******SPOILERS!******

Have to admit, I had more than a bit of trepidation going into this series. My parade of disappointments with the “ALIEN” franchise dates back 33 years with the the release of ALIEN3. Most of the franchise has existed in the shadow of its first two movies (“ALIEN,” “ALIENS”), rehashing variations of their simple formula–a group of victims are stalked by a big, bad space monster. This formula had its origins in 1950s and 1960s space monster movies (“Queen of Blood,” “Planet of the Vampires”), and was finally made into a top-tier sci-fi franchise by the films of Ridley Scott and James Cameron.

Even the last movie, “ALIEN: Romulus” (2024), which had good critical buzz, left me feeling more or less indifferent. It seemed more a well-crafted medley of callbacks and references to the previous movies, and less its own thing. The ALIEN franchise didn’t permit much room for growth; you had a monster, a conspiracy to capture/exploit the monster, and a strong heroine who rallied the survivors to kill the monster. The end. Given that I hadn’t been truly wowed by an ALIEN movie since 1986, I often wonder why I’ve stuck with the ALIEN franchise for so many years, and the answer is that the first two movies (like “Star Wars”) were so damned good that I remained cautiously hopeful it’d recapture its former glory someday.

Now writer/producer/director Noah Hawley (TV’s “Fargo”), with the blessings of credited producer Ridley Scott, has brought “Alien: Earth” to streaming for Hulu, FX and Disney+, and despite my apprehension, I was pleased to find this was something genuinely new. Hawley has expanded on the traditional ALIEN formula by exploring some of of its intriguing questions; a few of which were raised in Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus” (2012) but were crushed under the weight of the audience’s monster-movie expectations and the film’s own fantastically stupid characters. Now the first two (of eight) episodes of “Alien: Earth” season 1 are streaming, and I’m pleased to say they’ve reignited my passion for this creatively stalled franchise.

For the following short episode synopses, I’m quoting from the Hulu app. I’ll dig deeper into each episode via photo captions and notes, followed by the “Summing It Up” section.

S1 E1: “Neverland”

When a spaceship crash-lands on Earth, a sister searches for her brother amidst an unexpected alien threat.

Note: The opening of the film, at first, appeared to be a by-the-numbers remake of “ALIEN,” right down to green-screen CRT computer interfaces, and the crew eating together in the mess hall before cryo-sleep. To be honest, I was skeptical, until I realized this seemingly rote remake of “ALIEN”‘s first act was a ruse, and that it would soon be diverging into something very different…

Note: Babou Ceesay’s ‘Morrow’ is a deceptive piece of casting. Superficially, he resembles the earthy, bawdy engineer Parker (Yaphet Kotto) from the original film, but we soon learn he’s a cyborg; one of the three new classes of humanoid life, which also includes synthetics (human minds downloaded into synthetic bodies), and full androids (Ash, Bishop, Call, etc). Morrow has a Swiss-army knife left arm which changes into whatever tool is required. Despite his partially organic nature, Morrow is perhaps the most inhuman character of the series, as he welds the MU/TH/UR interface room shut during the alien outbreak–leaving his crew to be slaughtered. Also of note; the interface room is a perfect recreation of the original Nostromo set; right down to its clunky CRT monitors).

Note: Despite the title of this series, the various aliens, including the classic xenomorph, breaking out from cold storage aboard the Maginot is not necessarily the A-story, as we soon learn.

Note: The world building of this series feels very much in-line with today, as wealthy oligarchs and tech-bros seem to be carving out the world for themselves, using their tremendous wealth and technological innovations to control our world. Trillionaires used to be an unimaginable concept; now they feel just a few government tax breaks away from reality. Actor Samuel Blenkin’s ‘Boy Kavalier’ (whose name is a bit too on-the-nose) mixes the audacious arrogance and desperate insecurity of Elon Musk with the eternal nerdiness of Mark Zuckerberg. No offense to Blenkin, who does a terrific job, but the sooner his character becomes alien chow, the happier I’ll be.

Note: In what might be interpreted as a trans child coming into their true gender, or a chrysalis releasing a butterfly, Marcy’s terminally ill body dies, as her mind and consciousness are downloaded into her new synthetic (adult) self, which she renames “Wendy” as an allusion to the Disney cartoon of J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan.” Wendy’s new status as an immortal is the series’ real A-story, and it’s far more interesting than giant drooling monsters. It also gives an extra dimension to the use of “Alien” in the series’ title, as it also refers to these immortal beings housing human minds. This is all-new territory for the previously limited ALIEN franchise, and it’s deeply intriguing.

