Resident Alien: The Complete Series

I love it when a book, film, or television series lives up to an elevator pitch. That quick, one sentence that a friend or someone whose opinion you trust sells you on an idea, and you then spend hours enjoying yourself. For me to get into Resident Alien, all it took was a friend bluntly stating, “It’s like Northern Exposure, but if the new doctor was actually an Alien played by Alan Tudyk.” Sold. I knew of the Dark Horse comic series, but I hadn’t read it. So at roughly the same time as I was diving into Episode One of the series, I was turning Page One of the comic by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse. 

Over four seasons, Resident Alien was a welcome run of science-fiction fun. Our series opens in the small Colorado town of Patience. Scenic. Idyllic. But it’s also deadly. With the town doctor found dead under mysterious circumstances, Sheriff Mike Thompson (Corey Reynolds) and Mayor Ben Hawthorne (Levi Fiehler) turn to reclusive Doctor Harry Vanderspeigle (Alan Tudyk) to look at the body and help with the investigation. Only the good Doctor Harry isn’t at all what he seems. He’s actually an alien on a mission to destroy all human life on Earth! But his ship is broken, and he lost his death device, so he’s forced to blend in with humans until he can complete his mission. But after meeting his head nurse, Asta Twelvetrees (Sara Tomko), and the rest of the town, Harry’s alien tendencies start to become more “human.” It’s hard to kill an entire planet of people when you start to like them. It’s even worse when they’re your friends and become family. 

So right from the jump, Resident Alien is charming. It lives up to sci-fi conventions, it carves some deep cuts into UFOlogy conspiracy theory lore, but it’s also funny as hell and often proves to be a heartwarming little dramady. Conceptually, it follows the comic series, but it deviates pretty wildly. Which is fine when you’re working with a series on this scale and have such a dynamic actor as Tudyk as your awkward alien trying to act human. It’s nice when you can read the source, watch the show, and enjoy them separately and equally for different reasons. 

While I will say the series is consistently good and entertaining, I do have to point out that it has something of a Season Two lull. At 10 episodes, Season One is tight and to the point, with a strong narrative throughline. Harry needs to find his death device, but also needs to blend in, which is hard when a little boy, Max (Judah Prehn), is the only human who can see through his disguise. There are other plot lines with government agents and General Wright (Linda Hamilton) trying to find Harry, and Asta reconnecting with the daughter she gave up for adoption when she was a teenager. In ten episodes, all of those threads knit together and find a kind of satisfying resolution. 

Season Two went bigger. And by bigger, they went for too many episodes, and not for the better. Expanding to 16 episodes, the series loses a lot of that tight focus as stray plotlines start forming for no other reason than filling out that episode order requirement. It’s not that I didn’t welcome more time with Sheriff Mike and Deputy Liv (Elizabeth Bowen) or D’Arcy (Wetterlund) investigating local murders, or get a kick out of Mayor Ben and his wife Kate (Meredith Garretson) exploring their new kinks, but this season frustratingly feels stretched too thin as it struggles to move forward when so much is just treading water.  

Thankfully, Season Three is something of a course correction. Back to a more reasonable 8-episode run, there’s a tighter focus on the storyline. We get more time to meet the various alien species that visit Earth. We get Gray/Human hybrids. We get abductions. We even get a nice little love story that carries on into Season Four. And while it’s tough to say goodbye to a good thing, Resident Alien at least lived long enough to get to a real and fitting final episode. 

Moving away from SyFy to the USA Network seemed to have worked out for its final ten episodes (admittedly, I streamed it on Peacock). What I sincerely enjoyed about this season was that it knew when and where to end. It took the threads of Alien Prisons, alien babies, shadow government agencies, and the new romances and friendships of Season Three and tied them together for a very satisfying finale. Four to five seasons feels like a good sweet spot for a show to find it’s off ramp. It didn’t grow stale. Character arcs didn’t feel forced or thinned out. Cast members didn’t walk out and leave the series because they wanted to do more exciting work. It knew where it needed to go and got there. 

