Allow me to lead the needy majority by the hand towards Sky One’s latest offering: a sci-fi-tinged series called Resident Alien, starring the mighty Alan Tudyk as a visitor from outer space who crash-lands outside the small town of Patience, Colorado, kills the owner of the first fishing cabin he finds, dumps him in the nearest frozen lake, and assumes, via molecular reconstruction, the poor guy’s appearance and identity. This, we learn, is to give himself time to find the device lost in the crash (ideally before the thaw that will allow the bloated corpse to rise to the surface and give away the intergalactic game) that will allow him to complete his mission. His mission is to wipe out humanity. Hello, premise! How will a not-entirely-novel incarnation of something like this play out within the sci-fi genre?
Quite pleasantly, is the short answer. It turns out that the man the alien is impersonating is a doctor, Harry Vanderspiegle. When the town doctor is found dead, they turn to Harry to determine the cause of death (“A real mystery! Chung-CHUNGG!” says Harry, who has learned to speak our human tongue through reruns of Law & Order during his first few months of solitude in the cabin after the accident and knows how to score such a situation), and then to tend to the townspeople and their various ailments. He gradually becomes more and more involved in their lives, forming a special bond with clinic worker Asta Twelvetrees (Sara Tomko) and learning more and more about relationships and society as he goes. Will this newfound knowledge and growing appreciation for the way humanity is—flaws, foibles and all—end up compromising his commitment to our eradication? You know, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it did.
Creator: Chris Sheridan
Stars: Alan Tudyk, Sara Tomko, Corey Reynolds
Resident Alien is not a show that’s going to consume much of your mental bandwidth. That’s, especially under current conditions, a big part of its charm. The rest of its appeal (especially once it settles in after the pilot episode) comes from its humor (when Harry smells the body at an open-casket funeral, the waitress who has grown fond of him mutters thoughtfully to herself, "It's very intense. It's not for everyone. But I like it") and a clever consistency of tone. Though it frequently plays on the moments of incomprehension that arise from Harry's ignorance and literalness, it's never purely a fish-out-of-water escapade, nor just a grown-up Mork and Mindy. It maintains a hint of darkness throughout that keeps you from becoming entirely complacent.
Quite pleasantly, is the short answer. The man the alien is impersonating, it turns out, is a doctor, Harry Vanderspiegle. When the town doctor is found dead, they turn to Harry to determine the cause of death (“A real mystery! Chung-CHUNGG!” says Harry, who has learned to speak our human tongue through reruns of Law & Order during his first few months of solitude in the cabin after the accident and knows how to score such a situation), and then to tend to the townspeople and their various ailments. He gradually becomes more and more involved in their lives, forming a special bond with clinic worker Asta Twelvetrees (Sara Tomko) and learning more and more about relationships and society as he goes. Will this newfound knowledge and growing appreciation for the way humanity is—flaws, foibles and all—end up compromising his commitment to our eradication? You know, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it did.
Resident Alien is not a show that’s going to consume much of your mental bandwidth. That’s, especially under current conditions, a big part of its charm. The rest of its appeal (especially once it settles into the picture after the pilot) comes from its humor (when Harry smells the corpse at an open-casket funeral, the waitress who's grown fond of him mutters thoughtfully to herself, "So intense. It's not for everyone. But I like it.") and a clever consistency of tone. Though it frequently plays on the moments of incomprehension that arise from Harry's ignorance and literalness, it's never a pure fish-out-of-water escapade, nor simply an adult Mork and Mindy. It maintains a hint of darkness throughout the film that keeps you from becoming entirely complacent.
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