Among Us
Entry updated 22 June 2026. Tagged: TV.
US animated tv series (2026). Titmouse, Inc. CBS Studios. Created by Owen Dennis, based on the 2018 online multiplayer social deduction game developed and released by Innersloth. Directed by Owen Dennis and Madeline Queripel. Written by Owen Dennis, Kiran Deol, Brian David Gilbert, Karen Han, Alex Horab, Justin Michael and Madeline Queripel. Voice cast includes Yvette Nicole Brown, Kimiko Glenn, Liv Hewson, Ashley Johnson, Wayne Knight, Phil LaMarr, Patton Oswalt, Randall Park, Dan Stevens, Debra Wilson and Elijah Wood. Ten 13-15 minute episodes. Colour.
Mining an Asteroid for a new energy source (see Power Sources) called "Ore+", the MIRA corporation transports this by Spaceship to its refining facility. We meet new crew members Green (Wood), an unpaid intern who grew up poor on a worm farm, and White (Oswalt), board member of a pharmaceutical company owned by their parents, here as a contest winner (they boast "I'm friends with all kinds of people. Landlords, influencers, politician's children, people who greenlight live-action versions of animated movies ..."). They are met by perky Orange (Brown) from HR, who introduces them to Black (Hewson) and Cyan (Glenn), goth geologist and hippy gemologist respectively; Lime (Knight), conspiracy theorist (see Paranoia) and engineer; Blue (Stevens) the hot and noble doctor; cafeteria workers, the friendly Brown (LaMarr) and politically vocal Yellow (Wilson); Red (Park) the unimpressive captain and Purple (Johnson), the Security officer. Later Purple explains to Green they and Red had once been friends, but had witnessed MIRA's cost-cutting rendering a planet uninhabitable: Purple wanted to be a whistle-blower, but Red had toed the company line, resulting in Purple's blacklisting – they had only got this job because of Red's influence. Shortly after the Ore+ laden spaceship departs, its hull is breached by a small asteroid, damaging some of the cargo; the hole is repaired without loss of life and they celebrate with a party. Arriving late, White staggers in, bloodily "splitting mysteriously in twain". The only one not present is Blue, but any suspicion proves unfounded as Blue gets their face ripped off shortly after, though only after examining White's body and scanning the crew, which reveals one has no bones (or rather, bone, as their species has only one). Also, one scan is missing.
Red explains away the boneless scan as a glitch and reassures everyone the deaths are not due to an Alien Shapeshifter. A more "comforting solution is that it's ... a regular old murderer", this despite their Captain's handbook stating "Aliens are real and they like to kill". Discovering Lime has built a hand-made Weapon, the crew assume they are the killer, until Orange transforms into a tentacled creature and murders Lime. Orange is trapped in a trash chute, and the others debate whether they should be expelled into space: some are worried that Orange may still exist within the creature and Black conjectures: "Maybe it's like a cellular duplicate ... all the way down to the memories." After a vote Orange is ejected, to erupt into a monster and explode. Another party ensues, with everyone getting hypoxia when the oxygen supply is sabotaged; then Cyan is murdered. There are three suspects, but Yellow is found to have the missing scan, also of a boneless body: they are expelled through the trash chute and the others wait for the body to explode. It does not.
Angered at the death of an innocent crew member, Purple blames Red and demands another vote; Brown refuses and departs, pointing out even those who voted against ejecting Yellow had legitimized the murder by participating. As the others argue, Brown is killed by an alien; shortly after, Black looks at Cyan's notebooks; the ore broken by the asteroid impact is mentioned and Black has a realization, adding a comment just before being killed. On reading Black's remarks the survivors understand the lumps of ore are eggs, from which the aliens hatched.
Green is exposed as the alien when they cannot recall Purple's earlier anecdote. Purple also correctly infers from previous events that salt is fatal to the aliens; there is a showdown during which the alien reveals they killed everyone except Lime, whilst having the new alien hatchlings puppeteer the crew mates corpses; but finally they're killed. Red has matured and no longer toes the MIRA line but agrees to expel the remaining Ore+ into space. Clearly MIRA knew Ore+ is killer alien eggs, and the two survivors wonder what their intentions are.
Though their personalities are human-like, physically the crew are not, being genderless (see Gender), bean shaped, single boned and having disembodied armless hands; Blue's death had the survivors wondering who is the "hot one" now? Orange responds that nobody is: "We're all equally mediocre formless non-sexual beings who are very, very ugly" (though this might have been the alien talking). An alien shapeshifter picking off an isolated group is a familiar enough plot to be deemed a Cliché whose instances run from "Who Goes There?" (August 1938 Astounding) by Don A Stuart (John W Campbell Jr) to the Anime Gnosia (2025-2026), which was also based on a videogame. Nonetheless it is competently handled here. Owen Dennis made the classic Infinity Train and despite not being on that level, Among Us is a good series: initially light and comedic, but becoming darker (see Horror) while retaining some Humour – the consequences of Yellow's execution are well handled – and deepening the characterization. [SP]
links
previous versions of this entry