As the story goes, at some point in the early 1990s, a malfunctioning starship loaded with a population of 250,000 alien slave laborers landed in the desert outside Los Angeles. The Newcomers (their real name is the Tenctonese) were remarkably adaptable to new information and environments. They are extremely strong and can learn quickly. They become intoxicated from spoiled milk, and their flesh burns when exposed to seawater. These ex-slaves were gradually integrated into human society (and the Overseers were largely treated as war criminals).
The Newcomers had two personal names, the one that they were given by their parents or former masters, and an "Earth name" handed out by the immigration service. With 250,000 names to distribute, and some of the officials apparently acting out of either an inapropos sense of humor or petty malice, some of the names are demeaning jokes at the Newcomers' expense. George's name was originally "Sam Francisco", but he changed it at Matt's request. Other odd Newcomer names: "Dallas Fort-Worth", "Amos N. Andy", "Polly Wannacracker", "Thomas and Alva Edison".
The situation of the Newcomers is a clear parallel to many other immigrant populations throughout history. They are isolated by their culture and language, and have to strike a balance between assimilation into Earth culture and maintaining their roots. They experience discrimination, and are forced into jobs as laborers in hostile environments. They are accused of "Takin' our Jobs!" by many blue-collar types.
Matt himself is initially very bigoted towards Newcomers, but as is typical for such a plot, he learns to accept his new partner. He even ends up in a serious relationship with a Newcomer woman, Cathy Frankel.
This show provides examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The series (1989-1990) takes place from 1995 to 1996 while the TV movies (1994-1997) take place from 1999 to 2000.
- Aborted Arc: A couple in the jump from pilot to series, and from series to TV-movies. A sampling:
- The plot-thread about a virus crossing from Newcomers to humans in the pilot is never mentioned again.
- The kicker of the pilot is that an Overseer conspiracy is responsible for the death of Sikes's previous partner. While the Overseers do show up later in the series, they have nowhere near the level of power implied by the pilot, nor is murdering Sikes's partner ever brought up again.
- Buck had a human girlfriend for a single episode that is never brought up again.
- In the last few episodes of the series, Buck becomes close with a social activist teacher; in the series finale, they begin an affair. Not only is this never brought up again, in the second TV-movie, Buck is joining protests against human/Newcomer mating. (The novelization of the first movie attempts to smooth this out with her telling Buck it wouldn't have lasted, and moving elsewhere)
- Adaptive Ability: The Newcomers were a slave race bred to adapt to any environment; Earth is a tough one for them, though...
- Affably Evil:
- The Purist leader in the series finale and first movie is a genuinely sweet old lady who is orchestrating genocide by bioweapon.
- The Kleezantsun (Overseer) Betsy Ross uses her training and experience to become a criminal kingpin on Earth, while presenting herself as a community leader to city officials and the police. That is, until the police uncover the truth about her and she is arrested for her criminal activities - which include murder, conspiracy, and dealing in controlled substances among other things.
- Alien Among Us: The Tenctonese/Newcomers are refugees and former slaves. In this case it was over 250,000 aliens, who form their own community in Los Angeles. Therefore the cultural misunderstandings went both ways, as humans learned to deal with odd Newcomer traditions.
- Alien Arts Are Appreciated:
- One of the TV movies had Cathy moving in with Matt and decorating the place with clown paintings and figurines. It turns out that clowns are pretty popular with the Tenctonese, partly because they're so colorful, and partly because the Tenctonese have never seen anything like them.
- In the series, Cathy can't understand how Matt can watch something as violent as The Three Stooges, and recommends a really great movie... The Love Bug.
- Alien Blood: Newcomers are revealed as having pinkish blood.
- Alien Catnip: The Newcomers get drunk on sour milk.
- Alien Food Is Edible: The Newcomers may eat weird stuff, like raw beaver and wood chips, but it's all Earth-originated.
- Alternate History: Because the aliens landed 20 Minutes into the Future when the original movie was made, by the time of some of the later episodes and movies of the series, technology has progressed very differently. In the most recent one, the internet and interaction technology have obviously taken huge leaps forward, but everyone was still using CRT monitors while the "real" world had already begun switching to flatscreen displays. Also, apparently the ERA passed at some point and Puerto Rico became a US state.
- One way in which this was averted was that in the series optical disks were used as a data storage medium, something which did happen in real life starting in the mid 1990s.
- The Alternet: The Optinet in the TV movies that take place 20 Minutes into the Future from the mid 1990s, when more "futuristic" technology shows up. It looked like graphical MS-DOS.
