Rick and Morty's Perfect Hulu Replacement Solar Opposites Cancelled

Although Solar Opposites wrapped up with season 6, the underrated Hulu show is still a perfect recommendation for Rick and Morty fans. Rick and Morty’s eight seasons have their ups and downs, but the show remains one of the most consistently acclaimed adult animated comedies on television.

The adult swim hit is famous for blending subversive parodies of sci-fi tropes with a warped sitcom setup, as the beleaguered Morty attempts to rein in his unhinged super-genius grandfather, Rick. However, Rick and Morty’s spiritual successor used many of the same plot ingredients to create a show that is just as funny, but much goofier and lighter.

This might sound strange, since Rick and Morty isn’t exactly known for its self-serious tone. However, the show’s darker episodes, like “Unmortricken” or Rick and Morty’s season 7 finale “Fear No Mort,” proved that the series does try to flesh out its lead characters and lend them some nuance and humanity.

Hulu’s Solar Opposites Ends With Season 6

The Sci-fi Comedy Stars Dan Stevens and Thomas Middleditch As Mismatched Aliens

This is not a priority in Hulu’s surreal Solar Opposites, an animated comedy show that shares many members of its creative team with the creators of Rick and Morty. Solar Opposites follows a family of aliens who crash-land on Earth and debate whether the planet is better than their home planet while getting into all manner of absurd scrapes and misadventures.

Led by the irascible Korvo, the Solar Opposites clan consists of Thomas Middleditch’s absent-minded Terry, Sean Giambrone’s immature Yumyulack, and Mary Mack’s good-natured Jesse. The family is as dysfunctional as any classic sitcom brood, but this isn’t helped by the fact that they struggle to fit in on Earth.

All of this appears to set up a pretty standard fish-out-of-water storyline, but Solar Opposites‘ self-aware humor quickly discarded that predictable approach for something weirder. Each episode is a self-contained adventure as the Solar Opposites attempt to start a new get-rich-quick scheme, another ill-advised experiment, or another pointless feud with human characters.

Unfortunately, Solar Opposites came to an end on October 13 after five years and six seasons on Hulu. Luckily, viewers who have not caught up with Korvo, Terry, Yumyulack, and Jesse have 63 episodes of adventures to explore, along with a massive, sprawling cast of supporting characters played by notable stars.

Solar Opposites Is The Perfect Rick and Morty Replacement

The Scatological Sci-fi Satire Recaptures Rick and Morty’s Anarchic Appeal

Like Rick and Morty, Solar Opposites takes the building blocks of sci-fi shows and sitcoms and twists them into something sillier, funnier, and altogether weirder in each episode. However, unlike Rick and Morty, the Hulu show is a family sitcom instead of a buddy comedy, so it never feels like a straightforward knockoff of the earlier hit.

It helps that Solar Opposites is somehow even sillier than Rick and Morty, which was already one of the most playful shows on TV. The way that Solar Opposites recast Justin Roiland after he was fired underlines just how much the series doesn’t take itself seriously, dramatically and permanently altering the protagonist’s voice with a hastily explained “Voice Restoration Ray.”

At every turn, Solar Opposites takes its already goofy premise into sillier, more absurd territory, resulting in a show that has as much in common tonally with classic episodes of Family Guy as it does with Rick and Morty. Where Rick and Morty at least occasionally leans into the dramatic depths of its heroes, Solar Opposites revels in never taking them seriously.

Solar Opposites’ Best Running Gag Became The Show’s True Selling Point

The Series Has Two Spin-offs Within The Show

However, this doesn’t mean that Solar Opposites doesn’t take anything seriously. On the contrary, the show’s two in-series spinoffs, Silvercops and The Wall, are both treated like dark dramas that happen to take place in the same universe as this wacky, freewheeling cartoon sitcom.

The Wall and Silvercops are self-contained shows within the show, and unlike Solar Opposites, they have pretty big stakes and serious dramatic moments. Their storylines are so impactful that many fans online admit that they watch the show mostly to follow The Wall and Silvercops plot lines, and view the main story characters as a fun diversion.

Established back in season 1, Solar Opposites’ The Wall subplot follows a group of humans whom Yumyulack has shrunken down and left to live in a terrarium in his bedroom. The group builds a makeshift society, complete with complex allegiances and countless betrayals, within this grim, almost post-apocalyptic setup.

Meanwhile, the Silvercops subplot follows the titular abusive cops, a corrupt regime that exists to harass Terry and Korvo’s alien species, the Shlorpians. Kieran Culkin’s Glen is a human who is shot into space and joins the Silvercops, only to become disillusioned with their brutality and eventually join the resistance working against them.

Both The Wall and Silvercops storylines prove that this Hulu show is brimming with invention and originality, and has no shortage of intriguing ideas to explore even outside its titular alien family. Thus, although Solar Opposites season 6 might be the show’s last outing, this Rick and Morty replacement still deserves to be seen by fans of anarchic sci-fi cartoon comedy.

Release Date: 2020 – 2025-00-00
Network: Hulu
Showrunner: Justin Roiland
Directors: Bob Suarez, Kim Arndt, Lucas Gray
Writers: Josh Bycel, Danielle Uhlarik, Dominic Dierkes, Joe Saunders, Jen McCartney, Ariel Ladensohn, Matthew Libman, Aliki Theofilopoulos, Matt McKenna, daniel libman, Scott Gallopo, Sean O’Connor, Garrick Bernard