Review: Resident Alien – Secrets s01e03

In the early days of a new TV show, there are times when it is searching to establish itself, and Resident Alien is in one of those moments with episode three, ‘Secrets’.  *Warning! Spoilers inside!*

After a pretty solid start, it definitely feels like there is a little uncertainty and a bit of a struggle to find the right balance and rhythm.  As it’s still only episode three, there are a number of elements and relationships that need to be defined before this show can really fly, but that is obviously to be expected at this stage.

The principal areas they’re juggling right now are Harry’s (Alan Tudyk) attempts to cover up the killing of the original Harry, the search for his ship, his Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote-esque relationship with Max (Judah Prehn), and then Asta’s (Sara Tomko) backstory.  The first of these gets a lot of time this week as a foot gets found by a fisherman, raising the anxiety in the town that there may be a serial killer.  While no one initially thinks that, Sheriff Mike (Corey Reynolds) is as gung-ho as ever and just fans the flames of fear amongst the townsfolk.

This results in a completely over the top search of the lake for the rest of the body, prompting Harry to go into panic mode about how he is going to dodge disaster.  They handle this pretty well, but it does play out in quite a formulaic way.  We’ve seen this kind of thing many, many times, so it does feel a little trite, but Tudyk’s performance keeps it just about working.

Much more rewarding is the ongoing feud with Max, as Harry finds himself at a bit of a stalemate.  Max isn’t sleeping due to the threat Harry poses, but in person more than stands up for himself, and you get this nice rapport between them where more often than not Harry looks a fool due to the meddling kid.  Max even gets an ally this week, in the shape of a fellow bullied kid at school, Sahar (Gracelyn Awad Rinke), who is one of the first people to believe in him.  There’s a real charm in how Harry gets outsmarted by Max, giving it a cartoonish quality, but still with the real threat of mortal consequences lurking in the background that gives it an edge.

Similarly, Asta’s backstory is getting some more depth, although there is a reveal that is surprising only because you would have thought they’d hold that secret at bay for a while.  It has been hinted that Jay (Kaylayla Raine) is Asta’s daughter, but here it is just made explicit, which is very early in a run to leave that one hanging.  Asta is an interesting character that they could do a lot with, even though the likelihood is they will spend a lot of time creating a ‘Moonlighting’ type friendship between her and Harry. In the meantime, they will use D’Arcy (Alice Wetterlund) as a romantic distraction, even though D’Arcy is a great character in her own right.  Hopefully they will use her for more than just this romantic sideshow, as Wetterlund is excellent and could elevate the show substantially.

The sting in the tail for Harry in ‘Secrets’ is that his ship is likely to be inaccessible when he does get anywhere near it, as someone else has found it.  Through some neat backstory, we see two operatives (Mandell Maughan and Alex Barima) from an unknown organisation trailing the story of a cowboy meeting Harry, who then kill him to get the location of the sighting.  It’s this mysterious duo who found the ship last week, so the ship could be under guard or even gone by the time Harry finds that location.

All those threads combined definitely made ‘Secrets’ feel a bit like it was treading water a little and that much of it was setting things up for the rest of the season.  Obviously, the beginning of any show needs a period for establishing the characters and parameters, but it felt like some of this could have been dealt with over a couple more episodes, leaving more space for a clearer or more engrossing plot.  Too much b-plot left the main one seeming a little thin, and as that was the ‘body in the lake’ hackneyed element, it was on thin ice already.  Still, the performances were great and there is enough happening to bring an audience back again, so this blip should be easily covered.

Resident Alien airs Wednesday’s on Syfy