When James Caan signed on to play Detective Matthew Sykes in the 1988 original movie, he must have known how much of a political impact it was going to have. Fox, in it's eternal wisdom, has seen fit to maintain it's sociological commentary with the occasional mini-series based on that controversial and enlightening film.

Alien Nation, like the Twilight Zone, disguised its content under the ruse of being just "science fiction" allowing the writers to get away with writing on such topics as race, and the inherent differences that stem from race while still saying, "Yeah but look. We're talking about aliens here."

The spudWorks writing staff has long believed that such scripting is a tradition that must be continued, and has volunteered some formula to help you write the next volatile political piece thinly disguised as fiction.

A few rules to follow:

• Think of a past event that has happened that involved race, say... Rodney King, then make him an alien and you've got the main conflict. Bonus points if an alien was an attacker to show the powers of mob mentality.
• Be sure to have a sappy scene with the aliens showing them "not quite grasping" earth customs. Things like snorting milkshakes, and putting french fries in their ears.
• Where would the script be if humans failed to show some of their ignorance? Have a touching scene of a human giving a kitten to a little alien girl which she proceeds bite into, kitten heads being a delicacy where she's from and all.
• Use the words: "Monster" and "Freak" when writing for the ignorant antagonist.
• Have at least one alien "sell out" his own race. People love to see sellouts get it.

A little thought and a few more details would be all that is required to be the next Alien Nation writer, and frankly, we couldn't think of anything the world need more than another mini-series from this fine allegory.