Resident Alien Series Finale: Alan Tudyk, Creator Chris Sheridan Talk Harry's Fate, Saying Goodbye And Possible Future Reunion
The following contains spoilers for the series finale of Resident Alien!
Patience's Resident Alien has left the building.
Friday's series finale of the Syfy/USA Network dramedy didn't shy away from emotional goodbyes, and it even turned pages on some brand-new chapters for our favorite Patience residents. A new alien from Harry's planet did crash-land onto Earth (R.I.P., Ethan), but Harry knew in his heart that humanity would soon take ahold of the new E.T., just like it did to him. Elsewhere, Mike and Liv became government agents, D'arcy tried her hand at helping a fellow A.A. member, Jay was off to college, and Asta moved to Louisiana to continue working in medicine. As for Harry, he bade Earth farewell and was off to live with his one true love, Heather.
Below, TVLine talks to series lead Alan Tudyk and creator Chris Sheridan (via separate Zoom conversations) about that heartfelt series finale, planning for the show's end and whether a return to Patience could possibly be in the cards for the future.
TVLINE | It was a shock to hear that Season 4 would be the last. How are you feeling about Resident Alien coming to an end?
ALAN TUDYK | It's bittersweet. The sweet part is that we sort of knew it was coming with broadcast TV going away. We were always a broadcast TV show, so we always knew that our time was limited there and we could feel it. Our budget kept shrinking a little bit more and more. Our ratings kept going up and our budget kept going down, so something wasn't right and we knew going into this last season, Season 4, that it was probably going to be our last season. So Chris [Sheridan] wrapped up the story, and it was great to live through the characters getting some closure while we were also, at the same time, going through our own closure after seven years — it's only four seasons, but we did it for seven years.
CHRIS SHERIDAN | I feel good. Look, I could have gone 10 or 15 seasons, yes. That would have been great. It's just not the nature of television these days. It just doesn't work that way. I try to focus on what we did get, which is four seasons, which is a lot more than most people get, and we were able to finish telling the story. It's certainly possible we could have gotten the rug pulled out from underneath us after Season 3, which almost happened and very easily could have happened. So to be able to come back for another season and be able to finish telling the story, I'm incredibly lucky and I'm very aware of that. It was a good season. I really love the storytelling and I love where the characters go. I'm just sort of relieved and thrilled that it all worked out so well.
TVLINE | Alan, when you first read the finale's script, what was your gut reaction to the ending?
TUDYK | That's the bitter part: the world going away, but it leaves it open in a way. This world is such that you could start another season right after this season where it's like, "Nope. I left and now I came back. I'm sorry, I ran into Venus and I met this new character," and you could go, "OK, let's see what you've got." But it's very sweet. Everybody's moving on. Especially with Asta's character. Every character this season has had a chance to go through something and to grow and to make a decision and make a choice. It feels right. Like an ending which is about to be a beginning.
TVLINE | What are you going to miss most about Harry Vanderspeigle and the world of Patience, Colo.?
TUDYK | I'm going to miss the uniquely bizarre ability to go very far in comedy and it still be kept in a realm of reality. That's very hard to pull off. I think this season it was best exemplified with Heather where I'm giving her a love message, a love poem, which is beautiful and talking about my deep love for her, but it's done in my language where it's just [Tudyk makes a bunch of alien sounds]. It's moving. You're sad for the beauty of how much he loves her because he truly does, and then he gives her a poem in ridiculous gibberish. It's the laughter through the tears kind of thing. I think it is a hard thing to do, to set up a world like that where you can have reality and truth and honesty right next to absurdity. A lot of people try to make it, try to do that. A lot of horror comedies try it and get close, but it can get silly so easily or it's not funny enough. This had the ability to live in extremes and I will miss that.
SHERIDAN | I'm going to miss the the actors, I think. I'll miss the actors and those moments on stage. Everyone was very close, working together. Shooting those scenes, [like] Harry Vanderspeigle trying to give CPR to an octopus, Harry and Heather kissing at the dinner table in Season 3 and doing ridiculous things. The emotional stuff, like watching someone like Alice Wetterlund go from being a stand-up comic to an incredible actor. She was always very good, but seeing the stuff that she pulled off this last season was just... [I'm] so proud of her and and incredibly impressed with how good she is. Everybody, Sarah [Podemski], Levi [Fiehler], Meredith [Garretson], Corey [Reynolds], Liz [Bowen], Judah [Prehn] is great, Gracelyn [Awad Rinke] is incredible. They're just all great actors and great people and I just found myself shooting these scenes and just staring in awe at some of the things they're pulling off and [how they're] elevating the scripts every single day. It was absolutely a gift.
TVLINE | What do you remember from the last day on set? Any memories you can share?
TUDYK | On that last day, I really enjoyed watching the camera feed from the drone shot, which was Harry's ship leaving. So I was able to see what Harry sees, which is this family waving goodbye, and I think that's how I like to remember that day. We've since seen each other a lot, so it's not a goodbye for us, as actors and as people, as humans in the world, but for that last day, I thought that was a really beautiful moment. To see his view going away, going back to his place in the universe.