- Applied Phlebotinum: Many of the show's resolutions depend on Bizarre Alien Biology or the use of some forgotten bit of alien technology like the mind control gas.
- Artistic License – Gun Safety: Sikes deals with a potential riot against a newcomer family moving into a human neighbourhood by firing a few shots into the air before holding the business end of his gun against a newcomer child's temple (It Makes Sense in Context). In real life this would get a cop suspended and fired in short order, if not brought up on charges themselves.
- Asshole Victim:
- Many of the Kleezantsun (Overseers) who survive and meet an unfortunate end of some sort on Earth at the hands of the people they enslaved qualify for this.
- Purists (humans who hate Tectonese) who meet similar unfortunate ends at the hands of other humans, former slaves, or Kleezantsun also engender little sympathy from others.
- As You Know: "Millennium" does this to recap the episode where Sikes and Francisco found the Portal. Justified a little bit in that the episode in question was broadcast 6 years earlier and happened in-universe 3 years earlier, but it's still pretty blatant.
- Beware the Nice Ones: George is polite, mild-mannered, and rule-abiding. Until you push him that inch too far, and then you're gonna be very sorry.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Betsy Ross is a successful entrepreneur and pillar of the Newcomer community. In fact, she's a ruthless drug kingpin. But the real kicker is that she's one of the Kleezantsun who managed to hide out and use skills she learned as an Overseer to become a kingpin.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: The basis for 1/4 of the show's humor. Newcomers can't get near saltwater, it's like taking a bath in battery acid for them. They blink when they sneeze. Partway through a pregnancy, the female transfers the natal pod to the male. Instead of getting headaches, their feet swell when under stress. Their bodies cannot process cooked meat proteins (they can eat it, but they don't get anything out of it), so they eat their food raw. They also have a nerve cluster under their arms that produces the same effect as a Groin Attack on a human.
- Bizarre Alien Sexes: Newcomers have a third, also male-looking sex called Binnaum, who are necessary for catalyzing a pregnancy. Binnaums offer a high-demand service, but make up a very small percentage of the population.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: Examined in "Night of the Screams". The Overseers win no prizes at all for their abuses, but the Newcomer murdering them on Earth isn't exactly brimming over himself with sweetness and light.Paul Revere: Are you our future, George? Tempered by laws we didn't write.(later)Paul Revere: The humans can never share the horror the Overseers created for us. How can they possibly write laws to exterminate them?
- Black Like Me: Slag Like Me, an Expanded Universe novel in which a human reporter goes undercover as a Newcomer and reports on their experiences. Matt and George wind up having to investigate the murder.
- Blunt Metaphors Trauma: Most of the Newcomers. George and Cathy especially flub a lot of expressions around Matt.
- Broken Pedestal:
- The cop who taught Matt in the force frames George for stealing drugs. And of course, Redemption Equals Death.
- In Body And Soul George is a huge admirer of a Newcomer physician who created a cure for diabetes and gushes on meeting with her. Then it turns out she's a notorious Overseer who performed all kinds of experiments on the slaves as assistant to an even worse Mad Doctor. Her daughter says she became remorseful and this is why she created the cure, but George says he would have strangled her if he'd known.
- Buddy Cop Show: A human Cowboy Cop and a By-the-Book Cop alien fight Fantastic Racism!
- Bug War: A hate group attempts to invoke this trope, claiming the Newcomers are actually the pupa stage of a race of giant killer beetles. Turns out the giant bug was just some hired goon in a costume.
- Later the series would imply that the Newcomers had in fact evolved from insect like creatures.
- But I Can't Be Pregnant!: In the Expanded Universe novel Cross of Blood, Cathy turned out to be pregnant. This came as a shock to Matt, because among the Tenctonese, pregnancy can only occur when the female is inseminated by a "third" gender or "catalyst." It is later discovered that, due to their genetic adaptability, a Human/Tenctonese pairing can result in pregnancy. Unfortunately,
Matt and Cathy's child was unable to survive after being born, due to her mixed genetics. - By-the-Book Cop: George Francisco is constantly attempting to follow the rules and be The Paragon. Given his partner is a Cowboy Cop and the fact the series acknowledges that LA's police has a history of rule-breaking in RL, it's not easy on George.
- Card-Carrying Villain:
- Many former Overseers were portrayed in the series as baby-eating monsters, and few have regrets about their past (or present) misdeeds. While uncommon, penitent Overseers do exist. In one episode, George speaks with a penitent former Overseer who wears a headscarf to indicate her atoning status.