Note: Arthur (David Rysdahl) takes a more clinical slant into Marcy’s transition into Wendy, while Dame Silvia (Essie Davis) tries to inject a slightly more maternal approach. It’s soon very clear that neither of them are very good at surrogate parenting.

Note: In addition to getting used to instant adulthood, such as dealing with her new breasts, Wendy is also tasked with shepherding more “Lost Boys”; fellow synthetics like herself, who are also carrying the minds of dead children, each named from Peter Pan; ‘Smee’ (Jonathan Ajayi), ‘Slightly’ (Adarsh Gurav), Wendy, Tootles (Kit Young), Curly (Erana James) and Nibs (Lily Newmark). Like the Lost Boys, none of them can go back to their grieving biological families, but Wendy uses her access within Prodigy to keep tabs on her brother and even communicate with him indirectly, via a Prodigy access terminal. The company is aware of Wendy’s actions, and grudgingly allows them–for the time being.

Note: This is where we’re introduced to Wendy’s human brother Hermit (Alex Lawther), who thinks his kid sister is dead, and has already grieved for her loss. Hermit is serving as a medic in the Prodigy nation-state-corporation’s army, and is due to leave the service in six months; not unlike the cowardly Private Hudson (the late Bill Paxton) from “ALIENS,” who was soon to be discharged from Weyland-Yutani’s Colonial Marines before he undertakes a fateful mission to LV-426. Hermit is now assigned to investigate the crash of the Weyland-Yutani starship Maginot in Prodigy territory.

Note: Soon after entering the Maginot crash site, Hermit becomes aware that the Maginot was containing some very exotic and dangerous cargo–which is now loose on Earth. He’s also about to reunite with his dead kid sister in her new android body. The scenes of the Prodigy soldiers investigating the fusion of spaceship and Prodigy apartment complex echo the Colonial Marines investigating the ruins of the “Hadley’s Hope” colony on LV-426.

Note: Kirsh, as played by Timothy Olyphant, is similar to the android Ash (Ian Holm) in the first film, or David (Michael Fassbender) from “Prometheus” (2012) and “ALIEN Covenant” (2017); Kirsh is fully open regarding his android nature (he even sports a Roy Batty hairdo), and feels superior to poor, dumb humans. To him, we are little more than clever snacks for an as-yet-undiscovered larger creature. Unlike Dame Sylvia, who tries to encourage Wendy and the others to foster their humanity, Kirsh tries to get them more in touch with their synthetic selves–including their freedom from the food chain.

Note: Exploiting Wendy’s urgency to reconnect with her human brother, Kirsh decides to test the Lost Boys’ usefulness as Prodigy resources by recruiting them to investigate the Maginot crash site. Given Kirsh’s inscrutable nature, it’s not yet clear what he hopes to gain from allowing Wendy’s reunion with her brother; something that wouldn’t seem to align with his philosophy of negating humanity.

Note: Wendy’s flashbacks of her brother hints at the conflict between her old and new lives. I also wonder if we’ll see more of these conflicts within the other Lost Boys as well. Lots of potential for rich character backstories in the episodes to come…

S1 E2: “Mr. October”

Tensions rise between rival corporations, a reunion takes place, and a secret is revealed.

Note: Actress Sandra Yi Sencindiver finally puts a human face on the Yutani half of the Weyland-Yutani corporation. Since we don’t hear much about the other four giant megacorporations (Prodigy, Lynch, Dynamic, Threshold) in the ALIEN sequels, it’s safe to assume Weyland-Yutani wins the future corporate wars, at least until the company is dissolved by “ALIEN: Resurrection” (1997).

Note: If I have one minor nit of the series, it’s that the first two episodes could’ve used a bit more growth with the other Lost Boy characters, but this is something I’m guessing we’ll see in the remaining six.

Note: The French Revolution-themed soiree is a wonderfully weird bit of decadent debauchery in the middle of the tense search-and-rescue operation, and it hints at the broader scope of future episodes (and seasons…?). Much like the post-revolution executions of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the powder-faced, wigged partygoers are also mercilessly slaughtered by the raging xenomorph.

