It’s tough to make an ongoing TV series centered around a con artist, because the longer the series goes, the less believable it is that people continue to believe the grifter’s lies. But when a show has people believing that grifter’s outlandish BS from the first minutes, it’s not a good sign.
UFO FACTORY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A jeep pulls up in a wooded area. “Year: 1989. Ogarrio Del Cobre, Mexico.”
The Gist: A young scientist and his dog are out there in the middle of nowhere so the scientist can test the hallucinogenic effects of a new plant extract he created. He drinks the elixir and becomes elated, dancing to music on his Walkman. Then some lights zoom down; the scientist’s dog runs toward it, and disappears. The scientist believes he just saw his dog get abducted by aliens.
In the present day, Dalí Montoro (Jerónimo Best) is driving in his Mercedes with his son Marvin (Nicolás Pindas). Marvin is looking at his dad’s latest motivational video, where he’s standing in front of a Lamborghini saying, “If you believe in it, you make it happen.” He says in the video he’s the CEO of an investment firm.
Only thing is, he isn’t the CEO of anything, and that Mercedes isn’t even his car. He’s a waiter at an upscale Mexico City restaurant, and the car belongs to one of the guests who think that it’s in valet parking. Somehow, though, he’s managed to convince Marvin, his ex-wife and her new husband that he’s successful and made of money. He’s constantly borrowing money from his roommate, a line cook at the restaurant, and is constantly in trouble with the restaurant’s owner. His buddy warns him that he’s running the risk of not being hired to cater waiter for an event his boss caters for the Pleiadians, a group of “alien hunters” who provide a ton of tips.
Marvin, his mom and stepdad make their way to the restaurant, because Dalí has Marvin’s phone and his mom has the tracking app activated. There, Marvin witnesses Dalí slapping his boss, all in an effort to keep the ruse alive for his son. As he gets in the car with Marvin, Dalí’s ex tells him that they are going to move to Germany because her husband got a new job.
Panicked that he’ll lose his son and now without a job, he tries to figure out a way to make quick money. That’s when he gets a call about his grandfather’s mansion in Ogarrio Del Cobre. His dad died in a car accident years ago, so he’s next in line to inherit it. He thinks this is the way to quick riches. But he still needs money to get down there. He sneaks into the Pleiadian event to get the copious tips, but his boss finds him and has him thrown out.
In retaliation, Dalí steals his boss’ car and drives it down to Ogarrio Del Cobre. He falls asleep on the overnight drive and runs the car off the road, but a group of Ogarrians have their eye on him.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? UFO Factory feels a bit like the series Impastor, where a con artist tries to get one over on a town while the people who know the truth about him come after him.
Our Take: The second episode of UFO Factory (Original title: Fabricante de Ovnis) sets the story up a little more completely than the first episode does; in fact, the first episode should have run a full hour, just to get the series’ exposition phase out of the way.
In that second episode, a group of elderly Ogarrians, who have been seeing Dalí’s videos, think he’s a millionaire who can come and invest in the various businesses in the village. They’re also looking for some payback; 30 years earlier, he proposed to save the village via a hot air balloon festival, but just took everyone’s investment money and disappeared. Now, they owe back taxes to the municipality that runs the village, and if Dalí can pay that bill, the evil mayor won’t foreclose on them, a promise she’s making during her reelection campaign.
The fun thing about Dalí is that his mental wheels are always moving, and when he meets the older version of the scientist and drinks some of his elixir, he has an epiphany: Make the village the site of a UFO crash and lure the wealthy Pleiadian to spend money there. He basically uses the same transparencies his father used 30 years prior, except he lays pictures of UFOs over them instead of balloons. He even uses the same phrase as his dad: “If you believe in it, you make it happen.”
We wish the setup wasn’t quite as laborious as it was; all it really showed us is that Dalí is an unrepentant con artist who believes his own BS. He has somehow managed to snow everyone from the Ogarrians to his own son. He seems to get out of jams with absurd explanations, like when he decides he’s “tired” of his latest luxury car, and people never question him. Even people who are in on his grift, like his roommate, get suckered in by whatever his latest get-rich-quick scheme is and give him money.
Yes, we get that UFO Factory is a comedy. But Dalí is so irredeemable at the start of this series, that we’re not sure we want him to rip off anyone, from the elderly townspeople desperate to hold on to their livelihoods to the alien-chasing people who seem to throw money to the wind. And the people he cons are either so distracted or so clueless, they all seem to believe him. It doesn’t make for a particularly funny show, but perhaps we just weren’t given enough story to see where Dalí actually changes from a grift machine to an actual human being.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: “The millionaire took the bait. We won’t let him get away,” one Ogarrian says into a walkie talkie as they see Dalí unconscious after he runs it off the road.
Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Nicolás Pindas as Marvin, because he sort of thinks his father is a joke, but also sort of wants to believe he’s successful.
Most Pilot-y Line: In a hurry to get the Mercedes back to the restaurant, Dalí drives into the bike lane, almost hitting a bicyclist in the process. Was that really necessary?
Our Call: SKIP IT. UFO Factory may be a heartwarming story of a man redeeming himself and his family, but we don’t see it after the first two episodes. In fact, we see a main character that gets away with telling bad lies, and a lot of not-very-smart people who believe him.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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