Line #20 WesternAnimation/AlienatorsEvolutionContinues


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3	''Alienators: Evolution Continues'' (a.k.a. ''Evolution: The Animated Series'' for British audiences) was an animated series that ran from 2001 to 2002 on Creator/FoxKids, based on the 2001 movie ''Film/{{Evolution\|2001}}''. The story picks up after the events of the film, following the continuing adventures of Ira Kane, Harry Block, and Wayne Grey, and also introduces a fourth hero in the form of a Blue Beret soldier named Lt. Lucy Mai and a TeamPet named Gassie, as well as [[BigBad SCOPES]], leader of an army of StarfishAliens called the Genus.
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5	!!Tropes:
6	%%* ActionGirl: Lieutenant Lucy Mai, which isn't at all surprising given that she's a Blue Beret.
7	* AdaptationalNameChange: Wayne Gray in the film was renamed Wayne Green.
8	** The two dumb students in the film, Deke and Danny, are renamed Deke and ''Derrick'' in the show.
9	* AdaptationalVillainy: It was inferred in the film that the aliens were merely wild and freaked out beasts reacting to their new, strange environment. In the series it's made explicit (via SCOPES, once he becomes intelligible) that they're malevolent invaders.
10	* AdmiringTheAbomination: Ira has a really bad habit of doing this. His fascination with the evolution of the Genus often distracts him from his job of ''destroying'' them.
11	* AliensSpeakingEnglish: In the second episode Ira listened to a recording of SCOPES' roars and [[HollywoodScience deduced]] that SCOPES was in fact speaking in binary. He then translated it into English to reveal some generic megalomaniacal threats. The next time SCOPES appeared he'd become fluent in English.
12	* AlwaysABiggerFish: Invoked with the fish-like Genus in "Meltdown", where they start as piranha-like forms, mutate into three-headed eels, which in turn spawn a giant anglerfish that itself spawns a shark: with each successive generation ''eating'' the previous one.
13	* AnimatedAdaptation: Hence the UK title.
14	* AscendedExtra: Gassie can best be described as the movie's three-eyed smiley face logo fleshed out into an actual character.
15	* BadassAdorable: Gassie is primarily a detector for Genus organisms, but on occasion takes part in the fighting to help save his friends: even if it's as simple as holding an alligator Genus's jaws shut.
16	* BigBad: SCOPES is the leader of the Genus invasion on humanity.
17	* CallBack:
18	** The selenium in the shampoo used in the original film features prominently in the film as their primary weapon.
19	** Genus are often shown reproducing by regurgitating evolved offspring, referencing the "dragon-bird" creature from the movie that orally gave birth to an oxygen-tolerant offspring before dying of asphyxation in Earth's atmosphere.
20	** Flatworms are the first evolutionary stage of the Genus, as with the original film.
21	** The final form of the more advanced aliens are once again primates: though instead of being blue and noseless they are brown with purple spikes.
22	* CaptainErsatz: The Genus are essentially very similar to the [[VideoGame/StarCraft Zerg]], with a purple wormlike "larval" form that can mutate into a wide array of different forms, function with a HiveMind and GeneticMemory, and are spawned from "pods" which function similarly to a Zerg Hatchery. They are also able to absorb genetic material from other organisms and mutate instantly.
23	* CatchPhrase: Most of the main characters have at least one.
24	** Ira: "I'm a genius"
25	** Wayne: "Wicked!"
26	** Lt. Lucy: "Why do I even bother?"
27	* CompilationMovie: ''Evolution: The Animated Movie'', which combines the "Survival" three-parter into a single-length feature.
28	* DaChief: General Woodman and Allison Reed, moreso the former, with the latter acting as MissionControl.
29	* DefrostingIceQueen: If you thought Allison Reed was a little chilly in the film, Mai takes it even further. Despite this, Ira still seems to be all over her. General Woodman is a potential male example, being a JerkAss ObstructiveBureaucrat who slowly turns into a JerkWithAHeartOfGold.
30	* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Scopes is constantly going on about how the Genus are a perfectly harmonious super organism, and at one point makes a beeline for Ira's parents while yelling, "You have wiped out my family, now I shall wipe out yours!" after a batch of fellow Genus are taken out in "Ira Knows Best." Considering Scopes is kind of the HiveQueen, this is also a potentially literal case of AFatherToHisMen. It also counts as NotSoAboveItAll, considering that same episode had Scopes earlier mock humans and their "weak family units."
31	* EvilDetectingDog: Whenever other Genus creatures are in the vicinity, Gassie emits strong odors.
32	* EvolutionaryLevels: Played straight with the Genus, which Ira describes as having "Precambrian" invertebrate levels, "Mesozoic" reptilian levels and "Cenozoic" mammalian levels. Best demonstrated in "Junkyard Dogs" where the purple flatworms first mutate into slug-like forms, then into two-headed lizard-like forms, then into ''four-headed'' rat-like forms and finally into ''eight-headed'' dog-like forms.
