On Earth, Everyone Can Hear You Scream

With the release of Alien: Earth, now streaming on FX/Hulu, any respectable sci-fi fan feels obligated to ask: Is it really possible to breathe new life into a property that’s already produced nine movies, 25 novels, more than 20 video games, a hundred or so comics and two separate tabletop role playing games? Or is this yet another boring and predictable cash grab to milk a familiar IP for all its worth until it’s completely exhausted?

Answering this call is none other than Noah Hawley, the creative mind behind the underappreciated Marvel entry Legion, as well as the brilliant and widely appreciated Fargo. That alone should give Alien fans at least a little hope. After all, this is the guy that not only convinced a network to let him air an entire puppet show episode, he then went ahead and made that puppet show utterly riveting. If Hawley can do that with marionettes, he might just have the chops necessary to breathe exciting and terrifying new life into a nearly 50 year-old sci-fi property.

The latest entry into Alien canon takes place in the year 2120, roughly two years before the events aboard the Nostromo in Ridley Scott’s iconic 1979 film, and it makes sure to pay proper homage to its great-granddaddy both narratively and stylistically. In fact, the opening scene is an almost shot-for-shot nod to Scott’s original, right down to the typeface on the titles as they slowly creep on screen. Here we have a ship that seems identical to the Nostromo, from the analog keyboards and monochrome CRT video monitors to the same hypersleep pods, and a newly unfrozen crew in late 70s haircuts who have breakfast while smoking cigarettes and talking shop like space truckers, all very familiar member berry material to show us that this isn’t a wild departure from the source, but a passionate homage to it. Only this time, the ship is called the Maginot, and in short order we learn that its cargo of extraterrestrial species has slaughtered all but one member of the crew, leaving the vessel on a collision course with Earth. This isn’t something that normal Earthlings should get excited about… unless they happen to be trillionaires who control one of the five mega corporations vying for both terrestrial and extraterrestrial supremacy.

Alien: Earth is, in the spirit of the franchise, a story not just about alien monsters, but of human ones as well, particularly if those human monsters happen to be sociopathic capitalists like Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), the Zuckerbergian honcho of a tech company called Prodigy, that has managed to invent a way to transfer the consciousness of terminally ill children into superhuman synthetic bodies. Kavalier’s first breakthrough is with Wendy, whose child mind now resides in the body of a lithe young woman (Sydney Chandler) with incredibly heightened senses, intelligence, and reflexes, now known as a “hybrid,” as opposed to a fully artificial “synthetic” or a robotically enhanced human, aka “cyborg.”

She’s soon joined by other terminal kids, all of whom are named after Peter Pan’s lost boys: Tootles, Nibs, Slightly, and so on. It seems as though Kavalier has more than a bit of a Pan fetish, going so far as to name his private research island/villain lair “Neverland,” without a hint of irony or Michael Jackson references, for some reason. But okay, we’ll just go with that one for now, because apparently there’s a ship full of alien killing machines headed for Earth.

As the Maginot smashes into New Siam in spectacular and riveting fashion, the race is on to respond to the disaster, save survivors, and, because this is the Alien universe, secure the trillions of dollars of potential research aboard. New Siam is Prodigy territory, and Kavalier’s eyes light up with greedy glee at the prospect of appropriating a vessel owned by his rivals at Weyland-Utani, the same company we know and loathe so well as the main corporate antagonist of the franchise. The Prodigy first responders include a meek medic named Joe, who very conveniently happens to be Wendy’s long lost biological brother, whom she’s been techno-stalking with her newfound synthetic superpowers. When Wendy lobbies Kavalier to join the recovery and security efforts as a way to save her clearly doomed brother, Kavalier promptly agrees and sends her and the lost boys into the mix to test their mettle.

With that, the story leaps into gear as the lost boys, dutifully led by their synthetic schoolmaster/drill sergeant Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant, fantastic as always), board the Maginot and find that the horrors inside have already massacred much of the first response team. Obviously Joe has survived long enough for Wendy to rescue him, which is no easy trick, considering the terrors lurking around every corner. These include the infamous face-huggers and adult xenomorphs with acid blood we know and love so well, but also a host of other nightmare creatures from beyond the stars. These new critters are an exhilarating addition here, and cleverly bring the series a much needed feeling of “fresh horror,” articulated with stunning effects work both practical and digital. From giant leeches that literally suck soldiers dry, to something that can best be described as as a “carnivorous eyeball squid,” Hawley leans into the terrors of the original with gusto, and this series is almost immediately better for it.

Complications ensue, of course. The last survivor of the Maginot crew, a cyborg (again, not to be confused with synthetics like Kirsh or hybrids like Wendy), is hellbent on completing his mission for Yutani and securing the aliens for “Mother.” And then the lost boys, being children and all, aren’t exactly emotionally mature, crack troops in a crisis, with the notable exception of Wendy, a preternatural alien-killing savant, which will inevitably come into play as the season unspools. Also ahead, we’ll also see more political machinations between the mega corps, personal drama between the Lost Boys, a possible spy yarn about cyborg infiltration. And, obviously, there’s a room full of Checkoff’s Xenomorph Eggs just waiting to pop and cause havoc at some critical point. You know, basic sci-fi drama stuff, but the good kind, the kind we enjoy and remember.

Alien: Earth has a lot going for it, and some uphill struggles as well. Three episodes in, and it’s clear to see the FX gave Hawley the funds and the freedom to swing for the fences, and it shows. The casting and acting is all spot-on, aided by facile screenwriting that keeps the story moving while still saving space to let us get to know the characters and familiarize ourselves with this new setting. There’s guts and gore and body horror galore, its violence employed deftly and without reservation, which is really nice to see, and also a lot of fun, particularly if you’re a longtime fan of sci-fi/horror. Cinematically, each episode has the same feeling of calculated and visceral dread that Ridley Scott captured so well back in 1979, not to mention some truly impressive set and costume design that obsessively recreate the original aesthetics in painstakingly minute detail.

But there’s the peril: If Alien: Earth leans too hard into nostalgia and doesn’t give us anything sufficiently novel, it will surely fail. Thankfully, with the addition of compelling new elements both human, alien, cybernetic, robotic and synthetic, there might be just enough novelty to lift this series into uncharted territory, if it works. It’s a bold gamble for any writer/director to turn a half century-old franchise into a television series, because the tendency and expectation is for a phoned-in clone of something many of us are starting to find tiresome. So far, at least, it seems like Hawley has accepted that challenge with enthusiasm and is determined to deliver on it, with the kind of depth and long suspense that only eight or ten episodes of a series can accomplish. And for the first time in many years, I’m actually excited about a new Alien story. Well, excited and scared.

Did I mention the carnivorous eyeball squids? I’m pretty sure I mentioned the carnivorous eyeball squids.