Awkwardness is human. It’s also Harry Vanderspeigle’s defining characteristic as a stranded extraterrestrial, making “Resident Alien” one of the most reliably entertaining and heartwarming shows on TV.
Harry power chomps pizza and inserts curse words in places that don’t quite make sense. To him, E.T. is a sexy, "beautiful moron" and children might as well be gerbils. No idiosyncrasy is too singular for him to wrestle into submission – and over three seasons of the Syfy series, he’s bear-hugged a lot of them.
That endlessly thrills Alan Tudyk, the human side of Harry. Tudyk is among the best-known and loved physical comedians out there, familiar to most as the scene-stealing co-star in such films as 2016’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” or the cult series “Firefly.” Between those credits and other genre titles he appears in, the actor has a strong reputation among sci-fi enthusiasts.
That led me to assume he’d have some wisdom for TV-binging Earthlings who, weeks after “Resident Alien” debuted on Netflix, have made “3 Body Problem,” another series about alien contact, the top-rated title on the streaming service.
That series' version of intelligent life and Harry share a few characteristics. Before arriving on Earth Harry and the aliens of "3 Body Problem" have no fondness for humans and conclude they are unworthy to co-exist with other intelligent species.
But Harry’s opinion changes after he gets to know Asta Twelvetrees (Sara Tomko), her best friend D'Arcy (Alice Wetterlund) and other residents of the aptly named Patience, Colorado. I wondered whether the audience’s fascination with these contrasting alien lifeforms told Tudyk anything about our perceived place in the universe.
Tudyk smiled brightly and said of “3 Body Problem,” “I haven't watched it yet. I didn't know it was an alien show. Cool.”
My turn to be awkward, I guess. But only for a moment. Tudyk reassured me, “That's OK. I know there’s a book, I should have already read it. I’m behind. But you know, aliens are hot! They’re hot right now. I don't know that I want aliens to come personally, but aliens seem to be more and more accepted these days.”
Tudyk is as generous in interpersonal conversations as he is onscreen, explaining why his co-starring presence in so many films is as memorable as the leads' performances. Ranking his affection for “Resident Alien” next to his other projects might require an expanded scale, though – he’s having a great time playing Harry, as anyone who watches it can tell.
Bringing Harry to life requires Tudyk to flex all his physical comedy skills, “which is rare in a single camera, certainly,” he said. “In a single-camera hour-long show, it's unheard of. We're getting to do things that are just aren't done and stuff that I enjoy watching.”
Tudyk’s comedy talent developed through extensive study beyond his time in improv troupes, at Julliard or as a Broadway performer. “Even before YouTube, I would go to the Museum of Radio and Television in New York and watch old television, old joke shows. I was a huge fan of [Dean] Martin and [Jerry] Lewis. I like old-school stuff.
“And this has the ability to do that,” Tudyk continued. “[Harry] can be extreme in a way that you can't be and still grounded. It can still be touching at times, like when he's in a breakup saying, ‘You can't take my love’ . . . I love that. And at the same time, being a complete jackass . . . in the middle of a very sad moment.”
Harry is an outsider who steadily becomes more human, along with developing an enthusiasm for bizarre food combos like pie dipped in watery oatmeal, and a kinship with the mayor’s son Max (Judah Prehn) that hovers between playful loathing and disinclined protectiveness. Sometimes Max is the only human in Patience with whom he can have an honest conversation. Sometimes he'll shove the kid out his front door using his foot while his girlfriend cackles, "Why don't you make like a Kleenex and put some boogie in it!"
The third season of “Resident Alien” shows how extensively this intergalactic transplant has rooted in Earth’s soil through his encounters with two other extraterrestrial species. The Greys are familiar to us as those large-eyed, bulbous-headed beings alien abductees say they’ve encountered. Two of the taken are Max’s father and mother Ben (Levi Fiehler) and Kate (Meredith Garretson), although they never remember their experiences.
