Alien: Earth adds surprisingly good TV dimension to veteran sci-fi

Alien: Earth
Noah Hawley
Disney+

The description “genre-defying” gets thrown around a lot these days – it is a convenient sticking plaster for any film or series that hasn’t quite figured out what it wants to be. That said, it is an apt term for the Alien franchise.

Ridley Scott’s 1979 movie Alien, in which Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is part of a crew trapped on a spaceship with a salivating, scorpion-like “xenomorph”, had such blood-curdling visuals that it made an indelible impact on both science fiction and horror films.

But while the deadly parasite and its psychosexual torment were ever present, subsequent instalments tried their hand at being everything from a blockbuster to a prison flick to a philosophical drama. Which leads to the question: after nearly 50 years of films, comic books and video games, is there any new ground to cover?

Yes, it turns out there has never been an Alien TV series. On paper, that might not sound like a good idea: what is frightening in a 2-hour movie may not be so potent in eight, hour-long chunks. But I am happy to say the show’s first six episodes are a grim triumph – and a key reason for this is how they flit between old and new.

Alien: Earth is set in 2120, two years before Alien, with Earth ruled by five corporations: Weyland-Yutani, Lynch, Dynamic, Threshold and Prodigy. Alongside synths (artificially intelligent robots that have appeared in the franchise from the beginning), there are cybernetically enhanced human beings, or cyborgs, and hybrids, synthetic beings with a human consciousness.

Our protagonist is Wendy (Sydney Chandler), the first hybrid, dreamed up by Prodigy CEO Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin). She leads the Lost Boys, fellow hybrids who, like her, were once terminally ill children, their consciousnesses uploaded to superstrong adult bodies.

While Wendy is happy with her lot, she misses her brother Joe (Alex Lawther), a Prodigy tactical officer and medic who believes she is dead. After a Weyland-Yutani ship crashes in the middle of a Prodigy-run city on Earth, Joe is among the team that must pull wealthy survivors from the wreckage and uncover the craft’s cargo. When things inevitably go wrong, Wendy convinces Kavalier to send in the Lost Boys to help.

Series creator Noah Hawley takes a playful approach to what follows, one moment evoking Alien‘s haunted-house narrative and its gruesome body horror, the next returning to the thrilling action of James Cameron’s Aliens. Hawley nests the modalities of those early films inside each other. The shots are also layered: as Wendy recalls her life with Joe, we see the animated film they loved playing across her face. There are dreams here, amid the blood and sputum.

But Alien: Earth is more than a lovingly crafted homage. It is full of invention, including new monsters, such as a menacing plant pod hanging from the ceiling of the downed spaceship. And there are new mysteries to ponder, particularly when it comes to Morrow (Babou Ceesay, a standout), a cyborg and the only crew member of the spaceship to survive, and Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant), a steely-eyed synth.

Alien: Earth even creates new genres. One episode is a full-blown conspiracy thriller, as Morrow hunts a saboteur. At other times, Wendy feels like the heroine of a dark, coming-of-age fantasy, with her katana-like sword strapped to her back. At such times, the show more than justifies its existence by daring to reimagine the franchise.

Bethan also recommends…

Alien
Ridley Scott
The original film is still the best part of the Alien universe. Not only did it give us the slavering xenomorph and its face-hugging, chest-bursting larval stages, it also gave us one of the great sci-fi protagonists. Ellen Ripley, I salute you.

Aliens
James Cameron
The brawnier little brother of Alien, many fans will tell you that this action-packed sequel is the best instalment in the franchise. They are wrong, but Aliens is still an absolute thrill ride.

Bethan Ackerley is assistant culture editor at New Scientist. She loves sci-fi, sitcoms and anything spooky. Follow her on X @‌inkerley

The art and science of writing science fiction

Take your science fiction writing into a new dimension during this weekend devoted to building new worlds and new works of art