Entertainment
The Comedy Sci-Fi Series That Took Over Netflix And Wowed Rotten Tomatoes
By Jacob VanGundy
| Published
Resident Alien, starring Alan Tudyk, is a Syfy original comedy that was released in 2021 and didn’t make much of a splash on release. However, with a pristine Rotten Tomatoes score indicating critical approval and a spot in the top shows when it arrived on Netflix, the series found a new lease on life. Real fans of the show have been saying all along that Resident Alien is great, but putting it on Netflix helped grow that audience.
Based on a Dark Horse comic by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse, in theory, the show had a pre-existing fanbase to build off of, albeit a small one.
Part comedy, part sci-fi, part procedural, and part mystery thriller, Resident Alien has something for everyone with a straightforward plot that gradually builds on itself. It follows a marooned Alien, who was sent to end all life on Earth but instead crash-landed in rural Colorado forcing him to take on a human disguise and gradually learn about humans.
Most shows about aliens living among humans lean on one joke and hope it holds. Resident Alien doesn’t do that. It uses the joke to get in the door, then quietly builds something smarter and more observant than it has any right to be.
Disguised as Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle, a man he knows nothing about, he ends up becoming the small town’s only doctor. Things get weirder for the new Harry from there, throwing him into an increasingly complicated web of social dynamics and mysteries.
Harry doesn’t misunderstand humans in cute ways; he misunderstands them in ways that expose how arbitrary many of our social rules actually are. Watching him struggle with basic concepts like politeness, grief, or compassion is funny because it’s accurate. A lot of human behavior only makes sense if you grew up inside it.
The show thrives on restraint. It resists the urge to constantly reassure the audience. It lets scenes run a little long. It allows discomfort. Sometimes the joke is simply that Harry says the wrong thing and no one laughs. Sometimes the scene ends without a joke at all.
Resident Alien never forgets that its central character is dangerous. This isn’t a cuddly outsider learning to love Earth. Harry is capable of mass murder, and the show keeps that fact in play. His growing attachment to humans creates tension because of what we know he could do to them. .
The series is an ideal showcase for Alyn Tudyk’s comedic talents, giving him a unique character with no understanding of human interaction, creating plenty of opportunities for slapstick comedy and genuine emotion. It’s the kind of role he was born to play.
Resident Alien doesn’t treat the town around Harry as background noise. They aren’t just there to react to his weirdness. They have problems that existed before he arrived and would continue if he left. Because of that, much of Resident Alien’s success also comes from a stellar supporting cast built up by the show, a great mix of established actors and lesser-known names. Those include Sara Tompko, who is often the straight man to Tudyk’s slapstick, Corey Reynolds as a butt of the joke sheriff, and Alice Weterlund as a bartender unknowingly pining for an alien.
Resident Alien flew under the radar on release, creating a dedicated but small fan base on the Syfy channel, hampered by not being available on any of the major streaming services. While it initially failed to reach the popular zeitgeist, it was an immediate critical darling, garnering a 97 percent on Rotten Tomatoes after the first two seasons.
Now that it’s finally on Netflix it has found a larger audience, briefly making its way onto Netflix’s top ten shows when it first arrived on the platform. The show’s audience was always there; it just needed the right platform to find it.
Resident Alien is worth your time. It trusts the audience and uses science fiction the way it’s supposed to be used, as a tool to look at ordinary life from an uncomfortable angle.