It sucks to say goodbye to a good thing. But, because Resident Alien was a great comic and a great show throughout their respective runs, it’s easier to go back to episode one (and page one) to enjoy it all over again. You don't have the late run duldrums where things become creatively strained or stretched. Season Two might be uneven, but it's not so bad as to say you have to "get through it" to enjoy the whole series.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray 
Resident Alien: The Complete Series arrives on Earth thanks to Universal. All four seasons hit Blu-ray as a ten-disc release, Two BD50 discs for Seasons One, Three, and Four, and Four BD50 discs for Season Two. Each season gets its own standard multi-disc Blu-ray case; these are repackages of the previous seasons, as each case still has its own unique barcode. The whole set is bound together with a standard paper slipcase. Each disc loads to a basic main menu with a Play All function or the option to choose a specific episode.

Generally, each episode of Resident Alien lands with a strong 1080p transfer. The series offers bright, bold colors, scenic locations, impressive, practical creature visual effects, and some solid CGI elements to bring it to life. Since I had stuck with streaming this long, I didn’t buy the Blu-rays as they came out, so I was quite pleased to see how much better this looked on disc than on streaming. Facial features look sharper. Fine lines are cleaner. Patterns in clothing or furniture and textures are more distinct. Best of all, black levels look much better with inkier true blacks and stronger shadows than what I experienced on streaming. Some faked shots that were obvious greenscreen composites do stand out a tad, but they always looked wonky anyway. That’s a mild gripe in the end. Overall, for the series, it looks very good on disc. 

Each episode of the series rings in with a strong DTS-HD MA 5.1 track. While most of the heavy sonic lifting is dialogue exchanges and Harry’s narration, the series has quite a bit of action. At the very least, it finds nice ways to fill the soundscape without leaving dead channels to linger in silence for long. Obviously, the more activity, the better those surround channels are utilized, but even in the quiet moments out in the streets or at the lake, there’s quite a bit of activity peppered around for a nice, albeit not aggressively immersive experience. Levels were solid for each episode I sampled, and playing against some of the streaming episodes sounded much fuller. So take that as another win. 

Sadly, as has been the case with the rollout of this series on disc, the bonus features are a wiff. It’s not that I need every episode to have a commentary track, but I’d like a making-of doc, a cast-and-crew sitdown, and maybe a look at the making of the various creatures, of which there are a number of practical critters. Something. Instead, we have deleted scenes for Season Two and Season Three. Now, that's not nothing, but it’s about as close to nothing as you can get without just being trailers. I appreciate deleted scenes, but they’re rarely interesting or necessary unless there was a major shift in production or serious plot lines or characters were cut or altered. Here, it’s just tidbits, and then not for every season and are very short. 

Season Two Disc Four

• Harry, A Parent (HD 4:11)

Season Three Disc One

• Avian Flu (HD 00:32)

Season Three Disc Two (HD 4:01 Total)

• Lovebird 
• Bye Bye Birdie
• Here Comes My Baby

It’s great fun when you discover a new series. It’s best when the entire run (or at least very nearly) stays consistently entertaining and finishes on a satisfying note. Resident Alien was delightfully entertaining and a solid adaptation of the comic. Alan Tudyk might headline, but he’s joined by a great ensemble of actors playing fun characters. The second season might be a bit bumpy, a little too long, but if that’s the worst I can say about a show, hey, I don’t have much to complain about. On Blu-ray, the entire four-season run enjoys strong 1080p transfers with very good DTS-HD MA 5.1 tracks to match. The only bummer with the disc release is that there aren’t any meaningful bonus features. Less than 9 minutes of deleted scenes is the sum total of that material. But I’m here to enjoy this great series on disc, with better A/V than streaming, and that’s exactly what I got. Recommended 

Click to Order