SHERIDAN | I worked out the production schedule so that the very final scene, the final goodbye scene in the show, was the very last thing we shot and everybody was there. It doesn't always work out that way. A lot of times at the end of these seasons, some people finish shooting their stuff a week earlier and they're already back home. This time we were able to work it out where everyone was there. Everyone was together. It was incredibly emotional, having everyone on that beach together, saying goodbye to Harry. It was very sweet and sad, but it was nice.
We knew all season it was probably the last season, and we were able to kind of grieve all year. We had the season to say goodbye and even as the ending started coming closer, I had it on my schedule what days were the last days we were shooting in certain sets. Like, "Oh, this is the last day we're shooting in The 59 and this is the last day we're shooting in the clinic," so the cast got to say goodbye to the sets on those days. I remember Alice being very sad on the last day we shot The 59 because they live in these sets. It's like The 59 is Alice's set, the Hawthorne house is Levi and Meredith's set and and Judah's set. So it's sad having to say goodbye to that, but that's what happens and that's the business. I think everyone is just as happy and appreciative that we were able to get four years out of it.
TVLINE | There's a scene in this finale where Harry is departing in his spaceship, and even though he's in his alien form, we see his human form in his reflection. Can you speak a bit about the importance of that and where this ending leaves Harry?
SHERIDAN | Early on we made this decision creatively to remind the audience in reflections that Harry is an alien. That doesn't mean Harry or the people in that world are seeing him as an alien in his reflections, but the audience will see it. So we've always done that. It's funny because Robbie McNeil, who's our director, we both separately had the same thought, which is this time when he's looking outside and we see his reflection, he's an alien, but we see the human reflection. It's just our way of putting a button on it. That he started this story as an alien who came here to kill everybody, only to discover that humankind was different than what he thought. As he gets to know these people, he becomes more human himself and has a human side now that is caring and empathetic and loving. It felt right, at the end of this, to then see the human reflection, out of this alien creature that in the pilot was such a destructive force. It felt very natural and organic to do that, and I think it worked pretty poetically by the end.
TUDYK | It's a nice way to show, even though I'm in my alien form, I am human. I'm always gonna be human. Some part of me will be human from my experience on Earth.
TVLINE | Chris, were there any stories or elements you wanted to fit into this final season, but just couldn't squeeze in?
SHERIDAN | It's a great question. I think we were able to get most of it in. I had wanted to maybe bring back Justin Rain, who played D'arcy's love interest, Elliot. It didn't really fit story-wise because she was on her own journey with the alcohol, so it didn't really fit in.
I did have a sequence I wanted to do in the first episode that I wasn't able to do, which was a dance number with the Grey aliens, as an introductory to Bruce, the Jinkx Monsoon-voiced Grey alien. I wanted to start the season just seeing this alien on the spaceship, like mopping the floors and then [he] finds an old '90s boombox and presses play, and then "Midnight Train to Georgia" starts playing and Bruce starts singing into the mop. Then, other Grey aliens come in behind him and start to dance with him to it. I had wanted to do that desperately and I was not able to, so that was my big loss this year.
TVLINE | Are there any storylines or elements you're particularly proud of this season?
SHERIDAN | I'm very proud of the D'arcy arc. We worked very hard with Alice on that. It's a character getting to a really dark place and having to realize that alcohol is one of the problems. Those are hard stories to to do in a way that doesn't feel ham-fisted and preachy, and I think with Alice's help, we tried to make it as authentic as possible, even as far as like what A.A. looks like and feels like. A lot of people reached out and talked about how moving that was, and not just the alcohol thing, but D'arcy getting to the place where she questions whether she should be around anymore. We're luckily in a show where we can tell those stories and also do the comedy that we do, which sort of helps balance it. It doesn't feel so preachy because we're also being funny. It's the wonderful thing about this show, that we're able to do both of those things.
TVLINE | I know it's super early to be asking this, but is there a future for this universe? Perhaps a TV-movie or some other iteration?
SHERIDAN | When I got the official call that they weren't going to continue the show, I did ask about that. I asked Michael Sluchan (who's running Versant and heads up the USA folk) if, down the line, a movie of some sort or something, if they'd be open to it. He said yes. They've done a bunch of movies over there. They've done a few Psych movies. They've done a Monk movie. I asked them if they would consider doing one for us and they said definitely. You can't launch a movie next week, but you wait a couple of years and I think the audience will still be there for it. I know very much the cast would love to come back and do something and I would definitely be open to that.
The story we set out to tell originally in the pilot, we have now finished telling, but it doesn't mean there's not more story to tell. Harry left in the last episode. When I had the choice of whether to have him leave or stay, I decided to have him leave for a couple of reasons, but one of them was, if he leaves, then it's a great kick off if we do do a movie or something like that. Harry returns with some problem and people have to adjust. So I wouldn't be surprised if there's a movie or some sort in the future.
TUDYK | Absolutely. I would be open to a future of Resident Alien past this incarnation on Syfy and USA [Network]. I've been joking that Resident Alien vs. Predator would make an entertaining movie. You could do a mash-up there! I know that Predator seems to be having a resurgence, so I don't know how willing they would be to mash-up with us. But there's any number of stories you could tell, and who knows what the business is going to be doing. I think it just comes down to that. The reason we're leaving is because the business is shifting, changing and figuring itself out for a minute. And when it figures itself out, if it gives us a call, we'll pick up.
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