They Are Among Us

Comic books are a common source for movies and TV shows primarily because they have a good track record of making money, but they have the secondary benefit that the adaptation to the screen is relatively straightforward. Comic books as they stand practically are storyboards. This is so much the case that adaptations sometimes go the other way. Novelist Christopher Moore (Noir, Shakespeare for Squirrels, Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story, et al.) once wrote a screenplay called The Griff; after more than a decade of it not being made into a movie, he morphed it into a comic book. While sales of comic books (and YA novels) have held up better than sales of adult prose literature, all of them trend downward. A movie that performs badly at the box office will have far more viewers than even a popular (by the standards of publishing) comic-book/graphic-novel ever will have readers. So, except in the obvious case of superhero flicks, most viewers are likely to be unaware of the original comic’s existence. Just a few examples: Wanted, Surrogates, Kingsman, Kick-Ass, The Mask, 300, and Scott Pilgrim vs the World.
 
The screen adaptation often differs in significant ways from the source material. This is understandable. As a comic-book-loving character in the movie Kick-Ass helpfully explains in the dialogue, what works on page doesn’t always work on screen. In the case of that very movie, for example, (*SPOILERS* follow) David gets the girl and Big Daddy’s backstory is treated as factual, whereas in the comic Katie has her boyfriend beat up David after the big reveal and there is a major twist to Big Daddy’s story. In Wanted, the screenwriters balked at the full nihilism of the comic in which the protagonists are self-serving psychopaths, pure and simple; in the movie they are working on behalf of Fate, a notion at which the comic book versions of the characters would have laughed. The TV show Painkiller Jane bears no resemblance at all to the comics other than the heroine’s self-healing abilities. So, I was surprised to a see a fairly close adherence of Syfy’s new series Resident Alien to the comics, the first three volumes of which I read about a year ago – not rigid adherence but fairly close.

The TV show had a troubled launch. It was initially slated to appear last summer, but covid restrictions got in the way of filming. Production resumed eventually despite the restrictions and the show premiered a couple weeks ago. Alan Tudyk portrays a stranded extraterrestrial in the small isolated mountain town of Patience Colorado. He takes on the persona of Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle who owns a small lakefront vacation cabin. He tries to keep a low profile, but one day he is called upon by the local sheriff to do a forensic examination at an apparent murder scene. The local town doctor can’t do it because he was the victim. “Vanderspeigle” is then asked to fill in as town doctor. He thereby becomes involved with the locals in spite of himself, particularly with the nurse Asta Twelvetrees (Sara Tomko). Fewer than one in a million humans are able to see through the human appearance to the alien beneath, but as luck would have it the mayor’s young son is one of them, even though no one believes him.
 
Tudyk is an ideal choice for the role. He has a wide range, having been excellent as the eccentric pilot in Firefly, the psychotic genius with multiple personalities in Dollhouse, and the well-meaning good-old-boy in Tucker and Dale vs Evil, among other roles. He pulls off the necessary alien weirdness that is a bare millimeter on the credible side of human quirkiness – not an easy balance. One can see how people encountering him might be momentarily speechless but then shrug.
 
The trope of the alien trying to blend into human society is an old one: an early appearance on TV being Gore Vidal’s 1955 teleplay Visit to a Small Planet. (This teleplay subsequently was adapted as a Broadway play, which in turn was transmogrified into an awful movie starring Jerry Lewis.) The trope is resurrected regularly: My Favorite Martian, Mork and Mindy, ALF, 3^rd Rock from the Sun, Roswell and more. Usually (but not always) the tone is comedic despite the theme of (pun unavoidable) alienation. (The 1989 show Alien Nation embraced the pun.) So, Resident Alien is not breaking new ground, but it’s still a likable show that proves there is life in the concept still. It does have a unique flavor. It is fundamentally a comedy, but a very dark one – much darker than the comic book version. After all, the alien’s task in coming to earth was to exterminate humans, he acquired the Vanderspeigle identity by killing the real one, and the show includes scenes such as a widow accidentally walking in on her husband’s autopsy. Presumably, the series arc will involve the growth of second thoughts in the alien about his primary mission, but we shall see.
 
I don’t put new TV shows on my watch list very often anymore, but this one is on it. Shakespeare it’s not, but it’s a pleasant way to spend an hour.