‘Earth To Ned’ blends aliens and talk shows
When Eliza Skinner interviewed for a writing job on “Earth to Ned,” a new Disney+ series in which a celebrity-obsessed alien decides he’d rather host a latenight talk show than destroy planet Earth, the comedian and writer says it seemed too good to be true.
“I was a little skeptical because it was too perfect for me,” Skinner says. “I love sci-fi. I love late night. I love puppets.
“Literally, one of the reasons that I moved to New York City when I was just out of college was I thought I was going to be a puppeteer. So I was like, ‘Wait a minute, this can’t be that great.’”
Skinner, who’d worked as a writer on TV series such as “The Late Late Show With James Corden” and “Drop The Mic,” got the gig. She also got the chance to make the show, which is aimed at adults as much as kids, as odd as she wanted.
“Every step of the way where I was like, ‘Oh, is this too weird?’” Skinner says she was assured it was not. “Never once were they like, ‘Can you make it a little bit cuter?’
Laughs in space
The premise for “Earth To Ned” is strange but simple: Ned, the Earth-obsessed commander of an alien warship, launches a late-night talk show from the bridge of their ship, drafting his second-in-command Cornelius to be his on-air sidekick.
Human guests are beamed aboard without any advance notice to them — Andy Richter is the first guest on the show, and others include comedians such as Kristen Schaal, Billy Dee Williams, RuPaul, and Rachel Bloom.
The ship’s A.I. entity, known as BETI, serves as Ned’s producer, her floating holographic head reminiscent of the disembodied genie Jambi on “Pee Wee’s Playhouse.”
“Like ‘Pee Wee’s Playhouse,’ this show wasn’t developed as a show for kids,” Skinner says. “They were developed for adults — and then as you start making them you’re like, ‘Oh, kids are definitely going to want to watch this.’