Resident Alien

Resident Alien knows what it is doing and does it with admirable sincerity. It deploys well-worn tropes without cynicism and plays with others without winking exhaustingly at its audience.

The show is off to a great start. ... Tudyk’s performance makes Resident Alien work, but there’s a quirky-enough world around Alien Harry that the show should be more than a one-note joke.

Given the twists and turns, there's always the risk that Resident Alien could begin to exhaust its premise; still, if the writers can sustain the creative orbit established by its opening batch of episodes, it looks like the kind of series that could extend its stay indefinitely.

Among all the secret weapons inhabiting “Resident Alien” the principal one is Mr. Tudyk. ... “Resident Alien” isn’t always laugh-out-loud funny—there’s a murder case at the center of it, after all—but it’s got a good sense of how much nonsense people will listen to before they start blaming the person they’re talking to. And how much nonsense they’re willing to serve up.

Resident Alien proves capacious in its depiction of Harry’s assimilation, too, as his callousness gradually gives way to empathy, resulting in poignant moments that ground his odyssey in deeply human experience.

Resident Alien is a fun blend of sci-fi intrigue and knockabout humor. [1 - 14 Feb 2021, p.7]

When "Resident Alien" resists the urge to meander and sits with Harry's various epiphanies about the human need to belong and yearning to forge bonds with others, it glimmers with the potential to be a show that's as heartfelt and contemplative as it is dark and funny. These strengths become lost in its initial journey, but with Tudyk serving as its beacon that may not matter.

The combination of Tudyk’s otherworldly performance and Sheridan’s execution of stories running on multiple, parallel tracks make “Resident Alien” a welcome addition to the dwindling ranks of scripted basic cable originals.

The writing isn’t quite of that caliber [“Northern Exposure”]—it too often goes for easy character beats instead of nuanced storytelling—but this is a consistently likable show at a time when people could use something comfortable and easy.

Much like the dilemma faced by its main character, this is a spry half-hour comedy trapped inside the body of an hourlong series too expansive too early for its own good. Still, despite the elements that sometimes drag it down, Tudyk and those most locked into the energies of the show’s funnier side are enough to keep you curious about where Harry ends up.

That uneven hit-to-miss ratio means Resident Alien is only fitfully entertaining, at least for now. Whenever Tudyk or Wetterlund (or both, in the show’s best scenes) are onscreen, the show generally shines, remaining funny and engaging despite the odd stumble.

It's a nice send-up of various genres, based on the Dark Horse comic books. However, it feels too slight to warrant hour-long episodes and would perhaps be snappier in half-hour bites.

It’s the sort of show where offbeat things happen: when the town’s doctor is murdered, the mayor instantly appoints Harry as his replacement despite not knowing a thing about him, and Harry carries on the charade despite knowing nothing about medicine. And if it had stuck to that, it would be a winner. But at times it shifted uneasily into more downbeat territory. ... The show needs to give us less of that and instead mine the comic potential, because the set-up here is appealing.