Fans of the animated comedy show Solar Opposites were treated to a brand new season recently, albeit without series creator Justin Roiland, who left after some troubling allegations surfaced. The character of Aisha, played by Tiffany Hadish, has an expanded role in the new season, something the show producers said they were dying to do.
There’s even a whole episode devoted to the character called “The Mobile AISHA Emitter,” where Aisha falls in love with a human on a dating site.
The character is the AI that runs the aliens’ ship, and she gets some of the show’s most sarcastic and biting lines. It also doesn’t hurt that Hadish is one of the best-working comics today.
Producer Sydney Ryan talked to Comicbook recently about Aisha’s bigger role and her solo episode adventure.
“Aisha is such a big part of the Solar’s lives that it just made sense to involve her character more this season,” Ryan said.
Until now, Aisha was simply a glowing orb on the ship’s deck. Ryan said it’s a testament to how “incredible and hilarious” Hadish is on the show. Why not expand?
“The writers wanted to see what would happen if we focused a whole story on this character who usually exists just as a talking orb in the ship. Mike [McMahan] talked about it being like this book, he likes called The Ship Who Sang, which was about a spaceship’s computer that always falls in love with its captains.”
The episode, Ryan said, was written by Josh Bycel.
“It came out so smart and sweet, it’s a highlight of the season for me – like our own little Before Sunrise story but with a blue floating orb. There’s a great balance between comedy and melancholy – it’s the kind of thing that really only makes sense on Solar, I guess!”
“The Mobile AISHA Emitter” is almost totally an Aisha episode, with Lamorne Morris (New Girl) playing Aisha’s romantic flame.
Regarding Roiland and the latest season, the man still has fans, and they recently showed up in force to review bomb the show on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb, per Decider.
Before Season 4, the lowest score on an episode of the show was 81 percent – and that was Season 1. Everything else has been much higher. Season 4 has a rating of around 39 percent.
Over on the show’s subreddit, one fan pointed out that besides the new voices, the show is pretty much identical to the old one.
“I understand feeling jarred by a brand new voice, but people are totally ignoring the fact that the situations and jokes are just as hilarious without Roiland on the writing staff (even before his firing, it’s fairly well known that he wasn’t contributing to the writing process of this or R&M), and the characters are as defined as ever.”
At least we still have Hadish and Aisha. Season 4 of Solar Opposites is streaming on Hulu.
Published: Aug 21, 2023 07:28 pm