Aliens in the Family

1 9 8 7 (UK)
6 x 25 minute episodes

Bond (Grant Thatcher), a teenage alien from the Galgonquan race, is sent to Earth as part of some sort of advanced training/initiation ritual, his main task being to observe life on the planet and avoid the attentions of cadaverous goths The Wierdegens.

He can only call on the assistance of his older sister Solita (Elizabeth Watkins), who communicates with him through a series of inanimate electrical goods, and a trio of mismatched children flung together by remarrying parents – glamour girl Dora (Clare Wilkie), antisocial tomboy “Jake” (Sophie Bold), and noisy brat Lewis (Sebastian Knapp).

As is repeatedly hammered home at regular intervals throughout the story, they are all aliens in their own way.

Aliens In The Family is a very gripping serial, and The Wierdegens (headed by Granville Saxton) are pretty scary for what are basically just people in black clothes. There are some unexpectedly good juvenile leads, particularly Clare Wilkie as the moody adolescent consumerist Dora.

The short BBC series was filmed in and around Yeovil, Somerset.

Bond
Grant Thatcher
Jacqueline (“Jake”)
Sophie Bold
Dora
Clare Wilkie
Lewis
Sebastian Knapp
David
Rob Edwards
Philippa
Clare Clifford
Solita
Elizabeth Watkins