‘Alien: Earth’ review: Xenomorphs get upstaged in this sci-fi treat

The Alien films’ Xenomorphs are, in my mind, the greatest movie monsters ever created. It’s shocking, then, that they’re the least interesting part of FX’s Alien: Earth.

That isn’t to say that the Xenomorphs in Alien: Earth are bores. Far from it! These seminal horror creatures get more than enough moments to shine in the series, slashing victims to shreds, flashing those double mouths, and drooling bucketloads. Classic Xenomorph stuff, and awesome to boot, but not much that we haven’t already seen. After four main Alien movies, two prequels, “interquel” Alien: Romulus, and the canonically wonky Alien vs. Predator movies, audiences are as well acquainted with the Xenomorph as can be.

Alien: Earth creator Noah Hawley (Legion, Fargo) recognizes this, deploying the Xenomorph not even halfway through the first episode and pulling few punches when it comes to concealing its appearance. (That appearance, by the way, is magnificent, and created through mostly practical effects and stunt performer Cameron Brown.) Hawley instead reserves Alien: Earth‘s mystery for new creatures and factions who come in contact with the formidable Xenomorph. It’s these parties who end up outshining my beloved monster, but for good reason. With them, Hawley expands on the world of Alien, taking it to fascinating new places and crafting sequences as gripping as a Facehugger. Yet the series never loses the strangeness or existential dread at the center of the franchise.

Alien: Earth pits children against Xenomorphs… kind of.

Jonathan Ajayi, Adarsh Gourav, Sydney Chandler, Timothy Olyphant, Kit Young, Erana James, and Lily Newmark in “Alien: Earth.”
Credit: FX

As its name suggests, Alien: Earth imagines what would happen if the Xenomorph wound up on our planet. Here, it arrives as part of the cargo of the USCSS Maginot, a Weyland-Yutani research vessel that crash lands in New Siam, Prodigy City, named after Weyland-Yutani rival Prodigy Corporation.

Prodigy CEO Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) decides that he wants whatever deep space goodies are on that ship, so he sends a squad of soldiers to get the job done. However, these aren’t just any soldiers. These are hybrids: synthetic bodies that have been implanted with human consciousness. Since Prodigy’s hybrid technology is in its early days, the only consciousnesses malleable enough to make the jump from body to body are those of children. That means Boy Kavalier is sending children — granted, in billion dollar robot bodies — into a disaster zone where a Xenomorph lurks.

Boy Kavalier’s first hybrid test subjects are all terminally ill children given a second chance at life. The first among them, and therefore the de facto leader, is Wendy (Sydney Chandler), named after Wendy Darling from Peter Pan. Her fellow hybrids are also named after the Lost Boys (Nibs, Slightly, Curly, and Tootles, with Smee being the only outlier), and Boy Kavalier fancies himself their version of Peter Pan. He’s even named his island research center Neverland, reads J. M. Barrie’s tale to the hybrids at bedtime, and plays Disney’s 1953 Peter Pan on the roof of his lab.

The Peter Pan allusions unfortunately wear thin pretty fast, serving as a repetitive reminder that the hybrids won’t grow up — at least, not physically. Mentally is a different story, and that’s where Alien: Earth spends much of its time. How do these new forms of human — if they can even be called that, Wendy wonders — mature? Especially when they’re treated as experiments? Not only that, but how will these innocent children react when faced with the deep space horrors on the Maginot?

Alien: Earth‘s hybrids and aliens are exciting additions to the Alien franchise.

Sydney Chandler in “Alien: Earth.”
Credit: Patrick Brown / FX

Alien: Earth‘s hybrids present several exciting opportunities for the show beyond just the thrill of watching a human hold their own in a hand-to-hand fight against a Xenomorph. (Although that is, in itself, extremely hype-worthy.)

For starters, hybrids act as a counterpoint to the Alien franchise’s synthetics, like Ash (Ian Holm) or David (Michael Fassbender). Alien: Earth‘s resident synthetic is Prodigy employee Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant), an android tasked with supervising (aka babysitting) the Lost Boys on their mission. His monitoring of the Lost Boys doesn’t just read as very, very detached parenting, it also reads as him shepherding the next generation of tech that will make him obsolete. Tough gig. In Olyphant’s hands, Kirsh is coolly cynical about humanity, a contrast with Chandler’s sweetly earnest Wendy, who’s still attached to her brother Joe (Alex Lawther), a Prodigy military medic who believes she died.

That earnestness offers up another intriguing layer to the show, as the Lost Boys’ adult actors — Chandler, Kit Young, Adarsh Gourav, Erana James, Jonathan Ajayi, and Lily Newmark — must channel children. Their performances create a dissonance between their physical appearances and their thoughts and actions, and the effects can range from disquieting to hilarious in the span of a scene. Special shout out to Ajayi as Smee, who manages to bring ultra-believable childhood petulance and confusion to any sequence, even when he’s investigating a lab full of aliens.

Speaking of aliens, the Xenomorph isn’t the only extraterrestrial beastie the hybrids have to contend with. In fact, it’s one of five alien species in the Maginot cargo. Smartly, Hawley makes all the new aliens smaller than the towering Xenomorph, not attempting to top it physically. However, this fresh lineup of aliens each come with their fair share of stomach-churning, parasitic behavior, proving worthy successors to the head honcho. To delve too much into these creatures would risk spoiling the fun, but I will say that T. Ocellus — an unholy cross between an eyeball and an octopus — damn near steals the show.

Despite all the newness, Alien: Earth still feels like Alien.

Babou Ceesay in “Alien: Earth.”
Credit: Patrick Brown / FX

While Alien: Earth abandons deep space for humans’ home turf, it’s undoubtedly an Alien project, even beyond the involvement of the Xenomorph and Weyland-Yutani. Setting his story two years before Ridley Scott’s original film, Hawley explores similar themes, from the horror of losing bodily autonomy (you know pregnancy shows up) to the Corporations’ callous mistreatment of workers. The latter especially shines through in Weyland-Yutani cyborg Morrow’s (Babou Ceesay) storyline, where he often thinks about how the company takes everything from its laborers, even as he does their dirty work.

Alien: Earth draws from the Alien films aesthetically too. The Maginot is modeled directly on Alien‘s Nostromo, crafting an eerily accurate visual bridge between the projects that comes to a head in one of the season’s standout episodes, itself a mini Alien movie. (The latter brings a nice shot of adrenaline to the show’s occasionally plodding pacing, which can feel like Alien: Earth treading water until it reaches its full potential.)

Along with these familiar nods, there’s also an undeniable thrill in seeing Alien: Earth take the franchise somewhere new. Crashing a spaceship into a skyscraper? Introducing synthetic-hybrid-cyborg rivalries? Dropping a Xenomorph in a rainforest? Those all get enthusiastic “hell yeahs” from me, and you can believe there are many more where those came from.

Unsettling, bizarro, and contemplative in equal measures — just how I like my Alien! — Alien: Earth proves an exciting new entry in the franchise. Come for the Xenomorph, but stay for all the exquisite nightmares Hawley is cooking up.

Alien: Earth premieres Aug. 12 at 8 p.m. ET on Hulu and FX.