Few franchises have assaulted my face and implanted their seed in my chest cavity quite like Alien. Ridley Scott’s claustrophobic original was one of my earliest experiences with horror, while James Cameron’s sci-fi-action sequel served as my entry point to the series and gave me an everlasting love for 80s cinema.

Though the quality has peaked and dipped with each subsequent entry I’ve stayed loyal to the franchise and the Xenomorph, entranced by the endoparasitic (and decidedly feminine) horror of this acid-blooded organism and the deadly pregnancy it inflicts upon its host.

At its best, an Alien film is a dread-filled live action Giger painting that could feasibly spring from the minds of Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett. At its worst, it’s Alien: Covenant.

As a lover of film taglines, I believe that “In space, no one can hear you scream” are words that every Alien film should live by. And if even Covenant had the good sense to keep the Xenomorph in space (or at least, an alien planet), then how would an 8-episode series called Alien: Earth fare?

Strap yourself in, for I have some thoughts and feelings about Noah Hawley’s new series.

Where (and when) are we?

Alien: Earth is set on this very rock in 2120, two years before the catastrophe on the Nostromo. We’re told that five companies control Earth and its colonies, including one we know, Weyland-Yutani, and one we don’t, Prodigy Corporation. We then get this preamble:

Historically, Alien films tend to feature a host of humans and a resident Synth that no one trusts (thanks to Ash), so we already know that Synths win the race. And as far as reigning corporations…

Franchise regulars will also know that Weyland-Yutani has already merged prior to this show and reigns supreme following its events, so we’re off to a somewhat irrelevant start. Still, the juice of Alien: Earth is in the set-up.

The set-up

Weyland-Yutani’s research vessel USCSS Maginot has been on a 65-year mission to retrieve specimens, our favourite of which has just been hatched courtesy of the human crew. Security officer and cybernetically-enhanced Morrow (Babou Ceesay) manages to evade the Xenomorph that has just slaughtered the rest of the crew by entering a safety pod. And just as well, because the ship’s about to crash land in New Siam, a Prodigy-owned city on Earth.

Meanwhile…

Smarmy wunderkind Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) is Prodigy’s CEO and the world’s youngest and most annoying trillionaire. His Neverland research facility is running a revolutionary program on a secluded island wherein he transfers the consciousnesses of terminally ill children to adult Synths, creating Hybrids. It all sounds highly unethical and definitely illegal and is therefore completely believable behaviour from a corporation.

The two companies' storylines converge when Prodigy sends head Synth Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) with the freshly charged Hybrids to effectively steal the Xenomorph and other assets from their competitor’s ship. It’s like if the Starks and Lannisters were warring tech companies who sought a bioweapon rather than the throne, but without the rich source material from which to draw.

Since Alien: Earth functions more as a series of expo dumps than a series of events, I’ll sum up the highlights from each episode before giving my gripes thoughts.

An episodic summary

Episode 1, ‘Neverland’

A decent start and a lot to digest.

Nepo baby Sydney Chandler stars as Wendy (formerly Marcy Hermit), Boy Kavalier’s ‘firstborn’ Hybrid. She has strong arms and a human brother named Joe (Alex Lawther) who thought she had died from her terminal cancer because they had a funeral and everything. Idiot. The two reconnect over an inexplicable affinity for Ice Age: Continental Drift, which Disney probably deemed a less on the nose nod to their own IP because a) it’s a sequel and b) they acquired it through their 20th Century Fox takeover and some people might not know about that.

What’s more on the nose is the Peter Pan theme; it’s playing when Marcy becomes Wendy and Boy Kavalier creates a bunch of other Hybrid ‘Lost Boys’ for Wendy to run around with. Their names are Curly (Erana James), Nibs (Lily Newmark), Smee (Jonathan Ajayi) and Slightly (Adarsh Gourav). I think there’s another one but I forgot his name.

Australia’s Essie Davis is Dame Sylvia, Prodigy employee and the Lost Boys’ surrogate mother because she can’t have kids of her own, probably on account of being 50 or so years old. She’s married to the substantially younger Arthur Sylvia (David Rysdahl), a scientist dude whose sympathetic face is prime real estate for a facehugger.