- In the Expanded Universe novels one of the FBI agents George deals with is an Overseer, who, according to the canon established in the TV movies, was vetted by a truth and reconciliation commission such that all Overseers are either: behaving, in prison, or dead.
- Character Development: Sikes initially starts out with some pretty deep seated prejudice towards the Newcomers. Over the course of the series and movies he comes to understand them much better, overcomes his initial issues and eventually ends up in a relationship with one. His partnership with George is uneasy at first but over time he becames virtually an extended member of his family.
- Child Soldiers / Tyke-Bomb: The Udara "seeded" sleeper agents to fight the Overseers during slavery, many of whom were children, including Emily.
- Chekhov's Skill: In one of the Expanded Universe novels, George starts seeing anagrams for every word he sees, English or Tenctonese. This lets him deduce that a shadowy cabal of Overseers are 'hiding in plain sight' as the Serovese Corporation.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Halfway through the series, along with Molly, two other characters are removed from the opening credits; Burns the reporter is a major character in one later episode, but fellow detective Dobbs is never seen again.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Albert Einstein is quite bright but often seems scatterbrained.
- Conlang: A fictional Tenctonese language and alphabet were created for the show.
- Cool Shades: George frequently wore these. Also, Buck. This, along with the sometimes absurd-looking outfits Buck tended to wear, makes the TV series an Unintentional Period Piece of the 1990s.
- Cool Car: Matt Sikes's Red 1988 Carralo, a sports car based on the F-Body Camaro.
- Come Alone: Hostage situations are frequent in the show with this almost always asked of the police.
- Continuation: After the series was canceled, the story was continued in a series of Tie-In Novels. Two of them (Dark Horizon and Body and Soul) were based on unfilmed scripts, which were later made into Made-for-TV Movies.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: In "Gimme Gimme"; the textile manufacturer's factory has numerous workplace safety violations and pays their workers as little as he can legally get away with.
- Culture Clash: Much of the drama is produced by many differences Newcomers have with Humans. As just one example, they are very frank and open about sex (possibly because their reproduction needs a third party catalyst) and have no homophobia (although it's more of an Informed Attribute as gay Newcomers only briefly appear).
- Date Rape: Emily is almost the victim of this in the third movie.
- Dead Partner: Bill Tuggle, killed in the original movie.
- Death World:
- Earth is practically one of these for the Tenctonese; see the explanation for Weaksauce Weakness.
- After the events of "Dark Horizon", other Kleezantsun (Overseers) still out in the galaxy come to consider Earth to be one after a scout returns dying of an illness and claiming the illness killed all the Tectonese on Earth. They subsequently avoid Earth entirely.
- Defusing The Tykebomb: Susan does this to Emily, just in the nick of time.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Buck. So much. As a teenager and alien being raised in human society, he wants to be more than just an unwanted immigrant and connect to both human and Tectonese culture. Buck eventually decides tofollow in George's footsteps, becoming a police officer like his father before him.
- Different States of America: Apart from the backstory of aliens crashing on Earth, the United States is one where Puerto Rico became a state and the Equal Rights Amendment managed to pass.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?:
- Prejudice toward Newcomers is quite like the experience of Human immigrants, alongside general difficulties they have in US society assimilating. Matt compares the Purist objections to Newcomer children in US schools with racism toward black people openly and shames them. An African-American scholar is also writing a book on the their experience as slaves before, precisely because it reminds him of black slavery.
- There was a lot of mystery about the race that kept the Newcomers enslaved. Eventually, we finally find out who the Overseers are and they're just a race of Newcomers that enslaved the rest of them, physically identical and presumably from the same planet.
- In Body and Soul it's revealed the US government kept Overseer scientists who'd experimented on the slaves out of prison for their scientific skills and gave them new identities for service, much like Nazi war criminals were after World War Two.
- Don't You Like It?:
- Inverted: if you give flowers to the Tenctonese make sure the roots are intact. Dying flowers are unpleasant.
- In one of the movies, a Purist poisons Emily and Susan with infected flowers, and he's shown buying them at a stand and asking specifically for live flowers as a gift for Newcomers. The cut flowers Matt brought to the hospital were especially inappropriate because of the Tenctonese practice of surrounding a sick person with living things, even animals.
- Drunk on Milk: The trope codifier. Tectonese get drunk on sour milk (which is lactic acid), but not on alcohol, of any kind. Sikes always has sour milk on hand for George when he pops by (but Sikes being a bachelor its not very difficult). Since alcohol has no effect on Tectonese, beverages like beer are considered more of a children's drink among Tectonese - with George and Susan suggesting Emily have a beer instead of sour milk when she requests one.