33	* ExactWords: In one episode Harry and Ira are in a military jail with Lucy as the guard. General Woodman orders her to not let "those clowns" out. Since Harry and Ira are not "clowns", as in ''literal circus clowns with funny shoes and red noses'', she lets them out after trolling them for a minute.
34	* FamilyFriendlyFirearms: While missiles and similar munitions looked and acted normal and an attack helicopter was at one point shown firing what appeared to be mundane machine guns, in the last few episodes the military was shown using [[EnergyWeapon Frickin' Laser Beams]] that are [[AsLethalAsItNeedsToBe As Lethal As They Need To Be]]. The heroes themselves are instead armed with AbnormalAmmo in the form of selenium mixes -- Harry uses a rifle called a "Devolver" (which fires a mix of selenium, fire extinguisher gas and a green "stasis ray", the same ray device used to create Gassy, to "reverse" the Genus' creatures evolution), Ira tends to throw grenades or even ''petri dishes'' with the mix, and Wayne can use the water cannon on the firetruck. Lucy instead carries a quarterstaff (intended by Wayne to be a nunchuck-style attachment for his fireaxe) and a discus-like device that can expand into a shield that sprays [=CO2=], while Wayne's aforementioned fireaxe later gains the ability to turn into other various weapons.
35	* {{Flanderization}}:
36	** Wayne isn't just a fireman in-training now - for some reason he's an engineering genius who soups up their fire engine on a daily basis, even though by his own admission in the film his knowledge of science extended to doing some chemistry in high school. He's also portrayed as being far more like a child in the series, despite being 17.
37	** Harry Block wasn't really interested in ''sports'' - he was interested in ''women's sports'' because... it was funny. In a Creator/FoxKids show that's completely unthinkable, so he's just a sports nut. He was a funny guy but he was still a qualified teacher, something that the series only brings up twice.
38	** Ira seems to be much younger and has become so stupidly into science to the exclusion of almost everything else that it's not even funny.
39	** Woodman didn't hate Ira before; he was just an arrogant JerkAss who looked down on him because he had been fired, and for a good reason. Now he hates Ira for being an irresponsible loose cannon who nonetheless managed to receive a medal directly from the President. He gradually stops being an obnoxious hardass, however, something most apparent in "Itching for the Genus."
40	* FourManBand: Lucy is the OnlySaneMan, Harry is the CasanovaWannabe, Ira is TheSmartGuy and Wayne is the ButtMonkey.
41	* {{Gasshole}}: Gassie, who can be described as a flatulent three-eyed Pikachu made of slime.
42	* GeneticMemory: The Genus has this as part of a HiveMind basis with SCOPES acting as a sort of HiveQueen. SCOPES himself is destroyed at the end of every episode he appears in, but strangely new Genus eventually evolve back into him, with the same personality but occasionally different forms (notably, a wasp queen form in "The Swarm", a centaur-like form in "Roman Holiday" and a yeti-like form in the finale trilogy, "Reaper".
43	* HappyEndingOverride: At the end of the film, Wayne was dubbed an honorary fireman by the governor, but in the three-part pilot episode Wayne claims that he is still a "fireman in-training." Just because you're an "honorary" fireman doesn't mean your training's finished.
44	* HerbivoresAreFriendly: Subverted in "Fire And Ice", where a bunch of fir-tree eating, beaver-like Genus are dismissed by Wayne as being harmless "vegetarian monsters". They still do, however, cause mass destruction, and later regurgitate yeti-like offspring that ''do'' attempt to prey on humans.
45	* HeroicSacrifice: Ira does this at the end of "REAPER 3: Alpha Omega", but gets saved in the nick of time.
46	* HordeOfAlienLocusts: The Genus are sapient, but have no apparent culture or society, with their existence seemingly revolving entirely around propagating, consuming, and destroying ([[GuiltFreeExterminationWar which means that the humans are as fine with wiping the Genus out as the Genus are with wiping them out]]). They're practically AlwaysChaoticEvil, with the only exception being Gassie, and that's only because Gassie was grown in a lab and modified on a genetic level to prevent him from being like a true Genus.
47	* HowWeGotHere: "To Carthage Then I Came" begins with Lucy carrying an unconscious Wayne through the deserts of Tunisia as she narrates a flashback on what happened to them, Ira, Harry, and Gassie earlier that day.
48	* InvoluntaryShapeshifting: Wayne's infection with the Genus DNA allows him to gain random mutations, some helpful, others not so much.
49	* KingKongClimb: A gasoline-eating Genus that uses a ''gas station'' as an armored shell in "Genus in Your Tank" ends up scaling the Empire State Building before being shot down by Ira and his crew.
