Posted: June 27th, 2025 / 04:43 PM

, based on the graphic novels by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse, airs Friday nights on USA and Syfy, with episodes thereafter available for streaming on Peacock. Beginning July 4, moves to a new Friday timeslot at 10 PM ET/PT, 9 PM Central.

Developed for television by showrunner Chris Sheridan, follows the misadventures of an extraterrestrial who has assumed to appearance and identity of small-town Patience, Colorado doctor Harry Vanderspiegle (Alan Tudyk).

Sara Tomko plays Harry’s nurse, Asta Twelvetrees, who almost immediately finds out Harry’s big secret. Despite being at odds at first – it helps when Harry decides not to follow through with his initial mission to destroy Earth – Asta and Harry develop a unique friendship.

The day before the Season 4 Friday premiere of on USA and Syfy is a busy one for the cast and showrunner, with Zoom interviews in the morning and more interviews on the “black carpet” in the evening.

Therefore, Tomko talks to Assignment X twice in one day. This article combines both those conversations.

While Season 4 premiered at about the same time of year that Season 3 did in 2024, was there a gap between shooting those seasons?

Tomko answers in the affirmative. “The gap mostly happened because of the [actors’ and writers’ unions] strike, so we had to take a little break between airings, because we finished work on Season 3, but then we weren’t done in post-production, so we weren’t actually able to air it until two years later, because that’s the way the industry goes right now. We wrapped 3, I think, around March 2023, and we didn’t start shooting until December 2024, so it was about a year and ten months or something like that. It was the longest we’ve ever taken a hiatus.”

Did Tomko have any concerns about Season 4 before it happened?

“I wasn’t really worried about anything in Asta’s world. I think that says a lot about what Asta has been through. I think she’s gotten to a point where she’s like, ‘Eh, it’s just a Tuesday’,” she laughs.

“But I was worried as Sara about the end of the show, or the possibilities of what’s going to come, because this industry is so all over the place, and you never know – we have what we have now, today is only today. So, I came into this season not with I’d say fear, but uncertainty, and wanting to really just soak up every last minute and beat of all these people and all these places, just in case [there isn’t a fifth season]. So, this season was incredibly fun and incredibly meaningful to shoot.”

In terms of where the story begins for Season 4, “It’s picking right back up where Season 3 ended, but it is getting a chance to show all of those cliffhangers that happened for each character, they pick up and they find solutions and answers, and by the end, there’s a nice, perfect little bow to everything.”

How does Tomko keep Asta fresh in her mind between seasons?

“Asta just is a part of who I am. She is somebody who I’ve connected with since the moment I auditioned. I never expected to land the role, but I remember getting the audition and thinking, ‘I really know who this girl is.’ I think she’s always with me.

“There are things that she does that I don’t do. She wears leather jackets and jeans,” Tomko, at least for public events, favors colorful dresses, “and is very conservative when it comes to her love life and not wanting to give too much of herself too quickly. Even though she’s a nurturer, she still keeps a lot close to the chest. I’m a lot more open and vibrant, but I love that about her, because she’s taught me a lot over the years, to just chill out and take care of myself. And so, when I go back to acting, and go back into work, it really takes me just putting on the leather jacket and all of a sudden, I’m back.”

Tomko is of Native American, Polish, and Slovak heritage. Has she been instrumental in how deals with Asta’s Indigenous identity, family, and community?

“Yeah, that was a conversation that Chris Sheridan and I had at the very beginning. When I went into casting, I had a very particular knowledge of my family background, and over time, the show and the Indigenous artists that I have worked with and met, we really had great conversations about what Indigenous representation is.

“Chris and I felt like it was better for Asta to be adopted, because she’s an ‘other,’ and Harry is an ‘other,’ and they connect a lot more in that way. But it also makes a lot more sense to my true background. I don’t fit just one box, I don’t fit just one group of people. So, I like representing the ‘others’ of the world. But I do love that I was raised in the show on the rez with my dad [played by Gary Farmer], and with my cousins. I think that says a lot about Asta’s spirituality, and it’s also very true to how I feel, too, in my own personal life.”

