The Cutprice Guignol

Hello, oh ye of the Guignol! With the recent release of Alien: Earth, I will be handing over some blog space for the next few weeks to my lovely partner in writing (and other things) Kevin – he’s covered some of the Alien series over on our site No But Listen, so check those out if you haven’t already, and let’s dive into the two-part-premiere!

In 2025, the Alien franchise can’t help but feel played out.

The 21st century has given us three films of differing quality – equally full of what makes the series great and what makes it suck. Some of Prometheus is excellent, a lot of it is terrible. The same can be said of its sequel Alien: Covenant; though I personally think it improves on the story of its predecessor but is let down by the lack of palpable threat of the titular Aliens. Last year’s Alien: Romulus was a good old fashioned creature feature, with awful characters dying horribly and likeable characters dying even more horribly. The problem was that Romulus was trying to be every Alien film at once, and so was let down by how derivative the end result was. All of this is to say, if the franchise is to continue, it needs a change. Enter Alien: Earth.

One of the highlights of Alien is that it always attracts major creative talent. The first film put Ridley Scott on the map, then Aliens consolidated James Cameron’s credentials as a blockbuster director, while Alien 3, because of its flaws, helped first time director David Fincher to learn from his mistakes while not compromising to idiot studio heads to become the top-tier filmmaker he is today. The Xenomorph is a creature flexible enough that different auteurs can envision their own story in which it is their bogeyman. Now its Fargo and Legion showrunner, Noah Hawley’s turn at the wheel and judging by Alien: Earth’s first two episodes, he is a safe pair of hands and television looks like a place where this iconic cinematic monster can thrive once again.

Despite an abandoned teaser trailer for Alien 3, the Xenomorph has never been on Earth until now. The premiere opens on a ship so familiar that it might as well be the Nostromo – but, instead, this is the Maginot, in which a crew of scientists and engineers (and a synthetic, of course) are travelling back to Earth after a mission in which they have captured various alien species from various planets. The facehuggers and Xenomorph are present, but there are also an assortment of creepy-crawlies that commit all sorts of hellish body horror in the show’s opening two-parter.

The ensuing carnage results in the Maginot crash landing into a tower block in New Siam with the synthetic, Morrow (who shows the kind of ruthlessness that Ash would be proud of, if he were so inclined to such useless emotion), the only survivor, who is tasked with retrieving the loose Xenomorph and bringing it to Yutani: the CEO of Weyland-Yutani. If you’ve seen Prometheus, you’ll already know what happened to Weyland.

Sounds like a typical Alien story, albeit with incredible production design, art direction, props, and mostly-brilliant CGI. But the special sauce of Alien: Earth is Prodigy. Led by the cackling evil of the world’s youngest trillionare (he definitely puts that on his business cards) Boy Kavalier, Prodigy is looking to jump-start the next stage of evolution by transferring the consciousness of terminally ill children into grown up synthetic bodies. By doing this, Prodigy has achieved a kind of immortality, at least according to scientist Dame Sylvia played by the underused Essie Davis. The pick of the bunch is Wendy (Sydney Chandler) who is the first child to make the transition in an eerie scene in which she is lulled out of her body while scenes from Disney’s Peter Pan play above her. Who would have thought Disney would let one of their classic be used by clearly villainous characters to trick children? Well, it is Noah Hawley, and if he does one thing across all his stories, it’s brilliant narrative layering.

Wendy is the de-facto leader of a bunch of proverbial Lost Boys, who were only created so Kavalier, equipped with his Devil’s apple and the sin of pride, to see what they could do and if they could somehow match his intelligence (though they’d have no chance matching his ego). The crashed ship represents a chance to see what these adult kids can do but there is the added wrinkle that Wendy’s brother, Joe Hermit (Alex Lawther), is a first responder at the crash site.

With everything set up and the mood locked in with some beautiful cross-fades, Alien: Earth provides a fresh approach to the hunt. We see many examples of the Xenomorph’s strength and killing power: it kills at least ten people dressed in French Monarchy garb so fast that I’m surprised that Marie Antionette’s head wasn’t still spinning on the cake, and there’s a delicious chaos factor with so many people in the crash site not remotely prepared for the danger inside.

It’s excellent stuff, with Hawley making the Xenomorph feel like a real threat whether it attacks head-on or is stealthy hiding amongst a bunch of cables or, memorably, an already strange looking statue. The best part of the premiere is, firstly the new monsters. A tentacled eyeball, blood sucking worms, and more surprises I’m sure. I can’t believe Alien: Earth is only the second Alien story to have monsters that weren’t just the Xenomorphs and the Facehuggers (Prometheus being the other, but the less said about that, the better).

The second episode, though, started as a disappointment. For much of the runtime, the Xenomorph is pursuing Joe. At first, I was mad that, after tearing through everyone in sight, the creature just throws Joe about, giving him a chance to get rescued. This felt like lazy plot armour for a main character, but since the Xenomorph basically kidnapped him at the end of the second episode, it makes me think that the creature wants him alive – an intriguing place to kick off the rest of this story, and one that offers plenty of interesting character and plot opportunities to delve into.

Alien: Earth was an incredibly enjoyable two hours of television – full of strange creature, characters, and a world that is informed by Ridley Scott’s original but not so much that it can’t be its own thing. Unlike the people in the Maginot, I can’t wait for what happens next.

By Kevin Boyle

(header image via Bloody Disgusting)