Resident Alien: Pilot

January 29, 2021 12:38 PM - Season 1, Episode 1

An alien crashes on Earth and hides in a remote Colorado mountain town; after assuming the identity of the town doctor, his nefarious mission is threatened when he realizes one of the townspeople, a 9-year-old boy, can see his true alien form.

Hello, premise! How are you, a not entirely novel incarnation of such a thing within the SF genre, going to unfold?
Very pleasingly, is the short answer. [The Guardian]

Featuring Alan Tudyk.

posted by porpoise (14 comments total)

Ah yes, My Favorite Martian 2000. I've been looking forward to this since the first few minutes were put online several months ago.

Lots of this felt rote, as a pilot is wont to do, but right now I think the things that will keep me tuning in for subsequent episodes are the fairly dark tone and Tudyk's marvelously odd performance.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 3:06 PM on January 29, 2021 [3 favorites]

Tudyk is outstanding! I'm also having a lot of fun with the minor characters - my favorite so far being the deputy, who gamely tootles away as backup when her boss starts humming (was it Amazing Grace?) while on stakeout.
posted by Mogur at 5:19 PM on January 29, 2021 [4 favorites]

Yes, it was amazing grace, but it was more beatboxing than humming I thought.

This seems promising and I hope SyFy doesn't screw it up.
posted by axiom at 6:49 PM on January 29, 2021 [2 favorites]

Both is us and our 12 y/o laughed the entire time. Tudyk is just hilarious.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:30 AM on January 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

I enjoyed! Tudyk does this brilliant thing with his face and manages to look uncannily just like a lizard trying to be people — the hinged jaw, the fixed thin upper lip, the side-flashing eyes. It’s so fun to watch that I’m sure I missed lots of other details.
posted by mochapickle at 7:41 AM on January 30, 2021 [4 favorites]

Tudyk is one of the finest working comedic actors and this plays to his strengths really well. I can already see the arc of the show but there were enough surprising moments that made me think that there is something here that I want to stick with and see how they develop it.

The drunken attempted child-murder being something that I did not expect them to commit to so hard and his continued desire to go through with his original mission was also unexpected, even if the mission itself was easy enough to guess.
posted by slimepuppy at 2:36 PM on January 30, 2021 [6 favorites]

Yes, it was amazing grace, but it was more beatboxing than humming I thought.

Beatboxing Amazing Grace is even better!
posted by Mogur at 5:32 PM on January 30, 2021

Five minutes in:
So, the lesson here is never let Alan Tudyk land your spaceship.
posted by cheshyre at 7:23 PM on January 30, 2021 [18 favorites]

I'm totally just watching it for Mr Leaf-on-the-Wind also.
posted by Marticus at 1:20 AM on January 31, 2021 [5 favorites]

I like Tudyk a lot, and the character gave him a lot to chew on, but even he couldn't save this for me. None of the other characters clicked at all for me, and it just felt like the show as a whole didn't know what it wanted to be, and ended up just a mess. I got bored and left before it ended.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:24 AM on January 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

Finished the episode, and -- enh -- it's fine, but I don't feel any need/desire to watch further episodes.

the show as a whole didn't know what it wanted to be, and ended up just a mess
After watching, I looked up the critics' reviews, and that seems to be the general consensus (screeners got the first seven episodes)

Hollywood Reporter :

The infuriating thing is that I would watch Tudyk play this part and basically nothing else would even be required. The astonishingly versatile comic character actor could, in a different reality, have a borderline Jim Carrey-type career and this is possibly the meatiest, most central TV role he's ever had. Playing a character who's struggling to master a language, the mechanics of a new body and the myriad niceties of human interaction, Tudyk is having a field day. What he's doing is indeed so creative that it's disappointing when series adapter Chris Sheridan can't think of anything better for him

posted by cheshyre at 9:48 AM on January 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

I know it's not perfect, but the wife and I sure laughed a lot of times during the pilot. That's enough for me. I'm here for it.
posted by seasparrow at 11:58 AM on January 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

I enjoyed a lot of aspects of it, but it seemed like they were going out of their way to out-quirky previous SyFy shows like Eureka. Especially by having a Black sheriff who's spewing maga-ty insults and his bewildered deputy--I'm afraid that's gonna get old fast and while I set a season pass for it, I'm worried about that. Not to mention the required SyFy/CW filmed in and around Vancouver settings. Still, I'll give it a while and hope for improvements; all pilots have issues so who knows. I like the nurse so much that I'm hoping she gets more than just Love Interest, and I was glad they stuck with him wanting to kill the kid instead of wimping out on that.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 1:51 PM on January 31, 2021 [2 favorites]

this is a version of "Northern Exposure" with an alien. i am loving it :)
posted by alchemist at 10:56 PM on February 6, 2021 [4 favorites]