How Resident Alien Creator Chris Sheridan Set Up the Series Finale for Success (EXCLUSIVE)
Armed with a year of heads-up, Sheridan set out to make the most satisfying conclusion possible.
Appearing at San Diego Comic-Con last month, Resident Alien creator, showrunner, and executive producer Chris Sheridan admitted that he knew the hit show would officially conclude after its fourth season about a year in advance.
Speaking with USA Insider over Zoom this week, Sheridan went into further detail on his writing process for the series finale and how he wanted to wrap up the story in a satisfying way — both for himself and the fans.
"The last thing I wanted was to leave the show hanging. Audiences hate that. Everyone hates that, and I would hate that," he said. "The story that we were telling was an alien who came down to earth to commit atrocities, but was stymied by the fact that he started understanding a little bit about humanity and realizing that humans maybe had more to offer than he originally thought."
The alien in question? Well, we can't say his given name because it's just a bunch of guttural noises that don't translate well into text form, but after crash-landing on our planet, he assumes the human form of Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle (played by series lead Alan Tudyk), a physician living on the outskirts of a small Colorado town called Patience. And like Sheridan says, the cosmic visitor came here with one mission: to wipe out our species and get the hell out of dodge.
"The arc for the series that I always felt was necessary was taking that alien to a place of being this creature who just wanted to kill humans, to one who really understood humans in a way that he never thought that he would — and almost becoming human himself," noted the showrunner. "The goal for Harry was to take him to a place where he's ready to leave. He's learned everything he needs to learn, and there's nothing more he can get out of Earth, and then he can go home."
Resident Alien gives us one more E.T. callback in the series finale
Indeed, that's what happens at the end of Season 4, Episode 10, "The End is Here." Harry and Bridget board a spaceship and fly off to be with Heather (Edi Patterson) and the newly hatched babies we met earlier in the season.
Before leaving our atmosphere, however, Harry shares an emotional, E.T.-esque goodbye with all the friends he made along the way. The comparison to director Steven Spielberg's 1982 classic seems more than apropos, considering that Resident Alien was produced by Amblin Entertainment's TV division.
"We've done E.T. jokes before and called back to [the movie]," Sheridan said, referring, in part, to those moments where Harry expressed deep feelings of attraction for the iconic alien. "We have found there are limits to what we can do in the E.T. universe. I think Amblin is appropriately protective of E.T., although they gave us some leeway in the stuff that we did. But I think it lives in the show, just tonally, as an important sci-fi theme that E.T. made very popular, which is just the the trope of the boy who wants to be friends with an alien. It became such a big part of the show, and worked so well for us."
Resident Alien's finale song made Chris Sheridan's wife "burst into tears"
In the episode's final moments, the 1960s classic "Get Together" by The Youngbloods plays over Harry and Asta's mutual departure, closing out the Resident Alien saga on a note of optimism. The song, which should sound familiar to anyone who's seen Forrest Gump, was Sheridan's top choice from the get-go, with the showrunner wanting "a '60s/'70s, post-war, sort of peace-and-love-fest song."
"I knew it was a very important placement, so I went through some other choices and [those] fell out immediately," he said. "I’ll do this a lot when watching. I'll play the cut and play music under it and see how it feels. I tried a Leonard Cohen song, which didn't end up feeling right, and I ended up using that at the end of Episode 9. I knew I loved that [Youngbloods] song and really felt like it would work.
"But to me, there's a lot of pressure on that song, so I was second-guessing myself," he continued. "I ended up playing it for my wife and said, 'Just listen to the song and think about it for the ending. I want to know what you think.’ The song started playing, and she really immediately burst into tears. And so then I knew that that was the right song."
What's next for Chris Sheridan?
While Sheridan doesn't have anything locked down just yet (after all, the main titles for the final episode were only finished a week ago), he does know one thing for certain: His next project will certainly live in the same genre space as Resident Alien.
"I love taking normal, everyday characters and putting them in an extraordinary situation," he explained. "Taking a very normal town [like] Patience and dropping an alien in the middle of it is kind of the perfect thing that I like to do because you get to do both: You get to play the real emotions of it all and how they react to this big event that happens in their lives. I love that type of sci-fi, supernatural thing, and I think what I'm going to do next is something that's probably in that vein, a little bit. We’ll see, but I love writing things that remind the audience that the world is a little bit magical."
A Resident Alien movie?
During the show's SDCC '25 panel, Alan Tudyk got a huge reaction from the audience by suggesting that the series finale might lead into a Resident Alien feature. It seemed like he was totally joking at the time, but when we asked Sheridan, he had this to say:
"Personally, I think the odds are really good at getting some form of a Resident Alien movie," he said. "I wouldn't do it unless I thought it could be great. I’m reaching for the stars, but I'd also love to love to do a theatrical release movie if that exists in a couple years. I would love to do that, and I know the cast would love to get back together for that. So I think you need to let a little time pass before that happens. I don’t think you can jump right into it. And I couldn't tell you now [what it would be about]. I certainly have ideas that just come from thinking of the characters and where they ended up this year, but I personally think a movie is a good possibility."
All four seasons of Resident Alien will be available to stream on Peacock starting next Friday, August 15.
