Alien: Earth Review – The Best Thing to Happen to the Franchise Since Aliens

I love the Alien franchise (and the Predator one) and was excited about Alien: Earth. The films have been a bit hit and miss, though.

Alien 3’s opening where you learn all the characters from Aliens have died apart from Ripley (and the cat) put me in a bad mood for the rest of the film, but it wasn’t bad otherwise. Alien 4 had a superb underwater sequence, but the ending felt like it went on for ages.

The Xeonmorphs have also popped up in some Predator films too, although they weren’t great. Alien vs Predator had the tagline ‘Whoever wins, we lose’ – spoiler – it’s a draw. Bollocks to that.

However, Alien and Aliens were perfection. I loved them both and even read the books. The original novelisation trilogy by Alan Dean Foster are great – you can check out the omnibus here. (Affiliate.)

Alien: Earth is a welcome return to form

So, as I said, I recently watched Alien: Earth and loved it. Its mix of horror, speculative ideas, and character-driven arcs were superb. The whole retro-scifi horror thing really worked for me. I even liked the music bits at the end – although that might be because it was my kind of music.

The setting

The story is set in 2120, two years before the original Alien film. It starts with the USCSS Maginot crashes into New Bangkok on Earth, laden with a cargo of scary beasties. A team of hybrids, synthetics, and humans struggle to capture and contain said beasties. Predictably, things don’t go all that smoothly.

I happen to live in Bangkok and the city is recognisable. A friend of mine saw his condo in it, so I don’t know why it is New Bangkok. The rest of the show is on location on a jungle island. (Which is actually Krabi province in Thailand.)

Noah Hawley is the creator / showrunner and he does a superb job, hitting all the right notes in terms of the franchise and building a gory and tense world. The retro-futuristic theme is superb and has a really Alien vibe.

The characters are strong and have decent arcs

Although the main theme was always going to be humans being chomped on by Xenomorphs, the characters are still well drawn, with satisfying arcs. The writing and dialogue could have been perfunctory, but was actually consistently good.

The protagonist, Wendy, is absolutely central, not just in story importance but emotional resonance. Sydney Chandler does a great job showing her confusion, pain, and curiosity. All the Lost Boys are good characters, and the actors do a brilliant job in portraying children in adult bodies.

Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) was also particular highlight for me. He is just so cool, smart and calculating. He becomes more human (or at least more conflicted) across the season. The tension between synthetic rationality and messy human dilemmas is well exploited. As a Brit, it was weird seeing Ade Edmondson as Atom Eins, but he was really good in his role (Google Vivian Young Ones.)

Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) was a decent character, though I did occasionally find his quirky genius persona a bit much at times. But the show smartly softens this when his compulsive tendencies or obsession (OCD or behavioral rigidity) are referenced – particularly when characters like Eins or Kirsh broach that dimension. That humanising flicker prevents him from being overly cliche.

The best bit – the monsters

Man, I loved the monsters. Each one was terrrifying in its own way. It is an achievement to make them as vicious and fear-inducing as a Xenomorph.

Of course my favourite was Trypanohyncha Ocellus. Aka: T. Ocellus, Species 64, The Eye, Eye Midge, Eyelene, and more. It deserves its own show. The thing is, while it is horrific if you are in a room with it, once it has a good host, would it be all that bad? If it had lodged in the eye of a human or hybrid, it would no longer need to attack anyone else, and might even be quite nice and chatty. Still, it was cool as hell and putting in a sheep was genius.

Final thoughts and the future

I loved Alien: Earth. At times the pacing felt very slightly off, but it was generally suspenseful and a satisfyingly gory. It fits well into the franchise and I think it is the best entry since Aliens.

The series wraps up pretty well, but there are a ton of threads that need to be addressed. At time of writing, season two has not yet been green-lit. So, please watch it if you haven’t, because I selfishly want more.

I want to know what happens to the aliens and hybrids. From what I can recall, there are no hybrids in the films set further in the future. Unless you count Ripley in Alien 4, but I don’t. There is also no mention of xenomorphs or other aliens on Earth. Of course, this could be explained away by having them fly into space or put in a secret facility or something, but I need to know. Is T. Ocellus ok? I love that little guy.

tldr; – I loved Alien: Earth and want more! Highly recommended.