Alan Tudyk is no stranger to the world of sci-fi. The actor made a name for himself in space-heavy projects like Firefly and Serenity before zooming into shows and movies like I, Robot and Transformers: Dark Of The Moon. He’s made a web series about fan conventions, and he’s even the voice of a Star Wars droid: K-2SO.
In other words, Tudyk has sci-fi bonafides. He loves the genre wholeheartedly and is committed to its success—and not just because his currently airing Syfy fish-out-of water-comedy, Resident Alien, just got picked up for a third season. The dude’s got taste. WIRED asked the actor to tell us a little bit about what he’s watching and loving right now, from Peacemaker’s opening credits to the eye-popping world of Foundation.
Foundation
This Apple TV+ adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s book series is a wonder of world-building.
Tudyk’s Take: I like that it’s set in a world that exists and is new. It’s like Star Wars in that it has its own, “This is a galaxy far, far away that we're witnessing and this is how they’ve arranged themselves. These are different humanoids and this is what technology exists, what magic exists, and what is important? What’s valued? What is their government? What are their politics?”
It’s also got great, great, great actors. Jared Harris is so fantastic. Lee Pace as well. What is Lee Pace doing with his diet, because how do I do that?
That’s another show that, if you stick with it to the very end, does a lot of cool twists and turns.
It’s its own world, and it’s beautiful. There’s no way anybody could have made Foundation too many years ago, or probably too many years from now either. I feel like it’s part of Apple saying, “We need to make shows and we happen to have a shit ton of money, so we’re gonna throw it out into different places.”
Severance
Speaking of Apple TV+ shows, this one about one very warped workplace is subtle sci-fi at its finest.
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Tudyk’s Take: I love this kind of sci-fi. It reminds me of Get Out, in a way. You’re not in space, but there’s a point where they just cut off Stephen Root’s head and slop his brain out into a bucket because they’re going to put his brain into the other guy’s head, and that’s science fiction. You can’t do these things. There isn’t transference in that way.
It’s a world that is very familiar with characters that are somewhat familiar, even if they’re a little off, like the brother-in-law who’s a self-help guru. He’s such a nut and so funny. Suddenly, in that world, you’ll get somebody doing something over-the-top, like they dance and they’re all eating cantaloupe and weird shit. It’s just so odd. It shows that in sci-fi, you can just make it up. “Yeah, we put a chip in your brain and it divides these two worlds …”
The actual filmmaking of how they do the transition from one world into the next and the production design between those two worlds is just so well done. I loved it. I’m so glad it’s coming back.
Outer Range
This Amazon Prime show, starring Josh Brolin and Imogen Poots, is about a rancher trying to figure out a very strange mystery.
Tudyk’s Take: Outer Range isn’t a Western, but they have cattle. It’s in the woods in Utah and Wyoming. There are rodeos and it’s all this down-home American-on-the-range living, and then it’s like, “Hold on, you got some sci-fi in my Western! What the hell? There’s a big hole into another dimension in the middle of the field. What the hell?”
I just loved it. I loved it because it’s the kind of show that a lot of people who don’t watch sci-fi and don’t invest in sci-fi all the time could get caught up in because it is sort of just a show about this family of good old boys going out honky-tonkin’ and doing the rodeo. It’s like Yellowstone, but they got some sci-fi in it.
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Josh Brolin is the best, man. Will Patton is giving an insanely inspired performance. He’s a fantastic character actor that I’m always happy to watch when he’s in anything.
The world they’ve created in that show has a lot of madness. When I think about quirky characters in sci-fi, I immediately think of Star Trek and Q. It’s like, “Oh, he's quirky.” You can’t put your finger on Q. You don't know what he’s going to do. He’s troublesome. But then in this, everybody’s just a little funky, except for that sheriff. She’s bringing it all down. She’s grounding the thing.
Rick and Morty
Tudyk got hooked on Dan Harmon’s twisted animated Adult Swim show because it’s “so dark.”
Tudyk’s Take: I had one of those shocks that can happen with a show where you’re seeing something for the first time and you can’t believe they went that far. It was the episode where Rick and Morty have to kill and bury the other versions of themselves. You’ve got this young kid who's having to commit his own murder and bury the body to cover up what he’s done. It didn’t give you an out. It was so harsh. There was no relief. The kid just has to live with it now.
The view of the universe through Rick and Morty’s lens is pretty uncaring. It’s a far cry from the early Star Treks where humans are going to these other places in the universe and teaching about morality like they’re these sort of futuristic crusaders coming in and showing you how it's done. In Rick and Morty, humans are idiots, except for Rick.
Peacemaker
There’s a lot to love about HBO Max’s Suicide Squad spinoff show starring John Cena—and not just its opening number.
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Tudyk’s Take: I had an inside track on this show because my wife choreographed the dance that’s in the opening. The showrunner James Gunn wanted her to know the whole show and to understand what it was before she created the dance, so she got to read all the scripts, which meant I got to read all the scripts.
It’s a neat thing to read a script prior and then have the outcome of the show beat your imagination, and it really did. The way they did the gorilla was so funny and so crazy. The cow, that grubworm thing, was just disgusting and awesome and all of the stuff. The little fairy things? They did such a good job with all their effects. Even just in the first episode when he uses his helmet to destroy that woman in the parking lot? I don’t know. It was just so well done.
It’s my kind of humor, too. It’s very crass. It will shock you. You can’t believe they’re going that far. But it also had echoes of what’s going on in the world.
I love superhero shows that bring in reality, and James does this so well. “If superheroes were real in this world, what would it be like?” Peacemaker wears his superhero outfit to the diner and they make fun of him for it. “Put on some other clothes.” “No, this is my uniform.” They’re making fun of a guy to his face. I love it.
There’s so much collateral death in these movies and shows and so much nonchalant killing that goes on that when you have somebody who is a killer like that, you’re like, “He kills too many people. That's not good. That's not healthy.” It has to have some kind of repercussions or an effect.
Anyway, it was great, and did I mention that dance? Oh my god, that dance. She made it during the pandemic, so I was John Cena. She told James Gunn, “I won’t make it too hard for your actors to do. I’ve got an actor who isn't a dancer, and if he can learn it, then anybody can learn it.” That was me. I was the low bar everybody had to get over.