Resident Alien May Become a TV Series

What great news! I’d watch a Resident Alien TV show.

The comic series by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse is on its fifth miniseries with An Alien in New York, and over the run, the flexibility of the concept has been amply demonstrated. I can see it as a procedural, with a case of the week while the bigger storyline, about an alien’s impressions of humanity and his need to stay hidden, continues in the background.

In the comic, Dr. Harry V. is working as the town doctor in a small locale in Washington state, but he’s secretly a alien, crash-landed years ago. His identity is known by his assistant, a Native American, and her father, who wind up helping him solve mysteries. So far there’s been a drug ring busted, a past mystery author revealed, and a missing student, among other crimes.

In the current story, Harry and the shaman dad are visiting the Big Apple, following up hints in art pieces that Harry may not be the only alien on earth. Issue #3 is out June 13, and it’s a lovely piece summing up the life of the artist Harry is investigating, set in the urban art gallery world. (I read a preview copy from the publisher.)

Now comes news that Syfy will be making a Resident Alien pilot. Executive producers include Chris Sheridan (Family Guy), Dark Horse’s Mike Richardson and Keith Goldberg, and Amblin TV’s Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank (whose The Americans just ended and similarly covered a “stranger in a strange land with a secret” topic). The concept is described as

a dark, twisted, and comedic fish-out-of-water story that follows a crash-landed alien named Harry who, after taking on the identity of a small-town Colorado doctor, slowly begins to wrestle with the moral dilemma of his secret mission on Earth — ultimately asking the question, “Are human beings worth saving?”

So a bit of a twist from the comics, but as I said, I’d like to watch it.