Syfy’s Resident Alien has been renewed for a fourth season, but it won’t be on Syfy anymore. For the show’s fourth year, it will be moving to sister network USA which is also under the NBCUniversal Umbrella. That network had mostly moved away from scripted programming the last few years but is trying to bolster its lineup for the 2024-25 season. The move will also entail a “significant budget reduction” according to Deadline because USA does not have a lot of money to put into its originals, and this is somewhat of a gambling seeing the linear viewing among the cable channels and broadcast networks continues to decline.
For those who wonder why the show did not stay at Syfy with a higher budget, that was apparently not an option. Its viewership on that network had dropped to its lowest numbers in three years during its third season, and the show would have been cancelled if not for the move to USA (I have had it On the Bubble throughout its third season). A large part of the reason that Resident Alien will continue is the viewership from its encore run on Netflix. The first two seasons were released there in February of this year and the show spent five weeks in the streamer’s Top 10. It is unclear if the fourth season is intended as the show’s last, and that may depend on the performance of prior seasons in streaming. The current season of the show will continue to be available to stream on NBCUniversal’s Peacock and the fourth season will likely premiere at some point in Spring 2025.
This announcement brings the Cancellation/Renewal Score for the current season to 28 renewed sci fi and fantasy entries (41% of shows tracked) vs. 16 cancelled and ending (23%). You can see the breakdown of the numbers and the full list of shows for the current and prior seasons at our Cancellation Watch Page.
Resident Alien follows an extraterrestrial being who crashlands on Earth and takes over the identity of a doctor named Harry. He is on a mission to kill all humans on the planet, but his resolve starts to waiver as he spends more time with the people he was sent to destroy. It stars Alan Tudyk, Sara Tomko, Corey Reynolds, Alice Wetterlund, and Levi Fiehler and it is based on the comic book of the same name created by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse.
We are almost at the end of the 2023-24 season and I expect more announcements to come over the next week or so. You can see the status of all this season’s shows at this link. And be sure to follow this site and the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for updates and breaking news.
Be sure to follow the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for breaking news and updates. And for the latest news and discussions on sci fi and fantasy television, follow r/SciFiTV
Follow our Sci Fi TV Schedule for all the currently airing and upcoming sci fi and fantasy television shows, and you can see the premieres for all the upcoming genre entries at this link.
Can the metrics be sure viewership of Resident Alien is down or people are moving away from cable to streaming. Without cable network broadcasts of NBC, CBS, ABC, USA, Syfy simply are not watched. There are just so many streaming services I am willing to pay for. I was happy to pick up Resident Alien where I left off on Netflix once I ditched cable.
Certainly people are moving away from linear viewing, especially the basic cable channels like Syfy. That fact that the first season landed in the Netflix Top 10 when it premiered on that streamer seems to prove that out. And my guess is that current seasons of the show are performing much better on Peacock than Syfy.
YAY!