For a TV show about an alien invasion the aliens are almost totally absent. Alien infrastructure (walls, drones) is omnipresent but all the brutal inhumanity is meted out by other humans.

Instead we see a system of extreme inequality with the wealthy living in the green zone and the rest barely scraping by in poverty. This is a deliberate state of affairs: Precarity ensures the haves oppress the have-nots.

Hanging over the heads of everyone in the green zone is the promise that they can lose it all at any moment if they don't continue to oppress the poor. It is, if not a forgiveable choice, an understandable one.

I don't think it is an accident that the worst punishment is to be "sent to the factory". Or that the purpose of their labours (what the factory makes) is opaque and totally meaningless to humanity.

The system is designed to grind everyone down, rob life of its meaning, and make the populace subservient to the purposes of an oppressive alien force...aaanndd it looks a hell of a lot like our modern economy.

You could do a lot worse than Colony if you are looking for an example of the structural necessity of economic precarity to modern capitalism.

@selenized Really surprised that more people haven't been watching or talking about it.