Resident Alien had an interesting first season. A show with a decent budget that had some serious teething issues as it struggled to introduce its wide range of characters that were insanely flawed and clearly exchanged between writers with evident different intentions for them. Some episodes of Resident Alien's episodes were terrible, having no purpose in the grand scheme of things and are absolutely in no way necessary to view with no impact on the show's narrative or character development whatsoever. I found myself questioning whether I should even continue with the show, however with the second season being released and the interesting story, I decided to keep going.
While Resident Alien's second season continues to face these same issues as the show struggles to find its footing, it certainly is improving. With better production quality, a slow but engaging story that is unfolding finally. While production quality has improved quite a lot, the main problem remains the writing, with a wide range of characters that just feel as if they serve no genuine purpose for the most part, and feel more like filler to spread out seasons.
Though Alan Tudyk's performance remains the most engaging and interesting aspect of the entire show, pretty much carrying it with his presence and performance as our resident alien. Still, with its slow pace, season two remains a mere fraction of the entire narrative that is aimed to be told. Meaning you are definitely going to have to wait for the next season to see some real answers, with the first two seasons being a very slow build-up.
I will refrain from posting about specific events and characters in this review to avoid spoilers.
Resident Alien: Season 2
While our resident alien is the greatest part of the show, much of it does not rely on his presence. Each episode seems to focus more on our human characters in an attempt to display some general life lessons that our alien learns by the end of the episode's runtime. These lessons tend to be one simple aspect of human condition that is not present to our outsider alien. Customs we all share that ultimately shape and form the society we live in, ranging from the idea of empathy to the idea of guilt and betrayal. The idea that humans are incredibly complex beings and perhaps more alien than a literal alien. This idea holds a plethora of potential in showcasing the ways in which humans interact and think, but in the case of Resident Alien it most definitely could be done better, and in less time.
The main reason I believe this is because of how utterly strange the writing can be when it comes to displaying our human characters, which are definitely flawed in various ways, with their own stories that are slowly explored and supported which is supposed to build a general idea of who these people are and justify the strange personalities they have today as adults. Of course to our alien this results in lessons to be learned as he observes them -- though in many case his presence is not there and it results in some strange narration regarding the general story as if he was watching this whole time. The question of what makes a human is one that contains deep value and consideration over a span of many episodes, but it is often lost in how the writers somehow fail to know the answer to that themselves.
As each episode pulls us from one character to another while still attempting to juggle other characters and somewhat loosely attempting to follow a larger narrative, Resident Alien's second season struggles to display a realistic set of humans for no particular reason. Characters do not just seem to be flawed intentionally and this unlikeable, but unlikeable because there are some clear self-inserts and attempts at humour in which the show often struggles to take itself seriously when it needs to. Certain characters don't seem remotely authentic in their dialogue, even evident in the child characters which often seem to have more maturity than the adults of the town. Again, this does not appear to be intentional, but a mere aspect of poor writing in which the writers struggle to create characters that stand out and hold differences to their personalities.
The writing in particular appears to be the show's greatest weakness as it attempts to spread out a simple narrative over the span of multiple seasons and a crazy sixteen episodes. I could definitely say that there is no need for sixteen per season in order to have the write impact and say what is needed. But hey, we need these quirky jokes and near stereotype of feminist women being grotesque in a desperate bid to relate to some of the audience, though falling flat entirely. I suspect that eventually the show will start to tie things together and start using these characters properly, but for the most part they're mere tools for cheap laughs and featuring some often very strange costume design that doesn't match.
While refraining from posting any spoilers, this season does finally start to do just that, with a very strong final episode that had me asking: where did this quality come from? Why didn't they just do all of this earlier? While things brings me to the next part of this little review: production quality.
Production Quality
At times Resident Alien feels like a very low budget show made by very armature filmmakers, though I feel this is never in the regard to its directing and cinematography. Though while evident it has budget issues in parts when it comes to shooting in some locations -- or perhaps the lack of locations which makes it evident they are using special effects -- the visuals remain quite good for what it is. There is a clear boost in budget when it comes to the visuals in particular, where the lighting is actually really good, with some good set design and art direction to follow. I never find myself looking at the interiors and saying they could be better, in fact I would go as far as arguing that they're better than productions with much higher budgets.
Costume design as mentioned is very weak in parts, where characters look almost homeless or featuring clothing designs pulled straight from a charity store and slapping them on characters with little understanding of how to dress them in regards to their personalities. Women in particular face this problem; it is as if people are running around using stereotypes of women when it comes to dressing them and writing them. Perhaps this was written by aliens that haven't actually seen a woman before. That is certainly how it appears at times. One character even changes their hair colour to a strange vibrant red without it really making any sense or having reason. Then wearing clothing which just makes the whole scene an eyesore.
Despite all of this, I am actually really excited for the next season. It appears things are picking up now, as the final episodes increased in quality and the main narrative finally got some attention. I suspect things will continue to improve as it takes itself more seriously, and I hope that its poor attempts at trying to make us feel and understand human characters is over. Though the idea is nice, it just isn't executed well. Understandably in regards to the main narrative this is all to display an alien that slowly understands humans to the point in which he becomes more like one, seeking out refuge within them rather than destruction. Things are getting better, but I guess time will tell whether it maintains the increase in quality going forward.
