Resident Alien: How Sci-fi Icon George Takei Became an Alien in Season 2 of Hit SYFY Series

Resident Alien surprised viewers in the latter half of its second season with an unexpected voice cameo from the one and only George Takei. The genre icon (famous for playing the role of Lt. Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek: The Original Series and its subsequent film adaptations throughout the 1970s and '80s) pops up near the end of Episode 13 — "Harry, a Parent" — as The Grey leader who demands that Harry (Alan Tudyk) cease all efforts to prevent an upcoming Grey invasion, lest his loved ones end up six feet under.

The sinister characters briefly re-appears in the season finale during the big reveal that Mayor Ben Hawthorne (Levi Fiehler) has been abducted with his unborn child. In an interview with SYFY WIRE after the episodes aired, showrunner Chris Sheridan revealed that the idea to enlist Takei originated with series executive producer and director, Robert McNeill.

How George Takei Joined Resident Alien as an alien

"We wanted someone who's in the sci-fi world and George Takei is incredible," Sheridan explained. "I remember when we were shooting Harry outside for the conversation with The Grey — who’s fully digital (we had like a tennis ball on a stick) — we didn't know yet that we were hiring George Takei. But we thought we were going to try to get him, so we had Alan do a lot of the ‘Oh, my!’ stuff on his end just in case we could get George Takei. When we got George Takei, we then played back the Harry ‘Oh, my!’ stuff and had George Takei — this is now months later — reacting. We then scripted a back and forth off of the ‘Oh, my’s!’ and and pieced all that together and it came out great. George was such a pro, such a fun performer, so open and game to do all that crazy dialogue and was laughing through the whole thing, having fun. He was a joy to work with."

Thanks to the rest of Goliath's message, we now know that The Greys plan to conquer Earth with a secret horde of alien/human hybrids. When we asked whether this was meant to channel the spirit of The X-Files, Sheridan said: "We were trying to figure out our own reason for it, which we'll explore in Season 3.

He continued: "A lot of it is [based] off of real stories people have about interacting with The Greys and seeing Grey hybrids on the ships. These are all … stories that people have told about things they've seen in their own abductions and they remember it through hypnosis or whatever. I love to take stuff that is real in the alien worlds and try to explore that as accurately as possible."

The first two seasons of Resident Alien are now available to stream the SYFY app and Peacock. Season 3 is now airing on SYFY, with new episodes dropping every Wednesday at 10/9 c.