The episode ends and Black Sabbath’s ‘The Mob Rules’ plays.

Episode 2, ‘Mr. October’

We learn that the reason Wendy is so smart and better than the other Hybrids is because Boy Kavalier wanted to create a being smarter than himself. He could’ve just ventured beyond his echo chamber to do that but I empathise with the laziness.

Meanwhile, the Xenomorph that escaped the Maginot is running amok in the tower where it crashed. It attends an exclusive aristocracy themed party and goes to town on the partygoers, painting the penthouse in blood and body parts.

Before the Xenomorph gets to Joe, Morrow tasers it and envelops it in some sort of goopy exoskeletal body bag. Unfortunately, a bunch of soldiers come along and open the bag, getting themselves killed in the process. The Xenomorph houdinis away, but not before dragging Joe with it. Cliffhanger!

Wendy looks shocked and Tool’s ‘Stinkfist’ plays.

Episode 3, ‘Metamorphosis’

There’s some bitching and moaning among the Hybrids as to why Wendy gets to be the favourite but she’s got more important things to worry about as she’s still off on assignment.

Wendy goes after the Xenomorph that took Joe and he is somehow still alive. She kills it rather easily with a meat hook and Joe, along with the other stolen specimens, is transferred to the island for surgery. Kirsh removes his damaged lung and I guess Joe is a registered organ donor, because he then uses it for ‘science’ by planting facehugger larva in it.

Wendy has a fit on the laboratory floor and Metallica’s ‘Wherever I May Roam’ plays.

Episode 4, ‘Observation’

A talky ep that bored me, apart from one very cool thing.

That thing is an eyeball squid named T. Ocellus or Species 64 and it has the ability to jump in the eye sockets of anything organic (dead or alive) and control it like a possessed puppet. Kirsh tests it out on (of course) a sheep and it gives us the most unnerving image we’ll get this season.

We also learn that Wendy can speak Xenomorph because of course she can.

Wendy has a chat and Jane’s Addiction’s ‘Ocean Size’ plays.

Episode 5, ‘In Space, No One…’

The highlight of the series and there’s an obvious reason: it’s a flashback to the human crew, stuck on a ship with the Xenomorph (and other creatures).

A fire causes two facehuggers to escape their tanks and latch onto the captain and the science officer. The crew tries to cut the facehugger off the captain and learns the hard way that it has acid for blood, inadvertently causing his death.

The Xenomorph bursts out of the science officer and goes on a rampage. So do some of the other specimens on the ship, but in fun, different ways. And before we catch up to Morrow and his exit strategy, Michael Smiley gets some T. Ocellus in his eye and fights a bloody Xenomorph! Good stuff.

Wendy ain’t here and The Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Cherub Rock’ plays.

Episode 6, ‘The Fly’

That other Lost Boy I forgot about gets attacked by a metal-eating fly and fucking dies! Meanwhile, the most annoying Lost Boy of all – Slightly – has to somehow get a facehugger to latch onto a human and drag the body away to give to Morrow, who has been blackmailing him to get back Weyland-Yutani’s main IP.

At the same time, Arthur is fired from Prodigy due to being a filthy unionist and protesting the unethical treatment of the Hybrids and on his way out, he gets jumped by a facehugger! So now we have a proper chestburster scene to look forward to. Things are looking up.

The sheep who sees all looks at the camera and Godsmack’s ‘Keep Away’ plays.

Episode 7, ‘Emergence’

The much awaited chestburster scene comes and goes with a whimper, just like poor Arthur. The two idiot Lost Boys leave his body on the beach and prepare for a scolding from Morrow, while the newborn Xenomorph runs off.

Wendy hacks the network and releases the big Xenomorph out into the wild, where it kills a bunch of Yutani soldiers who’ve come to reclaim company assets. This episode commits a great sin: it shows the Xenomorph in daylight and it’s all brownish-green and Predator-like. Yucky, I don’t like it.

Later, after a confrontation with more soldiers, Joe shoots Nibs for being a total psycho.

Wendy yells at him/the camera and Queens of the Stone Age’s ‘Song For The Dead’ plays.

