Noah Hawley’s “Alien: Earth” has finally landed.
After being announced five years ago, the highly anticipated sci-fi/horror “Alien” (1979) spinoff TV series has arrived on Hulu. At press time, I’ve only seen the first two installments of the 8-episode season.
Like any first impression, my views will likely fluctuate after I watch the entire season. Certain aspects that looked great early on may take a dive, or initially unpromising components might develop into highlights.
For now, after years of waiting and 120 minutes into the 2025 series I’ve been anticipating the most all year, here’s my first impression of where we are so far.
This will contain spoilers so, if you haven’t seen the pilot and episode 2 yet, give them a watch and come back later.
In 2120, Earth is ruled by corporations that literally shape the future of mankind. The usual figurative monsters running Weyland-Yutani have real competition from a young trillionaire twit who goes by Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin, visibly having a blast).
The Prodigy corporation, created by Kavalier, is taking ailing kids and putting their minds into the bodies of older, healthy “Synthetics,” who have superhero strength but maintain their childish consciousness. From this cluster of experiments comes Wendy, played by Sydney Chandler.
Meanwhile, a massive spaceship called Maginot is carrying a crew of astronauts whose appearance and environment resemble the original ensemble and setting of “Alien.” It only takes a few minutes for the events of that film to be encapsulated and result in the ship, carrying the Xenomorphs and other living nightmares, crashing down to Earth.
The over-use of slow motion and multiple fades from one scene to another is a distraction. So are the quick uses of Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner music cues from the first two movies (either use the music in full or not at all). There are also flash edits, intended to speed up the narrative and indicate what is about to happen, but it just come across like a subliminal image flashing over the unfolding story.
Hawley, who created and wrote/directed the terrific “Fargo” TV series (2014-present), among others, has an approach that, while effective where it counts, is very centered in small-screen storytelling. In addition to the attention-getting methods mentioned above, every major sequence ends with a fade to black, as in “We’ll be right back, after these messages!”
For better or worse, Hawley, who wrote and/or co-wrote every episode and directed a handful of them, clearly took note of what worked in this series overall, as the highs and lows reflect the pros and cons of the film franchise.
Newcomer Chandler is outstanding as Wendy, already standing out early on as the lead. Timothy Olyphant’s mannered detachment and goofy appearance distracted me from his character, which won’t make anyone forget how good Michael Fassbender was in the two Ridley Scott prequels (“Prometheus” in 2012 and “Alien: Covenant” in 2017).
For that matter, as good as Chandler is, no one here is brilliantly stealing the focus like Ian Holm did in “Alien” or Lance Henriksen in “Aliens” (1986).
The mother/daughter angle of James Cameron’s “Aliens,” the emotional core and movingly developed relationship at its center, has yet to be matched. Yet, the most unusual sibling pair of Fede Alvarez’s “Alien: Romulus” (2024) is mirrored here in Wendy’s obsession with reuniting with her brother, Hermit (Alex Lawther).
A quality I never thought I’d see return to this franchise: the quirkiness of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “Alien: Resurrection” (1997)! As the “Peter Pan” angle (both as metaphor and overt reference) continues to develop, not only is “Wendy” like the protagonist in the J.M Barrie novel, but her fellow synthetic humans are referred to as The Lost Boys, complete with names and childish mannerisms to match.
This will either become quite compelling or be the first thing to sink this.
The visual effects are all over the place, which can be blamed on the massive volume of CGI required in nearly every single frame and how that must have burnt out some f/x artists. The exterior shots of lumbering, unfathomably huge spacecrafts crashing into things or flying overhead are awesome.
Yet, some of the shots with the familiar H.R. Giger-designed Xenomorph look fake, which I blame less on the artists and more on the lighting: if we learned one thing from Paul W.S. Anderson’s “AVP: Alien Vs. Predator” (2004), it’s that, whether a costumed actor or a CGI effect, the Xenomorphs don’t look good, let alone plausible, in bright light.
Nothing in the first two hours of “Alien: Earth” is on the level with Alvarez’s “Alien: Romulus,” but, another important distinction, it doesn’t appear that this will devolve into something as awful as “AVP: Requiem” (2007).
Due to the volume of sequels and prequels, as well as the comic book spinoffs, novels and video games, it seems there are limitations as to how far the “Alien” franchise could expand. After all, even with innovative plot and character set-ups, it’s all about getting our heroes big guns, roaming slowly down smoky corridors, sweat dripping, eyes bulging in fear and every shadow around the corner folding into the shape of a living nightmare, out to bite your face off.
Time will tell if this is akin to the lower-end of TV adaptations, namely Fox’s “The Exorcist” (2016-2017), or if it goes the distance and emerges something truly special, like NBC’s “Hannibal” (2013-2015) or A&E’s “Bates Motel” (2013-2017).
Next year brings us a “Friday the 13th” series, though I’m still waiting for a “Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Series.” My elevator pitch: Its “Little House on the Prairie,” only with screams and chainsaws.
One can dream.
I’m enjoying what I’m seeing so far, but “Alien: Earth” still has an uphill climb, due to the pedigree of what came before it and because the “bangarang” brats from “Peter Pan” are about the weirdest opponents the Xenomorph has faced yet. Or, who knows, maybe we’ll end up loving “AVLB: Aliens Vs. Lost Boys?”