‘Resident Alien’ Adds Emmy Winner to Cast for Season 4

Genre-bending TV series Resident Alien is set to back up its move to a new channel with a new guest star.

Emmy winner Stephen Root (HBO’s Barry) will join the cast of the series in Season 4, which is moving from the Syfy channel to USA Network due to the show’s gradual growth in popularity over its three-season run.

The sci-fi comedy-drama murder-mystery stars Alan Tudyk as an alien sent to Earth to wipe out the human race. He takes on the identity of doctor Harry Vanderspeigle, but eventually gets dragged into solving a local murder in the small Colorado town he crash-landed in. Along the way, he realizes that humanity might be worth saving after all.

According to the official description from NBCUniversal, Root will join the cast as Tudyk’s extraterrestrial father, who will attempt to “push Harry to go back to his evil alien roots.”

Resident Alien is based on the comic series of the same name. It’s published by Dark Horse and written by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse.

The series is unusually critically acclaimed for a Syfy original, with particular praise for the performance of Tudyk in the oddball comedy. Over time, Resident Alien has become the crown jewel of the channel in both ratings and reception, so adding a big name like Root to the cast amidst a move to USA Network makes sense.

FX’s official synopsis for the fourth season says:

“The fourth season starts with Harry (Tudyk) and his baby Bridget stuck in prison on the Grey Moonbase, while a shape-shifting Alien called a Mantid (also Tudyk) has taken over his body on Earth passing himself off as the real Harry Vanderspeigle. Harry manages to escape the Greys and arrives back on Earth for a showdown with the Mantid Alien but soon finds he may not have what he needs to finish the job. Asta (Tomko) and D’arcy (Wetterlund) struggle to keep a secret from Ben (Fiehler) and Kate (Garretson), who are both desperate to find answers to what has been happening to them. Sheriff Mike (Reynolds) and Deputy Liv (Bowen) attempt to solve some mysterious deaths in Patience that Sheriff Mike is beginning to think aren’t caused by anything human.”

The fourth season of Resident Alien does not yet have a release date.