The Aliens (TV series)
television series

The Aliens is a British science fiction television series created and written by Fintan Ryan. It is set 40 years after aliens land in the Irish Sea and are reluctantly integrated into British society in the fictional city of Troy. Border guard Lewis Garvey, played by Michael Socha, is caught up in the criminal underbelly of Troy as he learns he is himself half-alien.
The six-episode series also stars Michaela Coel, Michael Smiley and Jim Howick, and is produced by Clerkenwell Films for E4. The first episode was released on 8 March 2016. Ryan had previously written BBC shows Never Better and In the Flesh.
Overview
Coel told Radio Times that The Aliens addresses "urgent contemporary concerns" not limited to racism; during the filming of the series at Nu Boyana Film Studios in Bulgaria, she reported she experienced racist attacks. Speaking to The Guardian's Gabriel Tate, Ryan acknowledged links with the show's narrative and the ongoing European migrant crisis: "With immigrants, there's a colonial history that leaves you in debt to them. Here, we don't owe them [the aliens] anything, but they've landed on our planet and we've got to do something with them."
Viral marketing for The Aliens was organised by Channel 4's in-house creative agency 4Creative. Centred on the slogan "Fight Human Oppression", the faux-political campaign interrupted several Channel 4 shows throughout February 2016.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q23013527. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2016.
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