Only Harry knows that the Greys have terrible plans for Earth related to transforming Yellowstone into an apocalyptic device. But since he developed a horniness for a birdlike Blue Avian named Heather (Edi Patterson), saving humanity has taken a backseat to Harry prioritizing what matters: getting all up in that cloaca whenever and wherever possible.
“We've gone now to the teenage years of the alien — he's in love, right?” Tudyk said. “And it is all the human emotion that exists. It's a window into what my teenage years were like.”
Come again?
“I was a very romantic young man . . . I would break my heart on women, and most of the time they would sort of notice halfway through it like, ‘What are you doing? Is that your heart? Stop it,’” he recalled. “From afar, she would capture all of my imagination. I didn't even have to talk to her. The entire relationship from the beginning to the end would happen without many words. I wrote breakup songs about women I never dated.
“Anyway,” Tudyk concluded, “I've said too much.”
Few science fiction TV shows and films are thematically divorced from the times in which they exist. “Resident Alien” is no different, even if the setup looks straightforward.
Tudyk’s alien embodies the absurdity of assumption along with an endless potential for wonder – and hedonism. Patience is an open-hearted place whose denizens tolerate Harry’s weird tantrums and lack of an internal editor. The locals are unashamedly sex-positive, putting up with Mayor Ben and his wife’s disconcerting over-the-top PDA and the unhinged flirtations of the town flirt Judy (Jenna Lamia).
"Resident Alien's" debut on Netflix has introduced a whole new audience to the show. That's a good thing since, tonally speaking, its mid-pandemic debut may have been a season or two ahead of schedule. The first season was a hit for Syfy, but when audiences met Harry in 2021 he was bent on destroying all humanity – you know, like a certain virus we were all hiding from.
As we’ve re-emerged and struggled to make connections, Harry has expanded his perspective and opened his heart to care about Asta and all her friends and relations. Seasons 2 and 3 place a specific focus on the notion of chosen family, which doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to one's species.
Harry may be the only alien who feels that way, however. There’s a vast intergalactic bureaucracy that we know nothing about, and it supposedly regulates what Harry can and can’t do. The Greys ordered him to be evicted from Earth, which is how he met Heather; her job was to supervise his departure, but the sex kept getting in the way. Anyway, Harry's refusal to comply will have consequences. Some day.
The Greys’ meddling with humankind this season also coincides with conversations about bodily autonomy dominating politics. They abducted Kate’s unborn daughter from her womb and only let Kate hold her while she’s captive with them, never allowing her to remember those encounters. That is, until Harry restores her memory.
“There are so many stories, especially in sci-fi, that are about struggles of the weaker and against the stronger, the struggle against unfairness, against cruelty and totalitarian government and drifting fascism,” Tudyk said. “I’ve been in several of them.”
What “Resident Alien” aspires to, especially in this season of Harry finding and losing love, is a lot simpler. “I hope this inspires people to love, if it can, ” he said with a laugh, adding, “If anybody wants to take something from it, it's to love no matter how different you might be.”
The lusty affair between Harry and Heather ended suddenly due to the Greys’ interference – and maybe a bit of bureaucratic meddling. But that’s only one type of affection spurring Harry to side with Earth over other invaders from above.
“We thrive in communities. I hope that comes out in the show because we do,” he said. “Science backs us up on that, that when we're isolated and we focus on how ‘other’ we are, if left alone, leads to disease. We just atrophy and disease.
“Joining together, talking to one another – just having a conversation, reaching out, helping someone else, doing all of those little things that you do in a healthy community . . . everybody knows that,” Tudyk added, before qualifying that statement. “But probably everybody doesn't know that if they aren't experiencing it right now. So they should know that, and maybe this will give them an idea that exists.”
Besides, togetherness has its advantages. There are other threats out there besides Harry, Tudyk teases about a potential fourth season. “But as long as Earth has Harry and Harry has Asta,” he said, “we’ll be alright.”
"Resident Alien" airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on Syfy and streams on Peacock. Season 1 and 2 are available on Netflix.