- Easter Egg: Perps or witnesses in the background of the police station were usually Expies for famous people. For instance, around minute 38 in the Udara Legacy, you see a black man in a tuxedo wearing sunglasses, being lead by the hand to a chair.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
- The Purist leader who plots genocide against Newcomers expresses genuine affection for her followers, with this being mutual. She is moved by them giving her a surprise birthday cake, and gives warm thanks over it. This makes it all the creepier when she intersperses this with continued remarks on the genocide plot.
- The female commander of the Overseers looks sad when Ahpossno (her subordinate) dies.
- Everyone Has Standards: Many bigoted humans still frown upon the Overseers and what they represent.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: On at least one occasion, a former Overseer was astonished that George, a former slave, would risk himself to protect a former Overseer.
- Evil-Detecting Baby: Vessna starts to cry when she's near Ahpossno, and she's right about that, since he's an Overseer scout send out to find the ca. quarter-million wayward Tenctonese and wouldn't say no to a coupla billions of humans as slaves, either.
- Faking the Dead: In Body And Soul it's revealed Overseer scientists who'd experimented on the slaves had their deaths faked by the US government for their skills to still be used on clandestine projects.
- Fantastic Caste System: Tenctonese society is divided among the Overseers (named Kleezantsun in their language), the vast majority who are slaves and on the bottom, Eenos, an untouchable group (disparaged even by other slaves) who do the most dirty work (e.g. waste management).
- Fantastic Racism: Pretty much every one of the Race Tropes known to man applied perfectly straight.
- The "Kleezantsun<klick>" (Tenctonese for "Overseers", those who maintained order among the slaves on the ships) regard the other Tenctonese as inferior and even use Human anti-Tenctonese slurs to refer to them ("slag") and to separate themselves from the "dregna" (Tenctonese for "cargo", an Overseer slur referring to Tenctonese under their control).
- Special notice must be given to The Enemy Within the fourth movie, which deals with the Fantastic Racism the Newcomers feel towards the Eenos, an untouchable class of Newcomers. The Eenos were the ones given the most disgusting jobs on the slaveship, such as to do with wastes and the dead. The other Newcomers like to believe that there is something dirty about the Eenos themselves, rather than admit that they would have done the same things if forced to by their slavemasters.
- Fantastic Slur: Human bigots (or Overseers) refer to Newcomers as "slags" or "spongeheads." Humans, in return, are called "Terts."
- Final Solution: Dark Horizon, the first movie sequel, has a Purist group create a bioweapon to kill all Newcomers. Thankfully they only manage to infect a few (with all surviving) before they're stopped. The bioweapon is later used to convince other Overseers still out in the galaxy that the Tectonese on Earth are all dead and the planet houses a deadly disease.
- Firing in the Air a Lot: In the series pilot, Sikes fires into the air multiple times to break up a Purist rally.
- Foreign Cuss Word: Inverted, in that in the Tenctonese language, "Sikes" roughly translates as "excrement cranium" ("shithead").
- Government Agency of Fiction: The Bureau of Newcomer Affairs (BNA).
- Government Conspiracy: Body And Soul has one revealed. The US government kept Overseer scientists free to serve them by making weapons in return for escaping any punishment after they had horrifically experiments on slaves.
- Gratuitous Russian: A few "Tenctonese" words are obviously derived from Russian, such as:
- "Jabluka" (after the Russian word "jabloko", meaning "apple"), the horrible Tenctonese drug from the pilot movie (it is spelled jabrokah in the novels, though).
- "Gruza", the name of the slave ship (after the Russian word "gruz", meaning "cargo". "Cargo" is an Overseer slur referring to Tenctonese under their control).
- "Serdso" (after the Russian word "serdcе", meaning "heart"), a religious object of the Tenctonese. Tenctonese believe that their souls leave their bodies in their sleep and that a serdso guides them back.
- "Bardok" (from the Russian word "bardak", meaning "disorder"), rosto (from the Russian word "rost", meaning "growth [in height]") and "yunost" (from the Russian word "yunost'", meaning "youth", probably a nod at the fact, that a certain Tenctonese organ has an rejuvenating effect, when implanted in humans), enzymes from the Tenctonese metabolism.
- "Ahpossno" (from the Russian word "opasno", meaning "dangerous"), a fitting name for the Overseer scout, who came to Earth to investigate the disappearance of a quarter-million "cargo", although he saves the Tenctonese from a annihilation attempt by bio-weapon from a Purist group (out of self-interest; the Overseers don't profit from dead "cargo").