Note: Clearly the Maginot crew were a bit more (though not better) prepared to capture the xenomorphs, as we see with Morrow’s spray-on containment bag, which, of course, doesn’t work. This is in contrast to the space trucker crew of the Nostromo, who had only improvised flame throwers and electric cattle prods. At least the Maginot crew were half-successful in their efforts to contain these dangerous creatures for a while anyway, before their ship crashed. The best laid plans of machines and men…

Note: The reunion of Wendy/Marcy and Hermit, which is the best scene of episode 2, really delivers on the promise. Though I wonder how that reunion will be viewed by Prodigy, given the as-yet top secret nature of the Lost Boy project (?). And kudos to actor Alex Lawther as Hermit, who goes through the exact kinds of grief and doubt one would naturally feel if one came across an unfamiliar-faced stranger pretending to be a lost sibling. You could see in Lawther’s face that Hermit hasn’t fully dealt with his grief over Marcy’s loss.

Note: When I first saw “ALIEN,” I wondered if the blue laser forcefield surrounding the leathery xenomorph eggs was naturally or artificially projected to protect or perhaps quarantine the egg lair. Now I know…

Note: Just speculating here, but I’m guessing that Hermit might’ve been badly injured in the fall, and that Wendy’s earlier vow to keep him alive at all costs includes persuading Prodigy to give her brother a synthetic body like hers…?

Summing It Up

Noah Hawley’s “Alien: Earth” is is the first ALIEN anything in years, perhaps decades, which breaks new ground. The large, drooling xenomorph lurking in the shadows feels more like a subplot than the A-story–which is far more interesting than a series of deadly encounters with space monsters. The heroine leading this ALIEN series is (was) a dying 11-year old girl whose mind has been downloaded into an adult synthetic body; like an organic chrysalis giving way to a synthetic butterfly.

This transformation makes the rechristened “Wendy” (Sylvia Chandler) the first practical immortal being, courtesy of the Prodigy Corporation, which is led by trillionaire man-child Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin). Prodigy is one of five global conglomerates that have divvied up the world into distinct corporate sectors. Now, thanks to Prodigy, immortality is a practical commodity for those who agree to its terms–which include divorcing oneself from one’s organic life; a heavy price to pay for dying children, whose natural pliability make them ideal candidates for the procedure. Other terminally-ill kids follow suit, and Wendy soon finds herself the de facto leader of “the Lost Boys,” a group whose adult synthetic bodies are now vessels for the minds of dead children. Personally I found this story much more intriguing than the crashed Maginot releasing a menagerie of bizarre, dangerous aliens from its cold storage bays.

Sylvia Chandler excels as Wendy, as do her fellow Lost Boys, each of whom play their inner child with complete authenticity, and without gimmicks. Veteran Timothy Olyphant plays Kirsh; the Roy Batty-esque synthetic liaison between the Lost Boys and Prodigy leadership. Kirsh is a cool, distant, proudly artificial being who looks down at biologicals as little more than clever “food” for as-yet-unknown predators. Beyond race, this 22nd century Earth is now moving towards a new order of top-tier lifeforms; synthetics like the Lost Boys, full androids like Kirsh, and partly-mechanical cyborgs like Morrow (Babou Ceesay). Morrow, the ill-fated Maginot’s science officer, is still half-human, yet he’s the most cold, ruthless and inhuman character we’ve seen so far.

In the tradition of the best science fiction entertainment, Noah Hawley’s “Alien: Earth” puts racism, classism, and even speciesism through a fresh perspective. This is the A-story, not the titular monster let loose on Earth. The “aliens” of this story include those aliens we’ve manufactured in our own image. Another ‘alien’ on the show includes Kavalier, the eccentric, arrogant trillionaire who is creating synthetics not merely for profit, but also because he’s grown bored with unwise, fallible human beings. Kavalier is like a child who’s outgrown his old toys and wants new ones. In his synthetics, he is seeking wisdom, intelligence, answers, etc. Kavalier fancies himself in the god-making business–not unlike the lofty goals of Peter Weyland or the Engineers from the misfired film “Prometheus” (2012), but with more pragmatic and less intangible results.

And, of course, there’s the legacy xenomorphs, as well as some other bizarre extraterrestrials let loose upon “New Siam” from the crashed Maginot. These dangerous extraterrestrial specimens offer a challenging new testbed for the Lost Boys’ skillsets (and for human hubris), but they also threaten to upset the balance for native life on our planet. The unleashed extraterrestrials now serve as stand-ins for real-world invasive species as well, not just murderous beasties aboard enclosed spaceships.

“Alien: Earth” is ambitious, thoughtful science fiction that is a cut above most franchise sci-fi TV/movies I’ve seen lately (see: “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”), and I look forward to the next six episodes of this season. My chest is bursting with anticipation…

Where to Watch

“ALIEN: Earth” is streaming on FX, Hulu and Disney+. Still hard for me to believe the once very R-rated “ALIEN” franchise is part of Disney now.