On this season of Resident Alien, which premiered on the Friday, the show picks up with Harry (Alan Tudyk) and his baby Bridget still stuck in an alien prison on the Grey Moonbase after a shape-shifting Mantid alien took over his identity and returned to Earth in his place. Harry must make his way back to Earth and find the means to destroy the Mantid, which won’t be easy.

Meanwhile, Asta (Sara Tomko) and D’Arcy (Alice Wetterlund) must keep the truth from Ben (Levi Fiehler) and Kate (Meredith Garretson), who both are looking to answers for what happened to them and their baby.

Sheriff Mike (Corey Reynolds) and Deputy Liv (Elizabeth Bowen) attempt to solve murders in Patience that Mike may start to believe have been committed by something not human.

Recently, star Tudyk and showrunner Chris Sheridan spoke with SciFi Vision about season four, including the balance of Harry’s growth, Tudyk’s turn directing this season, and more.

Watch the interview and read the transcript below.



***edited for length and clarity***

QUESTION:   Alan, can you talk about playing the dual roles of Harry and the Mantid, as well as the other changes or obstacles that Harry has to face after he returns to Earth with no spoilers?

ALAN TUDYK:   Yeah, at the end of season three, there's a Mantid in Harry's cabin at the end that only Max can see, and he's the most dangerous alien in the universe. And Harry is stuck in jail on the moon.

So, when we pick up just a month later this season, I'm still on the moon. Harry's still on the moon, and now I'm this new guy. And he was fun. He's a street tough. He's dangerous. He smokes cigarettes. He wants to eat. He loves the Earth. He just wants to...He's venal. He's all urges. And that was great. It was fun to just be that kind of that level of looking for... He's a predator, just full predator. When Harry came down, he was gonna kill everybody on Earth, but he was doing it for good reasons. He wanted to save the Earth, and the humans, they saw that as the problem. And once you get rid of all the humans, the Earth is gonna be fine. So, he was never this predator. It was just something that was logical.

Harry now, this season, when he comes back to Earth to take on this Mantid, he realizes that he is missing his alien energy. He doesn't have the ability. He doesn't have the strength. He doesn't have the ability to transform. He's diminished, and he's become human. And it's been a theme in the series that he's becoming more and more comfortable with being like humans and taking on more human qualities and their traditions and admiring humans. But now he's full on, no longer an alien. He's just left with his human DNA, and he has to come to terms with that. And it was a great arc to...

It's difficult. It's difficult.

SCIFI VISION:   That actually leads me into what I was going to say. Even though he’s also literally human, I was gonna say more figuratively, but he is definitely grown, I think, a lot more this season than he has any of the seasons, acting more human and understanding them a bit more. So, sort of talk about that growth, for both of you also just kind of balancing it, how do you decide between him growing and him staying this kind of quirky alien that we love?

CHRIS SHERIDAN:   Yeah, I mean, so much of that last piece, which is how do you move Harry forward in his journey towards humanity, but still keep the quirky alien? So much of that is the work, the subtle work of acting minutia that Alan is able to do, which is you can see both things happening at once, which is him gaining more humanity and him having more empathy and understanding, but he still has a personality. He still is this alien at heart.

Even when he has lost his alien DNA, he still is an alien, like he still has his alien soul in a way where he's not just immediately walking like the original Harry Van Der Spiegel and talking human. He has his own character in there, and I think Alan balances that incredibly well.

But in the writer's room, it's something we have to keep in mind, because it is a show about this alien, and we don't want to make a different show. We just want to push the boundaries of what Harry can learn, how much human growth can someone gain, and how hard it might be to sort of become more human through the eyes of this alien. So, it is a balance both in the writing and in the acting, but I literally can't fathom another actor being able to pull off what Alan has done.

SCIFI VISION:   Alan, can you talk about that?

ALAN TUDYK:   It was tricky at first. I always saw Harry as, like his alien force was too much wattage for the bulb that is the body he's in. He's just kind of vibrating, and is larger than himself. It's like he's trying to come out, and that's kind of was part of his character that people have gotten to know.

And I was able to, there were scenes. I remember there was a scene that I had with Alice where I was doing work that I haven't done, I don't think, on camera before even. Just in stage stuff.

Just more the humanity of it. That wattage is dimmed, because he's been diminished, and he's a little bit more in his body. He's a little bit there and inside of his feelings. It's exciting. I look forward to seeing it. I haven't seen as much as you have. You've gotten some copies of things.

SCIFI VISION:   Well, it's very good.

QUESTION:   …Chris, about the guest stars this season?

CHRIS SHERIDAN:   I mean, we have a lot of the classics that we've had. Sarah Podemski and Jenna Lamia play Kayla, Asta's cousin and Judy, D’Arcy’s friend. Like we have the classic guest stars. Gracelyn Awad Rinke plays Sahar, [who] is back, of course. Diana Bang plays Ellen. Then we have Gary Farmer, of course, is Dan, you know, who's in every episode. It's actually most episodes, and he's just absolutely fantastic. We also have Edi Patterson is back a little bit this season. Enver Gjokaj is back. Linda Hamilton is back this season.

ALAN TUDYK:   And Stephen Rupp.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:   The incomparable Stephen Rupp, who comes in and plays with us and is absolutely fantastic. Jewel Stait’s.

ALAN TUDYK:   Yeah, Jewel State. That's big news, guys! Fantastic. I did a little show with her a long time ago called Firefly.

SCIFI VISION:   I definitely miss it anyway.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:   Yeah, so there's a lot of great actors coming in.

QUESTION:   Who plays Bruce? The voice.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:   Oh, yes. I forgot about Bruce. A wonderful actress named Jinkx Monsoon…One last name out there, which is playing the voice of the Mantid alien is Clancy Brown.

SCIFI VISION:   Alan, I just wanted to ask really quick about directing the first two episodes. What that experience was like. And acting at the same time [which has got] to make it harder.

ALAN TUDYK:   It was tricky, you know. You know, there's other people there to help. When I'm doing two characters in the scene and directing, it's tough, because I would have to leave to get my makeup, get the beard off and change. There's just logistical stuff that was difficult to be everywhere at once. And my wife was there, Carissa Barton, who is a choreographer and has directed some dance pieces. But she knows me and knows what I like about my work and could critique me to me in a way that probably most people wouldn't. [laughs] That's why she's my wife, right?… But it was, it really was a challenge. It was great though to get to start early in pre-production and see it all come together and to work with all the other people who make the show.

And it, my feeling was, I was trying to think of the right metaphor while I was doing it. It's like, as actors, you know, we go out in the world and people are coming up to me going, “Hey, I love Resident Alien.” “Hey, you're that guy from Resident Alien.” And you think of yourself as the show. I don't know. We are not; we aren't even the icing on the cake. We are the sprinkles on the icing on the cake or maybe a candle that you light at the end. But the cake is made by an army of people, an army of artists who are all playing off of each other. Somebody comes with this prop. Chris says, what about this? This person says, what about this? They come back. Artists and artisans all coming together who care deeply about their job. That's what makes TV making and filmmaking and any kind of production so beautiful. It's the collaboration of artists that you would not get to the end product without all of, without everyone there. And getting to see that in happen on a show that I've been on for three seasons for the first time was pretty great.