- "Chekkah" (from the Russian abbreviation "chekkah", a colloquial name for one of the forerunner-organisations of the infamous KGB), an elite Overseer reconnaissance unit. Ahpossno is a member of this unit.
- "Karabla" (from the Russian word "karabl' ", meaning "ship") a religious object used in Tenctonese marriage ceremonies (the spouses place their "serdsos" (see above) in the karabla to symbolize their marriage as a journey of two souls together), shaped like a ship.
- The Tenctonese name of the wife of Albert Einstein, the police precinct janitor, is "Okiana" (from the Russian word "okean", meaning "ocean").
- The word word 'miliciya' means in Tenctonese, like it meant in Russian, "police".
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: George Francisco and Matt Sikes, respectively. However, they deliberately play up this dynamic during interrogations; when interrogating a human, Matt is Good and George is Bad, when interrogating Tenctonese, George is Good and Matt is bad, and when interrogating Purists, Matt is Bad and George is Ax-Crazy.
- Green-Skinned Space Babe: Take your pick of Cathy or Susan: pinkish-hued, bald, and spotted, Tenctonese women were surprisingly attractive.
- G-Rated Drug: Newcomers get intoxicated on sour milk. The yeast-fermented stuff that we humans prefer has no effect on them.
- G-Rated Sex: Tenctonese erogenous zones are entirely different from humans (shoulder blades, wrists, temples), enabling them to make out on network TV.
- Halloween Episode: A surprisingly scary one. "Tagdot is among us."
- Happily Married: George and Susan.
- Hate Sink: Most Kleezantsun (Overseers) we meet are unrepentant Smug Snake bastards who still derisively address other Tenctonese as "cargo" and continue pursuing their twisted agendas on Earth. Rightfully they are treated as war criminals by the Newcomer community and find few admirers amongst humanity as well.
- Heel–Face Turn: The Overseer scout ultimately makes one. He returns to the main fleet and informs them that the escapees to Earth all died of the disease he's caught himself, not only making them think there's nothing to recover, but that the planet itself is a Death World for them.
- Hollywood Law: Buck gets probation for killing someone in self-defense, as part of a deal where he pleads guilty to involuntary manslaughter. However, the judge's voiceover states the prosecution presented evidence he'd acted in self-defense. If that was the case, they shouldn't have pressed charges at all, since it's an affirmative defense (i.e. one which shows the alleged act was not criminal) and if they still did the court should've dismissed the case or refused to accept the deal.
- Human Outside, Alien Inside: Although they look moderately similar to humans, Tenctonese cannot metabolize cooked protein, so most of their diet consists of raw animals. See also the entries for G-Rated Drug and Weaksauce Weakness.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters:
- A lot of them are racist towards the Newcomers.
- The Tenctonese aren't necessarily any better and the racism not only goes both ways, but exists within their own species.
- Many of the Tenctonese, especially George, believe that Humans Are Special because they welcomed the Newcomers into their world, gave total freedom to a species bred to be perfect slaves, and asked no more of them than they would of themselves. Racism aside, that's pretty damn impressive.
- I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!: The newcomers get drunk on sour milk.
- Insectoid Aliens: Played with. In the pilot, the Purists pull a hoax involving an insectoid alien in order to provoke fear and mistrust among the general population toward the Tenctonese. Later, a Tentonese fetus has insectoid characteristics, and it's remarked that "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," implying an insectoid ancestry for the Tenctonese. Finally, Tenctonese mutants in one of the movies have an insect-like appearance and lifestyle.
- Innocent Innuendo: Susan gives George a "hummer", which simply involves her making a humming noise over his back. This might be Genius Bonus; as the G-Rated Sex entry shows, the Tenctonese consider the shoulder blades - on the back - to be an erogenous zone.
- Insistent Terminology: George didn't ask Betsy Ross for a gift of money when he was in the hole, he asked her for a loan that he fully intends to pay back. Sikes doesn't buy it; when he asks what the interest rate is and is told 5%, he points out that prime is 12% - "It's a gift."
- Insufficiently Advanced Alien: As a slave race, that wasn't their ship or their tech. Thus, they end up no more advanced than humanity.
- Irony: Matthew Sikes lays this on with a trowel in his first speech as a rather heavy-handed but effective Aesop for the Purists.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- Sikes is a bit of an ass throughout the story, but he does have moments of compassion, heroism and thoughtfulness.
