What does it mean to be a man? It’s a question that feminism, queer theory, and trans activism have been a lot better at asking than most men have been willing to ask themselves. Can an answer be found through television? And what looks more unlikely at first glance, that it would be explored by an extraterrestrial, that it would be examined by a cop trying to be more sensitive, or that this would all take place on an episode of a short-lived science-fiction show from Fox in the nineties?
“Alien Nation” began as a notable but not blockbuster 1988 science fiction film starring James Caan as a grizzled veteran plainclothes detective and Mandy Patinkin as his alien partner Sam Francisco. It takes place in a near future Los Angeles where an alien race has recently integrated as “Newcomers” into American society. This may seem like a sitcom premise, especially once you see the physical attribute that differentiates Newcomers from Earthling humans —- bald melon-sized heads with giraffe spots. But the film was an otherwise standard crime story that included Terence Stamp as an alien drug kingpin.
The property was developed into an hour long drama for Fox’s 1989-1990 season. The reins were handed to Kenneth Johnson, who years earlier created another alien sci-fi called “V,” the classic miniseries about reptilian humanoids posing as benevolent visitors as they begin a fascist takeover of Earth. Johnson would approach this new material with the same sensibility for social commentary. While the network had expected a buddy cop show packed with action, the TV version of “Alien Nation” also shared more about the home life of the Francisco family, their attempt to stay true to their original planet’s “Tenctonese” culture while assimilating to life in 1990s L.A., prejudice against Tenctonese by humans, and internal bigotry carried over from the Tenctonese caste system of “Overseers” and slaves.
Gary Graham, who looked more like Mick Jagger than he ever resembled Caan, took over the role of Detective Matt Sykes. The role originally done by Patinkin, the character’s name changed from a Bay Area pun to instead George Francisco, went to Eric Pierpoint. The audience also became familiar with George’s wife, their angsty teenage son and bubbly preteen daughter, and the family’s hippie uncle (well, the Tenctonese equivalent of a hippie). There are other humans and Tenctonese in the ensemble, including a Newcomer love interest for Matt, his neighbor Cathy.
The one-season show covered a lot of terrain in 22 episodes, gathering enough critical acclaim and fan appreciation to emerge from cancellation for five made-for-TV movies. There are quirky flourishes sci-fi usually likes to flaunt, such as Tenctonese getting drunk off sour milk and reacting to saltwater like it were acid. But the later season story arc is about George becoming pregnant and carrying the third Francisco child, the first of the family’s generation to be born on Earth, a planet where pregnancy is a function of what we used to refer to as “female” biology. This was decades before gender was more widely understood as a spectrum instead of a binary, and trans men having babies was not often discussed. So in February 1990, the seventeenth episode “Real Men” could only imagine childbirth by a man as an invention of sci-fi.
There is some comedy to the role reversal, the stereotypes of cravings and sensitivities being grumbled about by the man while his wife and their female Tenctonese doctor laugh. “I feel like a whale,” complains George. “These stretch marks.” He also laments, “Every little noise sets me on edge,” and, “I used to love the smell of tripe. Now it makes me sick.” But the punchline isn’t at the expense of women, rather at the things the Newcomers eat (in another scene, George’s son offers more Vaseline for his father’s plate of frog legs). George has an emotional outburst at his baby shower that also could have been just played for laughs. But the concerned reaction of the partygoers and the later tension between George and those closest to him read true, showing his struggles as a man, as an officer of the law, and as a cultural outsider adjusting badly to the gender norms imposed by humanity.
The crime procedural portion of this episode finds Matt and George investigating a drug dealer in the city’s gyms illegally selling Newcomer hormone for performance enhancement, similar to anabolic steroids. This invokes discussion of male body issues, erectile dysfunction from drug use, and ideas of what it means to be masculine, Matt explaining to George that a human male would prefer being dead over being impotent. The idea of Matt distancing himself from these antiquated outlooks is made loud and clear with the arrival of Matt’s old friend Nick from Detroit, whose surprise at the idea of a pregnant man and his fetishizing Newcomers is a contrast to where Matt has come having evolved over the course of the series.
Matt’s not all the way there yet, however. In a meeting with the police captain about when George should take his parental leave, Matt suggests sooner than later. He believes George’s pregnancy is a threat to them being taken seriously as cops. The captain chimes in, “What he's trying to say is, a pregnant male in our society is...”
George interrupts, “Something you’ll have to get used to.”
We are now more than thirty years past the premiere of this episode and these issues of gender are still not resolved. The show was ahead of its time in not treating the topic like a joke, except perhaps lightly where appropriate for entertainment that successfully stood beside the message. Matt’s conversations about Rambo diving off cliffs and stitching his own wounds, and athletes being shot up with novocaine and cortisone to make it just one more game, are contrasted with him fielding questions about preparations for George’s baby shower, like whether there should be beige or maroon napkins. It’s doubtful that even the most woke millennial dude in the 21st century would have a quick answer to that question, so the humor of it being posed to macho Matt doesn’t seem wholly inappropriate. (Spoiler: beige it is.)
Later, Matt admires the stitching of booties George receives, and tells Cathy how his merchant marine uncle would knit his socks, and also taught him how to knit as a kid. She asks if he’s going to knit something for the baby. He scoffs, saying, “Very funny, men don’t knit.”
“But you just told me your uncle...”
This pays off in the last scene, with Matt teaching Cathy how to knit, as they both make something for the baby. Having previously endured a sleepless night while Cathy and Nick were out on a date, listening to a rendition of Bo Diddley’s “I’m a Man,” fantasizing about saving his neighbor from a lecherous Nick and receiving the reward of her passionate kiss, Matt finally opens up to Cathy about his feelings for her.
Of course, the big draw of the episode is the birth. George engages in a fight with the suspect that he and Matt have cornered at the gym. George knocks out the suspect, but the scuffle has caused the expectant father to go into premature labor, and the baby is breech. Matt has to undo George’s clothes and deliver the baby, taking his own shirt off and holding the newborn between his and George’s chests to give her warmth.
It is an incredibly intimate moment as both men cry tears of joy in their embrace and George declares Matt the baby’s godfather. The scene is portrayed with so much more sincerity than you would expect from a 1990s Fox show, but it accomplishes a great deal even if it had been filmed and streamed as a Hulu or Netflix original in 2020. It honestly achieves a vulnerability that “real men” in our here and now should strive for and it’s why sci-fi fans love the genre —- it’s building a better world, imagining the fantastic and drawing lines to a vision of what could be.
Hub is a writer, storyteller, and performer from Magical Higley AZ, by way of Phoenix and Los Angeles. He received an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and a BA in English Literature from Arizona State University. He co-hosted the pioneering podcast Shakeytown Radio from 2010 to 2015, interviewing artists and performers, as well as occasionally producing sketch comedy segments. His writing has been part of Modest Proposal Magazine, Razorcake/Gorsky Press, DIY in LAX, The Young Turks, Meow Meow Pow Pow and Soy Not Oi. More info about his work at HubUnofficial.com.
