Such “Blue-Sky DNA” largely vanished from basic
cable as it gravitated toward darker dramas,
Owen said, with “Mr. Robot” an example of
subsequent efforts to compete in a TV world
flooded by edgy fare on streaming platforms.
So how can a series on a niche channel like Syfy
compete? With the heft of Comcast-subsidiary
NBCUniversal behind it. The creative strengths
of “Resident Alien” aside, its promising start
demonstrates that even the right series at
the right time benefits from a juggernaut
promotional and scheduling effort.
Pre-pandemic, the series enjoyed a fall 2019
preview at New York Comic Con, an early-bird
approach to stoking enthusiasm employed by
other movie and TV projects. In January, NFL
Sports was enlisted to air a series trailer the
Baltimore-Buffalo NFL playoff game. Preceding
the clip: a narrator announcement of a “special
flyover” — not by a Stealth jet, but a visual effects-
generated UFO swooping over Bills Stadium.
Then came repeated airings of the pilot,
including a whopping 10 times on Syfy
and a simulcast on USA, and showings on
NBCUniversal’s E! and Bravo channels to
introduce the series to different TV audiences.
In ratings for the first two episodes of “Resident
Alien” in their initial Syfy airings combined with
the next three days — an extended window
that media companies say more accurately
reflects today’s on-demand viewing — the
second episode drew 581,000 more viewers
than the first (2.765 million vs. 2.184 million).
That’s the biggest week-over-week increase
for a cable or broadcast drama debut since
“Outlander” in 2014.