- Grazer has more of a focus on the "jerk" part of the equation, but it's clear he cares about his officers (and Albert) very much.
- Knight Templar: A few, such as the old Newcomer man who hunts down Overseers and kills them and the leader of the binnaums who murdered those which left his order.
- La Résistance: Some Tectonese formed a resistance group called the Udara to fight back against the Overseers. Willing to use extreme measures the group had a mixed reputation with other slaves, with some seeing them as freedom fighters and others who saw them as extremists who did nothing but provoke the Overseers to retaliate against all of them.
- Lysistrata Gambit: Tenctonese are implied to be culturally more rational about sex; it happens, it's enjoyable, it shouldn't be taken lightly (they find oversexualized things such as pornography silly), and it doesn't matter what gender both partners are. One of Susan's coworkers boasts about the effectiveness of this technique, just as a rather complicated issue pops up. Susan is curious, but by the end of the episode the woman is divorced: her husband just became sick and tired of being screwed with, to the point where he said "Take as much money as you want, just never come near me again!"
- Make a Wish: Subverted in the first TV Movie Dark Horizon, when Sikes, in the way to the hospital, where Emily and Susan are after a bio-weapon attack with poisoned flowers, sees a shooting star and thinks, "It'll bring luck..." It won't as it is a scout from the Overseers, who want to bring the quarter-million Tenctonese back with superior military technology and won't be too sad about millions of human slaves as a bonus.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Sikes is killed by a Newcomer robbing a convenience store, but suddenly, after a vision of the robber touching his chest, Sikes comes back to life. George gives him an alternate medical explanation, but Sikes thinks the robber has some sort of mystical powers. When they catch the robber, he portrays himself as a combination Messianic figure/Robin Hood out to save the world, and offers to show Sikes his powers. Unusually for this trope, by the end of the episode one of the explanations is disproved (the robber had no mystical powers, he was just trying to get a chance to escape) yet we aren't given any sort of conclusive answer, aside from the rather lackluster medical explanation.
- Meaningful Name: In Dark Horizon, Ahpossno, when he gets his "human name", gets called "Norman Conquest".
- Men Can't Keep House: Tenctonese drink sour milk to become intoxicated. Matt doesn't have to modify his behaviour to have some in stock for his partner.
- Messianic Archetype: In "Rebirth", Peter Rabbit tries to depict himself as one of these but it turns out to be a subversion, as he was just using his claim of messianic abilities as a way to escape from Sikes
- Mister Seahorse: During pregnancy, Newcomer babies are transferred from the women to the men, who are the ones who actually give birth.
- Multicultural Alien Planet: The Tenctonese don't have a single all-encompassing culture. In the pilot, for example, Matthew Sikes is initially shocked to discover that his alien neighbor Cathy follows a different religion than that followed by his alien partner George (and George's family), even asking, "You mean you all have different religions?" To the credit of both the character and the writers, Sikes immediately lampshades how ridiculous that question is by saying, "Well, of course. Why not?" However, given that all Tectonese-Americans are descended from some shipwrecked slaves, who tend not to be allowed to preserve much of their own religious and cultural heritage while in bondage, it's not quite so dumb a question as it initially appears.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: Although they don't wear Nazi-style paramilitary uniforms, Purist rhetoric is very reminiscent of Nazism. They express fear of being outbred by the Newcomers (given their far shorter reproductive cycle), start with "only" demanding they be kept separate from humans and denied all civil rights (as the Nuremberg laws did to Jews, although it invoked Jim Crow legislation as well, which inspired them) before soon graduating into attempting genocide by creating a bioweapon. In one episode when George goes to a Purist group's headquarters, they have flags hanging in a very similar manner to the Nazis'.
- Nicknaming the Enemy: Bigots refer to the Newcomers as "Slags".
- Older Than They Look: Most adult Newcomers shown in the series are a bit older than they look due to the aging process slowing down once they reach about 20 Earth years of age and having a median life expectancy of about 140 Earth years. In the episode "Fountain of Youth" George - who looks to be in his 30s - reveals to Matt that he's about 70 Earth years old and the station janitor Albert - who looks to be in his mid 20s - is actually 56 years old. The episode also reveals that Susan is 68 and is having difficulty finding work with advertising agencies due to humans thinking that she's too old for the kind of work she wants to do.
- Ominous Floating Spaceship: The Newcomers' spaceship for its first appearance.
- Papa Wolf: George is definitely one of these when it comes to his children, and God help any one who tries to hurt his children should he find out. Matt also is quite protective of the Francisco children as well as he has become in an all respects an uncle to both of them.
