Selectively applying cherry-picked laws of life on Earth to the rest of the galaxy, Alien Worlds blends science facts and fiction to show off rejected concepts from SyFy “original” programming. There are some interesting moments, but the show lacks the focus to truly develop an alien world or to explore the Earth-based theories its guest academics so want to talk about.

Note to Producers: Needs more CG alien planets, fewer scientists faffing about on Earth, please.

Fans of Dougal Dixon's books on speculative evolution will probably enjoy this series' attempts to bring the genre to life, though disappointingly the CGI sequences are relatively brief but endlessly recycled.

Why do all the aliens just *happen* to have a male/female binary when not even all the species on Earth adhere to a that binary. There's all kinds of protozoa and bivalves and insects on our own planet that challenge these assumptions. This is pretty unimaginative and they do a bad job at applying actual science, when they pretend something like a strict sex binary is completely universal. Look at snails, for god's sake! Or the protozoa tetrahymena! That bad boy has seven different sexes! Jesus.