Alan Tudyk Continues His Out-of-This-World Run in Resident Alien Season 4

Resident Alien not getting the audience it deserved on SYFY for its first two seasons was—to quote displaced alien Harry Vanderspiegel (Alan Tudyk)—some serious bullshit! Gratefully in early 2024, Netflix streamed the exceptionally funny series and immediately broadened its audience and made it a ratings hit. It likely made this fourth season possible which is itself a minor television miracle because the interconnected narrative threads and various absorbing character arcs all deserve resolutions on the show’s terms. 

For the uninitiated, this nutty yet poignant dramedy revolves around an alien that was on a mission to destroy Earth. Instead, it crash landed its spaceship in the Colorado mountains and hid its presence by replicating the guise and identity of rural physician, Dr. Vanderspiegel. In the subsequent three seasons, alien Harry has had to learn how to be human(ish) as the town doctor and has mostly assimilated into this town of misfits through the tutelage of Asta Twelvetrees (Sara Tomko), the clinic’s physician assistant. She figured out pretty quickly that Harry was an alien and has since kept his secret. But that circle of trust has widened quite a bit including teens Max (Judah Prehn) and Sahar (Gracelyn Awad Rinke), Asta’s dad, Dan (Gary Farmer) and her best friend D’Arcy (Alice Wetterlund). 

Season 3 ended with a cliffhanger that affirmed that the Grey aliens have it out for Earth and planned to make the planet uninhabitable for any creature. But Harry foils their intention to blow up a big chunk of Yellowstone and gets imprisoned—along with his alien baby, Bridget—by the Grey’s on their ​secret base on the Moon. Back on Earth, a shape-shifting alien known as a Mantid (voiced by Clancy Brown) escaped its Moon prison and assumed Harry’s identity back in Patience harboring an appetite to kill. 

The one barrier to entry by this fourth season of Resident Alien is its heavily serialized storytelling adopted by creator/executive producer Chris Sheridan and his writers. The show’s admirably aggressive commitment to never sit on its story laurels means a lot happens every single season so you can’t jump into Resident Alien expecting standalones or to be able to follow without starting from the top. However, it does reward the loyal viewer with layered, character-based storytelling that feels extraordinarily rich and lived in. Like Harry, the audience is a member of this community, with a natural investment in the friendships, fallouts, successes and disappointments of its engaging ensemble of characters. Sheridan and company have done a remarkable job in gifting them all with worthwhile storylines while also managing to tackle just about every sci-fi trope you’d expect from a show about aliens on Earth. This season, they even sprinkle in time travel, time skips and an expansion of the Native American lore of the Star People. 

Four episodes were provided to critics for review, with the first two deftly directed by Tudyk. He maintains the show’s signature tonal changes extremely well, all the while performing two wildly different versions of Harry: Moon-trapped and vulnerable Harry versus Mantid-as-Harry trying to poorly “blend” into his adopted town. There’s nothing like watching Tudyk commit to a bit with his whole body, and this new season quickly reminds us what an outsized talent he is, long deserving of a show as quirky yet heartfelt as Resident Alien where his full gamut of skills can shine. 

The show also boasts one of TV’s best supporting casts who consistently match Tudyk at his funniest or his most emotional. This season, Wetterlund’s D’arcy gets to play his salty foil in the poignant time-travel episode, “Ties That Bind,” which furthers their thawing towards each other while also making us more worried for D’arcy’s masterful ability to complicate her own life for the worse.