- Pardon My Klingon:
- After Emily had to give up her TV set, she gives her parents some mouthfuls of explicit stuff (it was not translated from Tenctonese and the subtitles contained random punctuation characters instead).
- After hearing a "Purist" (Tenctonese hater) droning on, he said something really vulgar... In Tenctonese.
- Picked Flowers Are Dead: In Dark Horizon, one of the aliens is sick. Her human boyfriend brings a bouquet of flowers as he visits her in the hospital, but is not allowed to deliver them to her. His alien rival is allowed to deliver the potted plant, however. In the alien culture, dying flowers are seen as a bad omen when it comes to recovering health.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Aphossno, the Overseer scout, helps Cathy develop a therapy against a genocide-attempt genetically engineered from a "Purist" (anti-Tenctonese Human bigots) group—because the Overseers can't profit from dead "cargo" (he plans not only to re-enslave the former Tenctonese slaves, but also to enslave humanity, since the Overseer military technology, he says, is vastly superior).
- Punch a Wall: Newcomers are ... stronger than humans.Sikes: I hope they don't charge us for that table.
George: Do you think they might? I only tapped it. - Punny Name: Most of the Newcomers, including George (whose human name officially was "Sam Francisco"). Explained as the immigration authorities getting burned out assigning names to the Newcomers and resorting to a form of sarcastic humor. Likewise with the title of the series itself.
- Puny Earthlings:
- The Newcomers have great strength, stamina, durability, ability to survive in environments humans can't, extra hearts, and if they overdose on an extraterrestrial narcotic, they transform into murderous, supercharged berserkers. But they do have a strange weakness or two: water with high salinity burns them like sulphuric acid burns naked mole rats and they get stinking drunk from sour milk.
- In the books it comes up they don't handle cold well at all: evidently their common buyers favored hot, dry worlds and they've been adapted to deserts. This is a minor factor contributing to their continued concentration in Los Angeles.
- Retcon:
- In the transition from Movie to TV Series, the actors were recast and the relative ages of Matthew Sikes and his daughter were changed. George's family grew and his children were aged up with Matt's daughter was aged down to a teenager for the series. Events from the movie, however, were referenced several times in the two-hour Pilot Episode, and some footage was reshot and spliced with footage from the movie for flashbacks, now featuring the younger Matt Sikes of the series in place of James Caan, who played the character in the original movie. When the series was revived in the form of TV Movies, Canon Discontinuity was again selective: Emily, George's young daughter, was aged up to a teenager while Buck, the older son, didn't seem to age between the series and the first TV movie, nor did Baby Vessna. Additionally, the "bacteria" of the series finale was recast as a virus for the first TV movie. Also, the color of Tenctonese blood was made pink in the TV show and the TV movies, probably to appease censors, whereas it was the same color as human blood in the original movie.
- The male Tenctonese design was also changed (at least for George) from being much burlier than a typical human male, to being the same body form range as human males. They're still just as strong as ever.
- Rubber-Forehead Aliens: Tenctonese look mostly human, except they have bald, spotted heads instead of hair.
- Russian Roulette: Tenctonese style (George explicitly referred to Russian Roulette, when he described the "game"). In "The Game", they reveal a gruesome "game" from the time of slavery: two Tenctonese sit at opposite and of a rotating machine, that either sprays normal water... or salt water (which is like hydrochloric acid to the Tenctonese).
- Science Is Bad: In episode 2, the criminal was a human scientist who was extracting a gland from his Newcomer patients in order to reverse aging in his human ones, which killed the Newcomers. At the end of the episode Matt burns his research, invoking this trope in combination with Humans Are Bastards, saying essentially that while a more ethical scientist could probably have done something good with it, he couldn't trust that someone couldn't have used it to do something worse
- Shaming the Mob: In the pilot, when a group of "concerned parents" tries to keep Emily out of her school, Sikes lets them all have it. This may be one of the first times Sikes himself treats a Newcomer with any respect, but he does have limits. The video is here.
Following the verbal smackdown, Sikes asks them all, "Aren't you ashamed of yourselves? Aren't you?" A black protester, of age to have seen racial integration of public schools first hand, can't answer. - Smug Snake: A lot of the Overseers; in one episode, one that's been living in a flophouse can't help but sneer at George after the guy saved his life.
- Sons of Slaves: Much like the film, the series exploring the countless ways in which the Tenctonese Newcomers' slave past shaped their identity, culture, and interactions with humans.
