I’ve always liked
the Alien franchise, but after the queen shows up in James
Cameron’s Aliens I have not been a fan of a lot of the lore
that the series has introduced since. Every time they try to make the series
about something more than a horrifying creature that symbolizes the unknown
stalking and killing people in space things get less engaging and, more often
than not, less scary. Alien: Earth, the first TV series in the
franchise, expands the horizons of the Alien universe in
unexpected ways, and every one of them is more interesting than, let’s say,
evil magical goo (people who have seen Prometheus and Alien:
Covenant know).
We’ve got cyborgs, we’ve got squabbling
between dystopian-ly powerful trillionaires, we’ve got a menagerie of new space
creatures, each more bloodthirsty and disturbing than the last. By far the most
interesting addition to the mythos is the hybrids, children whose minds have
been uploaded into robot bodies in an attempt to forever cheat death, and
showrunner Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion) takes full advantage
of the philosophical quandaries that arise from these transfers. Having grown
actors acting like children is… different, and it’s not a vibe that everyone
will appreciate, but I thought it gave things an interesting angle (and some
great performances too, especially from lead Sydney Chandler), and it’s not
like these moments are omnipresent. The show is still tense, dark, terrifying,
and thoroughly Alien. (We’ve got plenty of adult
characters too, I should mention, and one chilling full-robot portrayed
brilliantly by Timothy Olyphant.)
Noah Hawley's previous works are known for
being cerebral and highly surreal, and Alien: Earth continues
this with the goal of unsettling the audience as much as possible. Like Alien:
Romulus did just this last year, Earth manages to
make the titular creatures scary despite their familiarity to the general
public. And if you thought the presence of technical children would lessen the
brutality and gore of the proceedings, well, you would be wrong. The aliens had
no problem with mauling, gutting, and dismembering in the presence of Newt in
the aforementioned Aliens, and they certainly don’t hold back
when there are plenty of other children to traumatize in (on?) Earth.
Nothing in the series resolves by the final
episode, which is a bit frustrating (it is clear that it was filmed with a
potential second season in mind), and the modern-day songs that the series
features (not to mention one oddly prominent 2002 animated kids’ film) did not
really work for me. And then there’s the fact that it can be downright
depressing to watch such a crappy dystopia for eight plus hours. But these
complaints pale in comparison to the fun that I had while watching Alien:
Earth, a worthy entry to the saga and the genre of science fiction in
general.
The entirety of season Alien: Earth season
1 is now available on Hulu.
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