Alien: Earth: Season 1

6

I can’t say I’m an Alien-verse acolyte. I saw both Aliens and Alien³ in the movie theater. Along with Prometheus, which I found to be not that much fun. I’m honestly not even sure I’ve seen the original Alien all the way through. The whole lore and universe isn’t something I’d thought too deeply about. And, frankly, mindless monsters killing the crap out of people just never appealed to me on a level that made me want to invest the time. But, after watching Alien: Earth and hearing pods and whatnot talk about it, I realize there’s a whole history to this thing that people seem to really care about. Weird. In retrospect, I suppose that’s what Prometheus was trying to do in building this timeline, but I found that film to be nonsensical and, at times, bordering on hokey. Which I know probably isn’t a popular opinion, but it is what it is. So, why would I watch this thing? Noah Hawley, that’s why.

Yes, Hawley. He of Fargo and Legion. Shows that certainly had their peaks and valleys, but were and, in the case of Fargo, consistently remain visually stunning and endlessly interesting. Even if Legion left me 100% confused almost 100% of the time. Whatever the case, I was interested in seeing what he would do with the aliens and this sci-fi horror thing. Turns out he did the Hawley treatment. Which means it’s really cool looking. The set design of the ships and the tech is very thoughtful and appropriately, stupidly retro. And, like the other Alien creators before him, he’s put his own spin on what the xenomorph looks like. In this case it kind of looks like a dude in a xenomorph costume. Which I have to assume was intentional, but did seem like a bit of a cost-cutting measure. Who knows. But, when it comes to the look and feel, Hawley doesn’t disappoint. He really knows how to build a world and he does a cool job of creating both the insular world of the drippy industrial decay we’re used to with the Alien franchise, along with the wider world that feels vaguely like Singapore. If not just Singapore. Because for some reason everything in the sci-fi future is always Asian. Yes, not everything makes sense in Hawley’s universe, but logic and deep scrutiny isn’t something you want to necessarily apply to his stuff.

So, here we are on the future Earth. The world has essentially been divided up between several billionaires and trillionaires. This season focuses on two: Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) and, to a much lesser extent, Yutani. Yutani has a research vessel returning from a 60-year mission to deep space carrying all sorts of aliens that ends up crash landing in Boy Kavalier’s city (the aforementioned Singapore-like metropolis). He does a whole finders-keepers thing and hauls all the aliens off to his secret island to find out what he has. This is all a distraction from his main focus, which is supposed to be a hybrid program where his company transfers the consciousnesses of dying children into the synthetic adult bodies. And, in the most Hawley thing ever, he overlays a whole Peter Pan, Lost Boys theme. It’s a little on-the-nose for my taste, but he really leans into it. The tension is then driven by Yutani trying to get her aliens back — using cyborg, Morrow (Babou Ceesay), to lead the charge — and Boy Kavalier’s hybrids learning about their new existences and his whole team trying to study and contain their new alien pets.

Honestly, not a ton happens in the first season of this show. It’s mostly vibes. We try to build some emotional connection with our main hybrid, Marcy/Wendy (Sydney Chandler), and her biological older brother, Joe Hermit (Alex Lawther). Joe having no idea that his dead sister is now a super-robot who can leap from heights, run like the wind, control technology with her mind and talk to alien beings. And, she, still having the consciousness of her child self, but in an unrecognizable body to him, seeking him out as her singular mission. And, despite Lawther having the best sad face in television, I’m not sure their reunion quite hits the way Hawley wanted it to. And, even if it did, the subsequent relationship is kind of awkward. I’m honestly having a bit of trouble encapsulating what goes on, as it’s a bit of this and a bit of that. Mostly the aliens being menacing, Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) being an awesomely dry android and Boy putting his dirty-ass bare feet up on the furniture. In that way it feels a lot like Legion. There is a plot and there is a narrative, but at the end of the season you realize that we’ve moved the ball forward very little. But somehow a lot has happened on the micro level. Which, again, speaks to the visuals and the vibes and the world building. But less so to a cohesive and logical progression of the plot. Like Boy’s ADHD, it feels like Hawley kind of jumps around in his interests — with too many feelings and ideas all kind of tripping over each other, and some loose ends and strands of logic just kind of hanging out.

This all said, I enjoyed my time with these aliens and these robots and shit. I ignored the fact Boy is on this beautiful island, yet choses to have all the labs and living quarters and everything else in these windowless, dank seemingly subterranean hovels. All of which you’d figure where newly built, but look like they’ve been battered to hell for decades. There’s an eyeball alien that burrows itself into peoples’ heads, takes over their optic nerve and seemingly wires itself into their brains to use them like a meat puppet like the mushroom virus from The Last of Us. That also somehow escapes a lab and finds its way to a beach to a dead body that… Well, it’s all incredibly far-fetched, but we just kind of go with it. Because if you believe there’s an eyeball alien, why question how it squirms out of an impenetrable fortress and uses its tiny little tendrils to make its way for miles to randomly come upon a body. Aliens that are sometimes held back by glass and other times can just smash through it depending on the need. Hybrids that are supposed to be better than humans, but don’t seem to really be any stronger or smarter than your average dummy. A graveyard filled with dead children that nobody will ever visit and only exists so the formerly dead children hybrids can stumble upon it and have some sort of existential reckoning. An island that at times seems to be populated by ten people, despite it being a research facility and Boy employing an entire security force. I think. There’s a lot of this, honestly. Coincidences and improbable things that I found myself just kind of ignoring because I was too busy paying attention to other things. Or just shrugging them off. That said, the acting is pretty top notch. The tension is well crafted — though they do rely on at least three too many jump scares. Ones that rival the old black cat jumping out of a cupboard in a silent room. But overall I did look forward to the show week after week and will most definitely watch season two. Because like most Hawley stuff, it goes for it, even if it’s not always 100% successful. And the highs are definitely worth the ride.