By now, Asta knows that Harry is not really a trained doctor. Does she feel a greater responsibility to be a better nurse because of this?

“Yeah. I think there’s something about Asta that is always going to want to take care of people, and even though Harry isn’t the best doctor there ever was, he is super-knowledgeable and has taught her a lot about human anatomy versus alien anatomy. And I think she’s seen how bad his bedside manner is, so she’s gotten even better at taking care of her patients. And I’ve also learned as Sara how to sew up a bullet wound, and I’m pretty good at it now, so if you ever need me out in the field, I got you.”

At least in the first few episodes of Season 4, it seems as though Sara is giving everyone else support, but not going through too many changes herself. Was that fun for Tomko to play, or was she looking forward to something that jolts Asta?

“In some ways, there’s a through-line for her of being a caretaker and never really taking care of herself, so it is always underneath all of her intent with her scenes and the experiences she’s having in Patience with these people and this family. I do think from Season 1 to 4, there’s a ton of growth for her, between being someone who’s in regret and shame and coming into the world in a bad relationship, in a real depression, and bonding with someone who’s otherworldly, because that is the most normal thing, to feel so ‘other’ that she feels like she can understand this person.

And so, to get to Season 4, where Harry [stuck in human form] is struggling to be human, and she finally gets to help him – not to say she hasn’t helped him a lot in these four seasons, but she finally gets to say, ‘This is how it is sometimes.’ He’s kind of going through a depression. It’s a real mirroring of what happened from Season 1 in Season 4, which is actually a lot of fun to play.

“And so, I think Asta’s grown so much that, at the point that we see her and get to experience her in Season 4, she’s starting to question what’s next for her, and what’s beyond this place, and beyond Patience, because now we know the moon is an alien base. So, what else is out there?”

Meredith Garretson, who plays town mayor’s wife/mother of missing baby/alien abductee Kate, interjects, “If I may be so bold, I feel like Asta changes so much over the course of this show. I’m thinking about where you start with [Asta’s given-up-for-adoption daughter] Jay [Kaylayla Raine], and trying to get her close to you, but doing it in this surreptitious way, and then learning to be her mom from a distance and let her be – all of these different aspects of yourself, your relationship to [ex-boyfriend] Jimmy [Ben Cotton], your relationship to [human best friend] D’Arcy [Alice Wetterlund], and putting up boundaries with D’Arcy and Harry. I feel like Asta is one of the most transformed characters in the show by the end of the fourth season.

Tomko is pleased with this assessment. “Yeah.”

“But,” Garretson adds, “it’s internal shifting.”

Tomko concurs. “It definitely is. On the outside, it doesn’t seem that much, but internally, a lot has changed.”

In Season 4, Episode 3, Harry is tempted to allow the enemy Grey aliens to blow up his home planet in exchange for getting his true alien form back. Asta is against this, even though the beings on Harry’s home world wanted to annihilate Earth. She ultimately prevails. What are Tomko’s thoughts on Asta’s feelings in this situation?

“I think Asta is always going to want to take care of the best of humanity, and while Harry [originally] wanted to obviously follow through with his orders to obliterate us all, Asta believes that it’s not only her life, her family’s life, it’s all that she knows, and even though we’re a really flawed species, we still all deserve to live and have our own experiences, and I think Asta stands for that every time that she talks to Harry about, ‘Don’t do it!’”

Something happens on the red carpet that causes Tomko to briefly burst into song. Is this a clue that Asta may sing this season?

Tomko laughs. “I wish. I wish. I have been [asking] Chris Sheridan to do a musical episode, but he’s not convinced that that’s where we need to go just yet. My whole theory is that Harry watches TV, right? What if he falls asleep, and there’s a musical on TV, and it just so happens he dreams about the people of Patience also in a musical. That’s my take, I’m throwing it out there to the writers.”

And what would Tomko most like people to know about Season 4?

“Season 4 is a refreshing dive into the science-fiction of it all, and it’s a great, reflective journey from Season 1 to Season 4. It will be memorable for all the laughs, for all the tears, and for the meaning behind it.”

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Article: Exclusive Interview with RESIDENT ALIEN star Sara Tomko chats Season 4