Episode 8, ‘The Real Monsters’

Episode 7 sucks but the finale tops it.

Wendy and the Lost Boys are imprisoned in a cell. So are Joe and Morrow, but in a different cell. Wendy does more hacking from jail, shutting down the cameras and opening both cells. Everyone is just in and out of cells this episode, honestly.

We learn that Boy Kavalier’s manservant Atom Eins (Adrian Edmondson) is something of a Synth himself and Wendy uses her girlboss powers to freeze him, but not before he opens the cage containing the T. Ocellus. And where do you think the T. Ocellus goes when freed? To the beach, of course, where it reanimates Arthur’s corpse for next season!

And Wendy – in a moment that pays unintentional homage to a particularly cringe Daenerys line from Game of Thrones’s bad era – concludes the episode with “Now we rule.”

Noah Hawley has sufficiently pissed on the franchise and Pearl Jam’s ‘Animal’ plays.

After eight episodes of mostly diminishing returns and a week to arrange my thoughts, I’ve organised my Alien: Earth critique into two sections. Since it’s a shorter list, let’s start with what works.

What works

A handful of characters and performances

There are a number that stand out in this series, not necessarily because they’re groundbreaking but simply because they’re miles better than whatever else is onscreen. Among them is Babou Ceesay as Morrow, one of the only interesting characters on the show. Ceesay plays Cyborg Morrow with gruff humanity and an actual purpose, elevating the scenes he appears in and serving as the perfect bridge between humans and androids.

*Babou Ceesay as Morrow, MVP of the series*

Then there’s Timothy Olyphant as Kirsh, a Synth whose agenda is as murky as the Xenomorphs’ new colour palette. He imbues Kirsh with humour, curiosity and hidden motives, bringing us as close to a David-level Synth as I think we’re going to get in this show. Note to Hawley: a well-written android in an Alien story goes way further than six poorly-written (and acted) ones; give me Kirsh experimenting on lungs for eight hours instead.

And despite feeling a wave of disgust wash over me every time his character appears on screen, Samuel Blenkin does a fantastic job as the one I love to hate, Boy Kavalier. His costumes are well-designed, he has a glimpse of a backstory and Blenkin is one of the stronger actors on the cast.

Finally, there’s the human crew of the Maginot vessel and Michael Smiley in particular as the first human host of The Eye. We don’t see enough of them outside of snippets in episode 1 and 5 and if the show had spent more time with the crew, I think I would’ve preferred it.

The Eye

T. Ocellus, Species 64 or simply an eyeball with tentacles that can control both living and dead hosts is a wonderful addition to franchise lore. Is it a natural enemy of the Xenomorph? Is it more evolved and if so, is it wiped out before 2122? Will it jump into Boy Kavalier like we all want it to? So far it’s seemingly tried to warn a crew member about another species escaping containment, jumped into a sacrificial sheep and gone toe-to-toe (or eye-to-mouth) against the Xenomorph. Given my disappointment with the treatment of the Xenomorph in this show, The Eye overshadows its competitor and serves as one of the few reasons I’m inclined to want more of this mess.

The practical effects

Give me a man in a suit over the spindly monstrosity of Alien: Covenant any day. The show uses said man as well as animatronic puppets for many of the Xenomorph scenes and while it can be a bit obvious-looking when shot mid-to-wide, I’m much happier with that than a CGI dog alien.

*Joe Hermit (Alex Lawther) in a bit of a bind*

What sucks

The writing

Bad dialogue, bad pacing and an episode formula that becomes so grating that I no longer cringe in the moment – I anticipate cringe.

Wendy

Her ability to communicate and command the Xenomorphs? Hate it.

Her ability to go against the Maginot OG Xenomorph and win when someone with more experience (Morrow) can’t even contain the damn thing? Hate it.

Her ability to control other synths? Her plot armour? Her childish brattiness painted like justified female rage? HATE IT.

Sydney Chandler certainly has the shit haircut and shredded arms of an Alien heroine but Wendy feels like the AI slop that would come out if you asked ChatGPT to come up with a new Alien heroine.

