The expectations for FX’s upcomingAlien television seriesare extraordinarily high. Led by renowned showrunner Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion) and serving as an indirect follow-up to last year’s critically acclaimed Alien: Romulus and a prequel to the original 1979 film, Alien: Earth is an opportunity forDisneyto prove there’s still a lot of meat on the Xenomorph bone. Can Hawley recreate the magic of Fargo for another franchise? Will people even care about an Alien show? These are the questions I had, and after watching the first episode at San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend, I feel much closer to the answers.
The eight-episode prequel series will debut on FX, Disney Plus, and Hulu on August 12 with a two-episode premiere, butSDCC attendeeswere treated to an earlier screening of the first installment as part of the show’s Hall H presentation on Saturday afternoon. The episode was every bit as tense, slimy, and horrifying as you’d want an Alien story to be, but what struck me the most was that it had such a compelling premise centered around an army of android child soldiers that I didn’t even need the xenomorphs to keep me interested. Luckily, you’ll still be getting plenty of classic Alien action too.
Second Star To The Right, And Straight On Till Morning
Alien: Earth is set two years before the original 1979 Alien, and follows a terminally ill 11-year-old girl named Marcy (Sydney Chandler) and her older brother, CJ “Hermit” (Alex Lawther), a medical officer. When the show begins, the dying Marcy is being prepped for a life-saving procedure at Prodigy Corp, a Weyland-Yutani rival and one of five mega corps that rule the world in 2120.
Marcy is part of an experiment called the Lost Boy, run by Prodigy Corp CEO Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin); a very Kojima-esque name for the cocky young gajillionaire. Prodigy’s plan is to save Marcy and a half dozen other dying children by transferring their consciousness into synthetic bodies. These immortal android bodies have the form of adults so that the children can grow into them, and have superhuman strength, speed, and resilience for what I can already guess is for more nefarious reasons.
The procedure is a success, and Marcy takes the name Wendy (from Peter Pan’s Wendy Darling) before becoming the liaison for the other soon-to-be android children. As she gets used to her new life as a super-powered tween in a grown woman’s body, she becomes fixated on reuniting with her brother, who was made to believe by Prodigy that his sister died from her illness.
And Then, Aliens
This setup plays out over the first twenty minutes of the episode, so by the time the first Xenomorph shows up, I’d almost forgotten I was watching an Alien show. This isn’t a complaint. I was so gripped by the premise of a team of child super soldiers under the control of techno-dystopian Earth’s most powerful man-child that I didn’t evenneedto see the aliens. I didn’t feel like I was just waiting for the face huggers to show up while Hawley faffed around with obligatory character development. I was genuinely pulled into the sci-fi psychological thriller unfolding before me.
Wendy’s draws from, or at least plays in the same space as, other sci-fi stories I’m fond of, namely Ex Machina, Alita: Battle Angel, and Ghost in the Shell. These stories explore identity and power dynamics through a post-humanist lens. They’re grounded in their commentary of the subjugation of women, often by men with dangerous egos, but they also inspire us to think about what it means to be human.
Wendy is a complex and sympathetic character whose innocence and bravery provides a strong counterpoint to the cynicism that pervades through the Alien universe. This could have easily been the story about a superhero that fights a xenomorph, but as expected, Hawley is following Ridley Scott’s example and digging deeper into the themes of Alien.
There’s still plenty of gore to go around, and I was particularly impressed by the frequent use of practical effects, especially when it comes to the iconic xenomorph. The catalyst of the series is a Weyland-Yutani ship that crashes on Earth, leading CJ on a rescue mission (and directly into the path of the alien on board the ship) with Wendy following behind to protect him.
There are freaky new creatures, like a leech that sucks out all of your blood and holds it in a giant sack in its tail, as well as a promise from Hawley during the panel of even more aliens we’ve never seen before. Even in just this first episode, the show succeeds as a squeamish creature feature, but even outside of the blood and guts, Alien: Earth has a compelling, character-centric story to tell.
