Review: Resident Alien season 1, episode 1 – “Pilot”
By Chad Porto
Alan Tudyk is as good as ever in Resident Alien but the chemistry and performance of another is what really should be the talk of the show.
The new SyFy show by Chris Sheridan, Resident Alien, is adapted from a comic by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse. It stars the always amazing Alan Tudyk and it is a fantastic first outing for the new series. Let’s just start there. It’s dark, it’s funny and it offers up a comic-to-television adaption that actually fits in line with the network’s science-fiction structure. Kind of like Dark Matter did.
Just as a note, future episode reviews will not be this in-depth. As the show is just coming out, and we’re getting exposed to it, there is more of a need to go a bit deeper on the first episode than in future ones.
The rest of the reviews for this show will all be one page, not four like today’s.
Let’s break down the cast
Tudyk stars as the alien Captain Hah Re (though I don’t think his name was ever revealed in the pilot)/ Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle. Tudyk brings a profound creepiness to his performance with how he moves about the screen, mimicking an alien mimicking humanity. His brilliance is hampered a bit by a predictive pilot script, but it’s no less funny, charming, and somewhat creepy.
While you aren’t going to be clutching your stomach laughing through the run time, there are a few moments that will make you laugh out loud just for the sheer absurdity of it all.
Seriously, why didn’t they call the doctor’s wife?
Levi Fiehler plays the town’s young mayor, Corey Reynolds is Sherrif Mike “Big Black” Thompson and Alice Wetterlund is D’Arcy Morin. The scene-stealer actress and star-making performance have to belong to Sara Tomko, who plays Asta Twelvetrees, the small-town’s resident nurse. Her energy, and ability to connect with every character on screen to some degree is marvelous.
It’s the chemistry between Tomko and Tudyk that makes this show a potential hit for the network. Her character exists as an outsider from the town to a degree and has a traumatic history that many can relate to. Whether this show gets one more episode or ten more years, Tomko should become a household name from her role.