Something is Out There is a 1988 American Science Fiction miniseries written by Frank Lupo. It spun off a shortlived series.
Jack Breslin (Joe Cortese) is a police officer investigating brutal murders in which organs have been removed from the victims. He learns that the crimes are being committed by a monstrous alien insectoid prisoner known as a xenomorph (no, not that one), possessing shape-shifting and physical possession abilities, who has escaped from an alien prison starship passing by the solar system. He teams up with a beautiful medical officer from that ship, Ta'Ra (Maryam d'Abo), to track down the villain. Ta'Ra looks like a human and has assorted superhuman abilities, including telepathy and superhuman agility, which come in handy during the mission.
The show also stars George Dzundza, Gregory Sierra, Kim Delaney, John Putch, Robert Webber, Earl Billings, and Michael DeLuise.
It aired from May 8 to December 9, 1988 on NBC.
Tropes for the miniseries:
- Buddy Cop Show: Ta'ra uses her alien abilities to help Jack solve crimes and the occasional Paranormal Investigation.
- Dirty Mind-Reading: Ta'Ra is telepathic; unfortunately she's also a hot chick so she's constantly annoyed over how these Earth people want to "do that with her body" (her species has a somewhat different way of making love).
- Drunk on Milk: Ta'Ra gets drunk on caffeine due to Bizarre Alien Biology. Later she's smart enough to ask for decaf, but on one occasion the coffee shop attendent has run out, so he secretly gives her the normal stuff, which causes problems as she's talking to a Serial Killer at the time.
- Human Aliens: Gets a nice Hand Wave. "God created human beings in his image, right? How many images do you think he has?"
- Human Outside, Alien Inside: Ta'Ra has a number of physiological differences: caffeine is an inebriant, and hands are apparently primary erogenous zones.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: The No Nudity Taboo version, causing Breslin to beg her to put on a T-shirt (to her confusion as she knows he wants to see her naked). Things become even more awkward when Jack's girlfriend comes around to the house, suddenly looks over his shoulder and says: "And who is that?" Jack mutters "Oh God, let her be wearing the T-shirt" as he turns around...fortunately, Ta'Ra is wearing the shirt.
- Interspecies Romance: Though played for PG. Ta'Ra and Jack have Sex for Solace by touching palms, but it's never explained how Jack is supposed to get off this way.
- Klingons Love Shakespeare: Ta'Ra is a fan of Crime Story, which she and her boyfriend used to watch on the spaceship they were assigned to.
- The Paralyzer
- The protagonists are being chased, so Jack tells Ta'Ra to set her weapon on stun and shoot them. She demands to know where he gets these silly ideas.
- However this contradicts a scene in the pilot where Jack's girlfriend gets hold of a Ray Gun Ta'Ra is carrying and inadvertantly stuns several bystanders while examining it.
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: Deconstructed. Breslin's plan for defeating the The Assimilator is to get Ta'Ra to activate the self-destruct mechanism on her spaceship. She asks a) why a spaceship would have a self-destruct system and b) even if it did, why would she know how to activate it, which would be like a naval seaman knowing how to destroy an aircraft carrier.
