With a mixture of “ET ?? The extraterrestrial “and” Alaska, of all places “are trying their hand at creating a slightly different sci-fi series by Chris Sheridan and leading actor Alan Tudyk.
The alien Hah Re (Alan Tudyk) is sent to earth with the task of destroying the earth and its backward inhabitants. During their overflight, his spaceship is struck by lightning, the object for the destruction of humanity is lost and the spaceship crashes near the American town of Patience in the state of Colorado. The alien is forced to take on the identity of the withdrawn doctor Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle, learns the English language and familiarizes himself with human beings. When the only doctor in town Patience is murdered, the townspeople seek the help of the withdrawn doctor? who is so unintentionally drawn into the contemplative small town life and has to live with the people whom he was supposed to destroy all.
The basic story of “Resident Alien” is anything but innovative. The involuntary small-town doctor, relatively cut off from the rest of mankind, including a whole series of lively city dwellers, is a little too reminiscent of the 1990s series «Of all Alaska» («Northern Exposure»). It is almost certain that the creators of the comic book model Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse know the series and a whole lot of ?? inspiration ?? have taken from it. Seasoned with a pinch of “ET”, this resulted in “Resident Alien”. The series therefore doesn’t exactly want to get bonus points for originality. However, it creates the same balancing act as the 90s model and can therefore largely convince narrative. The story does not drift too far from its extremely black-humored basic theme into the ridiculous and the balancing act between the sometimes grotesque behavior of the townspeople and their warmth succeeds.
The fact that the series works on its premise is also due to Alan Tudyk’s portrayal of the alien trying to learn humanity. The facial expressions of Tudyk, who while sitting in front of the television tries to copy the human facial features and later their pronunciation, is one of the most entertaining parts of this pilot episode. Since Tudyk is present in practically every scene, those responsible should have taken a load off their hearts due to his convincing portrayal of the inhuman alien. So far, “Resident Alien” has been acting like a one-man show, the rest of the cast acts more as a supporting foundation.
The viewer only notices the relatively low budget of the American cable broadcaster Syfy at the beginning of the episode, when special effects are used during the crash of the spaceship and the transformation from alien to human, which are not really up to date. However, since these only take up a very short period of time and the series only has to concentrate on the locations of the small town and the surrounding countryside, this is to be tolerated. It can be assumed that the science fiction part of the series will be cut back even further in the upcoming episodes and that the authors will concentrate more on the coexistence of the small town dwellers and newly acquired roommates, for which no extensive special effects budget will be necessary.
If “Resident Alien” were not running on Syfy, a recommendation could be made for anyone interested in the basic topic, because the series is funny, warm and entertaining. She doesn’t reinvent the clock, but does build in a tried and tested, fairly solid clockwork. However, since Syfy has worked hard for itself in recent years to cancel practically every interesting new series after one or two seasons with an open ending (“Deadly Class”, “Dark Matter”, “Happy!”, “The Expanse”, “ Krypton », to name just a few) should be treated with caution.
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