SHOWRUNNER EXCLUSIVE
Resident Alien creator Chris Sheridan explains Harry’s next stage of evolution in season three
AS SEASON THREE OF RESIDENT Alien approaches its finale, let us reflect on alien Harry Vanderspeigle’s (Alan Tudyk) primary life lessons this year: love and heartbreak. Who could have imagined Harry ever getting soppy considering that, for two seasons, the alien of unpronounceable origins has been stuck on Earth trying to finish his mission of destroying the planet?
Yet once he took on a human guise to assimilate into the quirky town of Patience, Colorado, Harry has been doomed to gain more humanity with every life experience.
“Putting Harry through that grinder felt like the right thing to do in this season,” series creator Chris Sheridan tells Red Alert. “Each of the seasons lays out a different stage of his development. In season one, he’s almost like a baby, learning how to walk and talk.
“Season two was like early adolescence, where he’s going out and finding more friends. It then dawned on me, the very natural place for him to be in season three is a teenager, where he’s rejecting the parents – rejecting Asta (Sara Tomko), who’s like the parental figure – finding independence, and in this case, finding love.”
In this eight-episode season, the middle section has focused on Harry turning into a smitten kitten for Heather (Edi Patterson), the first Blue Avian alien on the series. She arrived at the end of episode three, “141 Seconds”, as a representative from the Galactic Federation, serving Harry with a summons to leave Earth. But thanks to some subterfuge by D’Arcy (Alice Wetterlund), she stuck around to make Harry’s heart go pitter patter.
“He has known love in this series, but this is a different type of love. As Harry says, it is not love in his head and his heart, like Asta is to him. It’s love in his pants,” the showrunner laughs. Sheridan says that they found the right actress to play the subject of Harry’s infatuation from Tudyk’s recommendation.
“He had mentioned doing improv at one point in Los Angeles with Edi Patterson, who he said was the funniest person he’d ever worked with, and that’s high praise coming from Alan. There are very few people who can go toe to toe with Alan. They are incredible together and have great chemistry.”
Heather also serves another purpose this season in terms of expanding the alien species featured within the show, which now includes whatever Harry is, Blue Avians and the Greys. Sheridan says that it was his c
