| Genre: | Science fiction Comedy |
| Creator: | Laurence Rickard Ben Willbond |
| Director: | Fergal Costello |
| Starring: | Declan Baxter Georgia May Foote Bruce MacKinnon Evelyn Mok Laurence Rickard Joe Thomas Ben Willbond Mike Wozniak Rob Delaney Miles Jupp Lucien Leon Laviscount Ellie White Dane Baptiste Vicki Pepperdine Amanda Abbington |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Executive Producer: | Kenton Allen Matthew Justice Victoria Grew Laurence Rickard Ben Willbond |
| Producer: | Philip Leach |
| Runtime: | 90 minutes (exc. adverts) |
| Company: | Big Talk Productions |
| Network: | Dave |
We Are Not Alone is a 2022 British science-fiction comedy television film co-created and co-written by Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond. Starring Declan Baxter, Georgia May Foote, Bruce Mackinnon, Evelyn Mok, Rickard, Joe Thomas, Willbond, Mike Wozniak, Vicki Pepperdine and Amanda Abbington, it was broadcast on Dave on 28 November 2022. It follows a group of aliens who have invaded and conquered Earth as they try to maintain control with their new subjects.
Mild-mannered and hapless council worker Stewart gets enlisted into helping three members of the Gu'un alien race – who have taken over Earth – set up their rule of the United Kingdom in the buildings of the Clitheroe Borough Council, while being tempted by the Anti-Alien Alliance (AAA) determined to overthrow them. Stewart tries to cope between the widely different approaches to ruling along the three Gu'uns, by attempting – with fluctuating success – to ingratiate them to the British people, and avoid at all costs the ultimate fate of getting flushed into space.
Commissioned in November 2021, filming took place in Castlegate, Clitheroe in December 2021,[1] with the casting released later that month.[2]
It was confirmed in October 2022, that, for creators Rickard and Willbond, the film is effectively a pilot for a potential further run of episodes.[3] Some ideas for the programme had to be shelved when the pitch for the show "changed from a conventional sitcom pilot to a feature-length special", but are "sitting ready" in case of a series order.[4]
The creators were "keen" for prosthetics to be used in terms of what would be applied to actors to engender an alien appearance, as they "knew that world and knew what you could and couldn't get away with," according to Rickard, who employs a "similarly elaborate get-up" for his character on Ghosts, which he co-writes, along with Willbond. He then added that prosthetic usage means that "there's so much you can still see, you capture the performance, which is obviously so important in comedy," although how it would look on-screen was an initial concern during filming.[4]
In June 2023, it was confirmed that UKTV had passed on ordering a full series from the pilot film.[5]
The film was distributed internationally by BBC Studios.[6] It was released in the United States via streaming platform The Roku Channel on 27 January 2023, with a trailer released on multiple social media platforms two weeks prior.[7] The film was made available in New Zealand on streaming platform TVNZ+, but split into three parts.[8]
Across its two-hour runtime, the special recorded an average overnight audience of 163,000 (1.3%), below the 230,000 (1.8%) .[8] After a week's worth of catch-up, it improved to 267,000 viewers, becoming Dave's third most-watched programme of the week.[9]
In a three-star review for The Daily Telegraph, Anita Singh praised Baxter, calling him "charming as the bewildered lead", but opined that the "central gag [of] aliens in a mundane British setting ... wears thin quite quickly", and accuses the writers of being "left casting around for a plot to keep things moving", with subplot storylines, including one which explores a potential romance between Stewart and Elodie, not "get[ting] out of second gear, but Baxter's likeability keeps things chugging along".[10]
Laura Vickers-Green from Den of Geek was more positive, in a four-star review, commenting that "[t]here is so much humour packed into [the show that] it really feels like they were ruthless with the script: there's simply not a line wasted. From wry observations on the general daftness of human behaviour to clever digs at politics ... plus superb physical comedy ... it's just one big laugh after another, with "forays into more scatalogical humour ... almost undermin[ing] just how clever the rest of the show is". Vickers-Green did critique the ending, saying the show came "crashing to a halt without a whiff of a resolution", and, without further episodes being commissioned, "could be an awkward end for an otherwise triumphant effort".[11]
Steve Bennett's three-and-a-half-star review for Chortle called the show "thoroughly engaging", and that it "says something about the likability of your cast when Mike Wozniak plays the bad guy", however pointed to how "[o]utright jokes take second billing to the story ... so it's more smileworthy than laugh-out-loud".[12]
In June 2023, UKTV confirmed they would not be commissioning a full series.[13]