50	* KnightOfCerebus: The drama and stakes were definitely upped with the introduction of General Granger. The Genus relied largely on {{Zerg Rush}}es, with a slightly more sophisticated plan here and there, but now they had a human ally whose cunning and resources turned an invasion that a FiveManBand could reliably fend off into a genuine global threat.
51	* LensmanArmsRace: Thanks to the Genus creatures constantly evolving to [[AdaptiveAbility become immune to the selenium mix the Alienators use against them]], Ira frequently has to modify the selenium mix on the fly to counter them.
52	* LesCollaborateurs: [[InsaneAdmiral General Granger]] as part of his [[TyrantTakesTheHelm New World Order]] scheme teams-up with the Genus. SCOPES however planned to have him RewardedAsATraitorDeserves.
53	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: In "Year of the Genus", Lt.'s uncle in Hong Kong tells of a prophecy of a dragon arising to destroy the city on the coming of the new year. True enough, a Genus monster mutates on the strike of midnight when it's activated by the firecrackers: and it flies, breathes fire, and for all intents and purposes IS a dragon, though [[NotUsingTheZWord Ira refuses to call it as such.]] In the end, it's revealed that the supersitious-sounding uncle is actually a ''biochemistry professor at Hong Kong University'', further blurring this trope.
54	* MeaningfulName: Gassie, who is a GassHole.
55	* MixAndMatchCritters: The Genus are known to create hybridized forms from the DNA of Earth animals, such as in "Roman Holiday" where the Genus absorb DNA from zoo animals, producing forms like a gorilla-elephant hybrid and a leopard-goat hybrid, or in "Ira Knows Best" where they absorb DNA from farm animals and become monstrous hybrids of cow, horse and poultry.
56	* MultipleHeadCase: Wayne's mutation allows him to occasionally sprout a second head, which subverts this trope as he gets along perfectly fine with himself.
57	** Several of the Genus sprout multiple heads, notably a two-headed dragon creature in "Year of the Genus" and a pack of ''eight''-headed dog-like Genus in "Junkyard Dogs". They don't seem to have any distinct personalities, however.
58	* OurMermaidsAreDifferent: In "Meltdown", while fighting some shark-like Genus, Wayne mutates webbed hands, gills and a fish tail instead of legs, essentially turning him into a merman.
59	* NeverSayDie: Genus aren't so much killed as they are "devolved", with defeated Genus shrinking back into starfish-like "Genus Cells" instead of dying outright.
60	* NotUsingTheZWord: In "Year of the Genus", the final mutant form of the Genus is a colorful, flying, fire-breathing creature that is for all intents and purposes a dragon. Ira refuses to call it as such, even despite Lt.'s uncle constantly speaking of a prophecy about a "dragon".
61	* SelfDestructMechanism: The Center for Impending Disasters has one in the form a NeutronBomb because the lab used to be used for studying viruses and it needed to prevent an outbreak in the case of an emergency.
62	* ShoutOut: The final Genus monster of "Slick" is a turtle-like creature resembling ''Film/{{Gamera}}''.
63	* SpiritualSuccessor (no pun intended): To ''WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbusters''. Will Meugniot even worked on both shows!). Also ''WesternAnimation/GodzillaTheSeries'' with similarly alien-looking monster designs and focus on a special anti-monster squad as the main protagonists, while the colorful armor clearly cribs a bit from ''Franchise/PowerRangers''.
64	* TailfinWalking: Wayne in "Meltdown" after transforming into a merman-like form is able to stand upright on his tail on land, though it's not shown how he moves on land even though he appears out of water a couple of times.
65	* TeamPet: Gassie, a tame and {{Mode Lock}}ed Genus that the team use as an EvilDetectingDog.
66	%%* {{Tomboy}}: Lt. Lucy Mai.
67	* WeaksauceWeakness: In a homage to ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'', the genus are finally destroyed once and for all via a modified strain of the common cold. The irony is that this is because the cold virus [[BeatThematTheirOwnGame beats the aliens at their own game]] and mutates so quickly that not even 'they' can become immune to it before it destroys them.
68	** Selenium from shampoo from the original film, though the aliens develop a resistance to it as time goes on.
69	* WeaponisedCar: The team's ride, an old fire engine that Wayne found and refitted [[Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}} Ecto-1]] style.
70	* XenomorphXerox: The Genus creature encountered in "Reaper: Part 2", which resembles a Xenomorph and stalks around in an abandoned space station.
71	* YouDontLookLikeYou: The three main recurring characters from the film are scarcely recognizable, with Ira having a more youthful look, Harry having long dreadlocks and Wayne being a straight-up teenager and far more childlike than he was in the film.

Context WesternAnimation / AlienatorsEvolutionContinues