The Trouble (So Far) with Alien: Earth

Spoiler-free review of Episodes 1 and 2

Sydney Chandler in Alien: Earth

No spoilers

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Andor raised the bar for big-budget sci-fi TV in a way that threw my expectations for everything else completely out of whack. The immersive world-building, sterling performances, and intricate, politically minded storytelling from Tony Gilroy were nirvanic. No hyperbole: it was my platonic ideal of a TV series.

So it was hard not to let those feelings bleed into my reception of Noah Hawley’s new FX series Alien: Earth—possibly my most anticipated TV show of the year, whose first two episodes premiered earlier this week.

I love the Xenomorph scares the Alien franchise reliably delivers, but what I cherish even more are its mature, subtle, Blade Runner-esque leanings: the lethal malfeasance of Weyland-Yutani in its pursuit of profit, the philosophical questions about identity and creation, and the quasi-religious musings of Michael Fassbender’s David (low-key the best Alien villain—yes, even more so than the Xenos) in Prometheus and Covenant.

Michael Fassbender as David

When it was announced that one of my favorite showrunners, Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion), would take on Alien for the small screen, my heart leapt. I imagined a measured, thought-provoking, character-driven Alien—more of a sci-fi mystery drama than sci-fi horror.

The first two episodes are distinctive in ways that both thrill and baffle, showing the pluses and pitfalls of a unique auteur adapting an action-heavy IP.

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