- Standard Female Grab Area: Not exactly a hit, but close, when used by Overseer Rigac on Cathy... After seizing her by the throat.
- Subspace Ansible: Dark Horizon, a Made-for-TV sequel, reveals that the Overseers have beacons capable of signaling across untold light years to their fleet from Earth.
- Taken Off the Case: Francisco and Sikes are pulled off a case in "The Game" after Francisco cannot control his emotions when dealing with a particularly vile Overseer.
- Take That!:
- In "Real Men", when Matt tells George that Sylvester Stallone represents humanity's concept of a "real man" in First Blood, George replies, "Tell you the truth, Matt, I find his movies simplistic."
- In the third TV film Millennium, the sitcom My Brother the Alien starring the Newcomer comedian Felix Navidad is cancelled before it has even reached the halfway point of its first episode due to instant Nielsen ratings indicating low viewer interest. This is a reference to Fox's cancellation of Alien Nation in 1990.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Buck and his English teacher start making out near the end of the last episode of the series. This storyline is not continued in the TV Movies. (It is addressed in the novelization, however.)
- Telepathy: Body And Soul shows that Binnaum, the Newcomer catalyst third sex, can sense others Newcomers' thoughts.
- Three Stooges Shout-Out: Part of the episode "Chains of Love" deals with Matt trying (unsuccessfully) to get Cathy to appreciate the Stooges. In that episode is a Newcomer with the seemingly normal name Ted Healy. Anyone conversant with the history of the Stooges knows that Ted Healy is credited with creating them.
- Title Drop: When a Tenctonese stole Overseer mind control gas, she said that "with this, I can control an alien nation."
- Too Dumb to Live: Randy, who tries to seduce Emily in Millennium. This is idiotic to begin with, given that sexually experienced inter-species couples need months of classes to have sex safely. But wait, it gets better. After getting her to come to his house, he goes to the next room to have a phone conversation in which he brags about how he's going to "shag the slag". Emily, like all Newcomers, has superhuman hearing. Oops. But the kicker? After she finds out what he's up to, he assaults her, despite the fact that A: she has superstrength, and B: her father is a cop.
- Unusual Euphemism: The aliens use the term "sikes", which is later revealed to literally translate as "excrement cranium" ("shithead"). Coincidentally, the main human character is named Sikes...
- Weaksauce Weakness:
- Newcomer flesh dissolves on contact with salt water. When they first arrive, they can't even leave the ship's crash site in California due to the salt content of Earth's atmosphere. They slowly build up resistance, and after a few years can live comfortably in coastal air. However it's still often a plot point, because salt is such an easy and safe weapon for humans to use against the physically superior aliens. One Newcomer is assassinated by hitmen dumping rock salt in his swimming pool, and Emily is nearly blinded by a thug with a squirt pistol.
- Uncle Moodri accelerates this adaptation until he can stand in the ocean via his spiritual powers. It is mentioned that all Newcomers (everyone younger, at least) were born on the ship and that they were genetically engineered, except elders like him, who were born on the home planet. So it can very well be that this weakness to salt water was put into the genome of the slaves to keep them under control, since, probably, there was not much salt water on the ship, so they still could work efficiently as slaves.
- Weird Crossover: The Expanded Universe comic miniseries Ape Nation is a crossover with Planet of the Apes. The premise is that the Tenctonese slave ship was sucked into a black hole and arrived on the ape-dominated Earth in the future, landing in the Forbidden Zone. Caan, the captain of the Newcomer ship, has conquest in mind and is opposed by his brother Danada who enters into an alliance with the gorilla General Ollo and a human named Simon, who has the ability to speak. Another major character in the miniseries is named Heston.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: In The Udara Legacy, the Udara, a resistance movement against the Overseers during enslavement, who used any means necessary, up to and including creating sleeper agents (many of whom were children).
- We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future: The Tectonese were slaves before their accidental arrival on Earth. It was justified in that, while their great physical strength is suited for manual labor, they're also extremely fast learners, whose jobs while enslaved usually entailed a lot of technical know-how.
- Wicked Cultured: In Dark Horizon, Ahpossno, the Overseer scout, who wants to bring back the approximately quarter-million Tenctonese to slavery and also enslave all of humanity, likes music and nice house decorations and is highly knowledgeable in his culture.
- Yiddish as a Second Language: An old doctor George and Matt interview about stolen Newcomer blood just keeps on spouting off in Yiddish. George's face as he tries to follow the conversation is hilarious.
- Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: In the final movie, George and Susan have basically this argument about the Udara.
