In 1986, a friendly, wise-cracking alien crashed into the Tanner's garage, claiming to be the only survivor of his destroyed planet of Melmac. Despite being able to fluently speak English and explaining that his name is Gordon Shumway, the Tanners dubbed him ALF (for Alien Life Form) and only refer to him as such from then on. Kind of a dick move now that we think about it.
Initially, the Tanners weren't very happy to house a short smartass who wanted to eat their cat, but they soon realized the gravity of the situation after a man from the Alien Task Force showed up at their door. Curious, Kate Tanner asked the man just what would happen to ALF if they did catch him.
Actual quote from the first episode:
"We'll see how it responds to intense heat, freezing cold, high voltage, toxic substances, pain, sleep deprivation, inoculation [that's needles], and, of course, dissection."
"Why don't you just pull its toenails out?"
"You didn't let me finish."
Forget trying to learn about advanced science from this obviously technically superior species, our government would rather see what he looks like on fire.
Naturally, the Tanners decide that annoying or not, they absolutely have to keep ALF safe from the Alien Task Force so he won't be tortured to death. Over the next four years, the Tanners learned to love ALF and accept him as part of the family, until the Alien Task Force finally caught him!
Wait, What?
It starts when ALF receives a message from two surviving Melmacians, letting him know that they are going to colonize a new planet and want him to join them. ALF is torn between the continued survival of his species and his new family. Finally, he decides to join his own kind. The Tanners throw him a farewell party, have a very emotional goodbye and drive him to the outskirts of town to meet his friends' ship.
Then, just as the spaceship is preparing to pick him up, the Alien Task Force shows up, surrounding ALF. Frightened and low on fuel, his Melmacian buddies fly off, the agents close in on ALF and the credits roll, leaving viewers to assume the adorable, wise-cracking ALF is hauled off to be burned, frozen, poisoned, stabbed and finally gutted off-camera.
What were the producers thinking? Well, it would be awesome if this ending had been their plan all along and the previous 100 episodes were purely setup, an elaborate prank played by some people who really, really hated children. But the reality is the episode wasn't supposed to be the finale, it was to be a cliffhanger and the show just got cancelled before they could resolve it. Not that all of the eight-year-olds who subsequently cried themselves to sleep knew that.
