Yeah, in the comic, the alien has already been here for years. Fits in perfectly, no quirks, isn’t here to kill anyone and the stories are just him solving crimes. Ordinary crimes by ordinary people solved ordinarily in cliched, boring TV cop show ways–find clues, talk to witnesses. I’d say that it was mostly like Columbo, but Columbo was more witty and well-written.
Sounds as though the comic’s creator was extremely lucky to get that TV-rights money. From what you say, the comic doesn’t appear to be likely to become a money-making success on its own.
This constantly happens with comic book adaptations.
If you’ve never seen the 1970s Spider-Man live action series, well, don’t seek it out. But Peter Parker was a generically handsome, confident bachelor, J. Jonah Jameson was a generically even-tempered boss, and Aunt May wasn’t even mentioned.
RED the movie was a spy-themed action-comedy. RED the comic book was a gritty espionage thriller.
More recently and in a similar vein (heh), iZombie the TV series was very different than iZombie the comic book.
Also from the bits of the comic I’ve seen, the series The Boys vastly improves on the comic.
I’ve watched the first two episodes, and so far I’m not a fan. I’ve never liked “cringe” humor (where a character unwittingly does something really embarrassing or uncomfortable and that’s supposed to be funny) and this show seems full of it. I’m also not digging the combination of gross-out violence and snarky humor. It’s weird–this seems like the kind of show I should like, but somehow I don’t.
I might give it another couple episodes, but I don’t have high hopes.
What gross-out violence?
Having seen the first two episodes, I’m of the view that this would be an appallingly bad series if it weren’t for Alan Tudyk who absolutely makes it work. Tudyk brings the perfect balance of funny, unsettling, endearing, awkward and menacing that very few could pull off, and as a result the whole weirdness of it pulls together. Otherwise the “alien who struggles to be human and solves murders but has a dark secret” would be straight “cheesy 1980s kids film” material.
The pilot also had a lot of clunky exposition (“Let’s go to the bar so I can tell you, a stranger I have just met, my entire backstory!”) but that’s a standard pilot problem so I can’t blame the show for that. And the ongoing attempts to murder the child do at least serve to remind us that he is not a particularly nice alien (also not a very smart one, given that it would be hard to explain why he cut the boy’s head during a doctor’s appointment).
Definitely one to keep watching - I have high hopes it will continue to improve.
To me, in many ways, this is a classic star vehicle built for the leads unique personality and gifts. The actual plot arc/story line are really fairly secondary to letting Tudyk act the lovable kook. It’s best to hand wave away any holes or secondary characters or relationships that don’t really make sense, and just enjoy the ride.
Good points on the history of comic-rights-purchases not necessarily resulting in faithful screen adaptations, gdave and Darren_Garrison.
I’m still not remembering any gross-out violence (as mentioned in a post up there a ways), but maybe I’m just a jaded television viewer.
Well, there was the final shot in the second episode…
that showed the hiker’s desiccated corpse hanging in mid-air over the alien’s engine part, where he (and a couple of birds) has obviously starved to death after not being able to extricate himself. I was pretty sure that was going to be the pay-off for that little bit at the start, but it still kind of shocked at how detailed it was.
My boss isn’t coming in tomorrow so, if I have a light day, I think I can take in an episode or two! 
But that wasn’t “violence”.
I’ve enjoyed the first 2 episodes, but I have to agree, Alan Tudyk’s near perfect control of his facial muscles are what really sells it.
I’m liking it but I don’t care too much about the rest of the town. To paraphrase The Simpson’s, “Whenever Alan Tudyk’s not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, ‘Where’s Alan Tudyk’”?
Also, that girl that helps out is totally his assistant’s daughter that she gave up for adoption, right?
Agreed.
I thought that was pretty clearly established in the flashback - it’s the exact same house from the exact same vantage in the flashback and in the current day.
Wait what? I must have missed something completely. I know Asta had a child at 16 she gave up for adoption, but who is the “girl that helps out” that you’re talking about?
The high school girl that helps at the clinic has been implied to be the girl that Asta gave up.
The one with the fly on her neck.
People are confused about what has and hasn’t been revealed because episode 3 doesn’t air on the SfFy network until tomorrow (Wednesday) night. For some reason they made this episode available to stream a few days ago. I watched it on the SyFy app (free with ads) through my Amazon Fire TV stick.
Thanks for that. I forgot that happened.
The recorded episode completed and DirecTV took us directly to the next episode which was SyFy on demand. Weird that SyFy did that.