The Lost Boys

I hate Nibs, I hate Slightly and I don’t care for Smee and his frustrated little boy mannerisms. Curly has potential in her envy of Wendy as Boy Kavalier’s favourite but there’s only a hint of it across these eight episodes and it feels like the writers abandon it towards the end.

The boring humans

It tracks that someone who logged watching an Ice Age sequel as a core memory would be dull and it’s certainly the case for Joe Hermit. He blends in with the robokids so seamlessly that I forget he’s under threat by the specimens that prey on the living and if you told me he’d been killed by the Xenomorph in an earlier episode I’d probably believe you. Does the fact that he donates a lung to the Xenomorph cause mean he’ll develop his own plot armour? I hope not.

The wasted humans

Spare a thought for Essie Davis, a brilliant actor who is utterly wasted here. I could say the same for David Rysdahl as her husband but it’s pretty clear we’ll be seeing him again (and he’ll be seeing us, get it?).

The disrespect towards the Xenomorph

We should never see the Xenomorph:

Outdoors in natural light – it’s Alien, not Predator (although Disney now owns both) and if we learned anything from the flawed but ambitious Alien 3, it’s that the Xenomorph does not look good bounding along well-lit spaces.
Stationary and swaying erotically – it feels like watching a furless furry, especially since the Xenomorph in mid shots is more clearly a person in a suit.
As often as we do in Alien: Earth. The Xenomorph should’ve stayed a twinkle in its facehugger’s eye until at least episode 3. Pace yourself, Hawley.

Perhaps the biggest crime Hawley has committed with this show is that the Xenomorph has lost its terror. He’s changed its appearance to make it more bug-like (his reasoning is terrible), made it subservient to a GirlBot and treated it like livestock that frequently escapes its pen, which is perhaps the point in a story about conglomerates fighting over corporate assets but it’s not a point I appreciate when it comes to my favourite beasties.

Everything everywhere all for nothing

I got sensory overload from the number of species (alien or humanoid) in this show and it’s remarkable how, despite this oversaturation of beings, it feels like nothing much happens over eight episodes.

It breaks the lore and kills a cat

Jonesy is not impressed. To add insult to injury, the CGI cat that fell victim to the T. Ocellus also looks pretty bad.

The Disneyfication of it all

The Peter Pan stuff is so unclever and obvious and it just makes me hate the kids even more. I read a review of the finale that refers to this show as ‘Temu Westworld’ and it’s very fitting; in Westworld, it’s cool when the robots revolt but in Alien: Earth, it’s embarrassing.

I think that there’s something inadvertently poetic about Alien: Earth being a corporate-made show about corporations overtaking IP from other corporations. Unfortunately, in this analogy, the Xenomorph is Ice Age: Continental Drift. Yikes.

*Everyone’s favourite childhood movie: Ice Age 4*

The musical needle drops

There’s a lot to cringe at in Alien: Earth but the worst offender by far is the show’s end credits soundtrack. It’s off-brand for the franchise and it exists purely, as its showrunner states, because he noticed in the editing room that all the episodes end on cliffhangers. The music is meant to highlight this and it does, though I mean that in the most uncomplimentary way.

A spectacular case of gaslighting

Alien: Earth sits inexplicably at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, representing universal acclaim from critics. Indeed, I’ve read my fair share of favourable takes that somehow attribute profundity to a series I find uneven at best and pretty woeful at worst. It feels like being gaslit on a global scale and makes me wonder if I watched the same show that everyone else did or if I, and a select group of friends who also had a bad time with it, was served different content.

After weighing up the good and the bad, my scales tip generously in favour of declaring Alien: Earth a bit of a stinker. In my ranking of Alien entries (not counting the Alien vs Predator crossovers), it sits as follows:

Alien & Aliens (I will not choose)
Alien: Romulus
Alien 3
Prometheus
Alien: Resurrection
Alien: Earth
Alien: Covenant

That Alien: Earth isn’t at the bottom of the list is due entirely to the fact that I’m punishing Covenant for wasting time on scenes that don’t involve David. An easy win, Noah Hawley. If you get another season, please do better.

Verdict

☆☆

Alien: Earth is currently streaming on *pinches nose* Disney + but you always have the option of not watching it.

Alien: Earth