About Colony

Post 904:

It’s been a stint since I did a review. Been working on a bunch of my own stuff. You got that right. I’m a selfish one. Anyway, here’s some thoughts on a show that has me thinking. Maybe thinking more than it should.

I limped into Colony. It’s been out for years and I never got around to it, even though it’s sci-fi and I tend to like high-concept sci-fi, stuff where there’s a lot of world-building. A couple reasons for my apprehension: The main actor played Sawyer in Lost, and though he was a great character, it was Lost, and I’m never getting over that cynical cash-grab. Also, Colony’s trailers never hooked me in. I don’t know. You get me. Some things jump out, some don’t.

Anyway, I got around to trying it out. Turns out, pretty good. I won’t give anything away here, but the basic setup is that a vastly superior intelligence has come down and is ruling over the human race. They are completely dominant and never seen by humans, only their drones and their walls. It’s established that trying to buck is hopeless and futile.

This sounds like a pretty standard meal, but what makes it stand out is how little the aliens have to do with it. (Keep in mind I’m only about halfway through the series)

What it’s really about is political philosophy and human nature. Either the show is sparse because of budget or sparse because it’s smart, it doesn’t really matter. We get to see a social experiment, the way people fall into certain types when confronted with a complete takeover of their rights and freedoms.

In the show, most people just want to survive. They do their assigned jobs and keep their heads down to protect themselves or their families from getting blown away by the aliens. Understandable. I mean, what good is resisting?

Then there’s the collaborators. These are the people that actually do the bidding of the aliens. They root out, inform on, murder and incarcerate their fellow humans for their occupiers, because hey, it’s a chance to get a little bit of agency. (Even if it’s false)

And of course, we have to have a resistance. These are the measly plucky souls that choose to do more than dissent underneath their breaths. Few and far between, but they can’t help themselves. They’re the ones in every movie or show saying, “We’ve got to do something!”

It’s interesting to see the lines between these three types getting blurred under the yoke of their overlords. Considering what governments have been doing to people since the invention of governments, I think it’s a pretty good dramatic representation. You could substitute the aliens with anything else that people are afraid of and the reactions throughout history can be catalogued and measured almost in proportion to the amount of fear that said substitute generated.

I will say, it’s hard to watch. As someone who is “standoffish” to government, it’s difficult to see acquiescence and collaboration with the hard hands of power portrayed on the screen. But it is instructive. And dramatic. Hopefully there’s an actual ending. If it ends like Lost I’m going to ask for more government oversight in media. Cheers and see you after.