy twists, all of which are backed up by character interaction and dialogue so as not to be unfounded. Surprising but not forced. In the second episode, where the hodgepodge of personalities get to truly work off of one another and try to solve problems instead of simply establishing the zaniness of their world, we see the building blocks of strong characters and performances blooming.
The strength of this show relies in its ability to be both subtle and overt with their humor, particularly when it comes to Ozzie’s boss who uses a Segway desk, would this be bizarre? Yes, however given that treadmill desks exist it could be the next natural step in billionaire spending progress.
Wyatt Cenac was the perfect choice to play Ozzie. Cenac easily pulls off an everyman style of just wanting to get through his day but also conveys compassion for the group as the show progresses, and his facial expressions sell the unexpected and absurd changes in his life perfectly. One man does not a show make however and while it, like most shows that feature a large cast from the beginning, suffers from too many voices not enough time in the pilot, you get the sense right away that they all have a story to tell and each are distinctive characters who, by the second episode, show the chemistry the ensemble of experiencers has even this early on.
Be sure to watch People of Earth when it premieres on TBS this Halloween, and be sure to come back. If the rest of the season is anything like the first two episodes we could be looking at one of the finest examples of how to balance zany comedic concepts with compassionate, tumultuous, and grounded storytelling.
