Project ALF is a 1996 TV movie starring Paul Fusco, William O'Leary, Miguel Ferrer, Jensen Daggett, Scott Michael Campbell, John Schuck, Liz Coke, and Martin Sheen. There are also some great cameo and extended cameo appearances by recognizable actors such as Ray Walston, Ed Begley Jr., and Charles Robinson. It serves as a finale to the series ALF, which ran from 1986 to 1990 but ended on a massive cliffhanger with ALF being caught by the Alien Task Force when he was on his way to rendezvous with the ship coming to pick him up. In the movie, the government is trying to decide what to do with ALF. A general (played by Sheen) secretly plans to kill ALF, and two Air Force scientists (played by Daggett and O'Leary) help ALF escape.
The DVD is very bare-bones, just including the movie itself. When the fourth season of ALF was coming to an end, NBC had not decided whether to renew the show for a fifth season. There was, however, a tacit agreement between the network and the producers that they would end the season on a cliffhanger, and if the show was not renewed, NBC would allow them to make a TV movie to resolve the cliffhanger. However, NBC canceled the show and backed out of the agreement to produce a movie, so it was not until ABC approached the producers years later that they could finally get a TV movie to wrap the storyline up. Thus, we get Project ALF.
It is an okay wrap-up to the series, but because so many years had passed since the series's end, aside from Fusco (who voiced ALF and controlled the puppet), none of the other actors from the series appeared. The Tanner family was written out as having gone into the witness protection program and were living in Iceland. The movie has a slightly different feel than the TV show, but the character of ALF remains mostly the same, and thus, the brand of humor does, too. While it would have been nice if the actors from the TV show had been involved so that the series could get a proper finale, the movie, while a little cheesy, does wrap up on a good note. So, if you were a fan of the show, this is definitely worth the time to watch.
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