Alien: Earth Season 1 Review

Alien: Earth (2025-)

Season 1 - 8 episodes (2025)
Watch the trailer
Created by: Noah Hawley
Starring: Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Essie Davis, Samuel Blenkin, Babou Ceesay, Adarsh Gourav, Erana James, Jonathan Ajayi, David Rysdahl, Diêm Camille, Moe Bar-El, Timothy Olyphant, Kit Young
Rated: TV-MA

Plot
When a mysterious space vessel crash-lands on Earth, a young woman and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet's greatest threat.

Verdict
Frequently more horror than drama, this brings not just the classic xenomorph to Earth but also a host of other creatures while corporations vie for the next step in human evolution. While that adds depth, the series doesn't develop the ideas on next human iteration much further. The production design feels authentic to the original movies. This is more than I expected out of an Alien series. There's unexplored depth with the future of the human race and several scares. The conclusion is underwhelming, casting a shadow on the rest of the series. It leaves us with a lot of questions. I wish my parting thoughts weren't disappointment with the conclusion when the rest of the season has been such a scary thrill ride.
Watch It.

Review
Since 1979 this franchise hasn't gone more than seven years without a movie. This is the first series, developed by Hawley who created the Fargo series. This is a prequel set after Covenant and before Alien. 

I was excited during the opening scenes. The way this looks, sounds, and the sets are a faithful addition or even a recreation of the original Alien movies. A crew wakes up on a space ship discussing global corporations back on Earth where corporations battle for a future where humans will eventually live indefinitely. Will that by through cyborgs, hybrids, or synthetics?

One of those corporations is Prodigy, led by Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) who is transferring the conscious of children with terminal diseases into synthetic bodies, hybrids. Wendy (Sydney Chandler) is the first transfer, followed by others.

The ship in the opening scenes crashes on Earth, just as the show's title indicated. Other than several alien species on the ship, the only other survivor appears to by a cyborg, Morrow (Babou Ceesay). In the first episode he's an enigma, but like every other Weyland-Yutani venture, he's trying to bring biological entities back and things have gone wrong. They always do with Xenomorphs. What adds to the fear factor are the other tiny but deadly aliens on the ship.

Kavalier sends his hybrids to the ship to recover samples. It crashed into his building so he's claiming it as his. In this world, knowledge is power. The few big corporations ruling this world are looking for any edge. The hybrids are children in adult bodies. How will they fare? None of the past movies has ever had anyone succeed in recovering a Xenomorph.

The xenomorph seems to have a preternatural ability to wait and appear at the moment that will scare the most before attacking. It looks great, straight from the movies, and in this series it has a real physicality as it dents doors and panels. It's interesting that this creature murders a room full of people in seconds, but takes time to toy with Hermit (Alex Lawther), a soldier charged with securing the site, providing time for Morrow to arrive and subdue the alien. Morrow states the xenomorph feeds on fear, which could explain why it didn't attack him, but that just seems awfully convenient. We also see a range of alien species never before seen in the franchise. That ventures into horror movie territory.

E2: Adarsh Gourav, Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther play Slightly, Wendy, Joe Hermit

The second episode has a flashback to show us how Hermit, an employee of Prodigy, ended up exploring the wreckage. I don't care. The only important piece of information is that he's Wendy's brother, before she was placed in this new body. He thinks she died.

This series is great. It's everything I hoped for in an Alien show and much more than I expected. The world building gives it depth, keeping it from being another generic sci-fi thriller. The franchise has done that a few times. Weyland-Yutani wants this alien as an augment to their synthetics and cyborgs to fight the technological war with Prodigy. They could create alien-human hybrids or biological weapons.

E2

Wendy and Hermit are both in the vicinity of the xenomorph. She seems quite capable, even protecting her brother from the creature. She's a kid in an adult's body with this unchecked confidence, but I've never see anyone take on a xenomorph like that. I wondered how much time the show would spend at the crash site. Would the entire season be this cat and mouse horror series? By the third episode, the show leaves the crash site. A few alien eggs have been recovered for examination. Everybody always wants the eggs. I didn't see this going well, but we see the biology of a face hugger which we've never seen at that level of detail.

Wendy is a child despite her looks, and she has this underlying need to prove herself. I hoped the show would explore that more. Somehow Wendy develops a link to the xenomorphs and eggs, able to understand them. I'm skeptical but also curious how it plays out. It proves useful to the plot though. Meanwhile Prodigy wants to grow their own alien because that always works out so well. Morrow still wants to recover the eggs from Prodigy, and he's developed a link with Prodigy synth Slightly. It's easy enough when you're dealing with a kid to trick them into a union. Whether Slightly can provide adequate help remains a question. Even if Morrow can get an egg, can he get it back to Yutani? If he can't get an egg, an infected human will suffice.

I get the desire to show what happened on the Yutani ship before it crashed, but that's indulgent. I become increasingly more annoyed with asynchronous episodes like five as it happens more frequently in television. This episode just as easily could have been the lead except the show wanted the crash to kick off the series as it's more exciting. The show needs to make a choice, if you want to cut it, do that. Don't use it as filler later.

Episode six feels like a bridge from where the plot's been to where it's going. It's a lot of setup without a lot happening. Yutani and Kavalier argue over ownership of the wrecked vessel. Morrow plans to extract a host with Slightly's help. It's easy to forget these synths are just children. They can be petulant and naive, stuck in limbo where they are mentally children but physically adults. That provides the impetus for them to make dumb mistakes which is especially costly with all these aliens. Plot points are coming together with Slightly lucking into finding a host. It's a bit of movie magic though.

E6: Timothy Olyphant, Baou Ceesay play Kirsh, Morrow

Then everything goes off the rails. All it takes is one breach. Wendy can command the xenomorph. Would she really unleash it, knowing it's going to kill people? It's too easy. Hermit is pushing Wendy to escape Prodigy's island while Slightly is trying to get a host to Morrow. Will he make it before the chest burster appears? We get plenty of surprises. This was the first episode where I was disappointed with the xenomorph. We see too much of it, looking like a human in an alien suit. The trick is to leave as much to the imagination as possible. Up to this point I like the physicality of the xenomorph, but seeing it in the light of day makes it look fake.

In the final episode Kavalier spins out as everything goes wrong. He's desperate, and we don't need Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) to tell use Kavalier is going to do something reckless. Kavalier wanted to play God, his arrogance was thinking that he was still in control.

It's a solid season even if the final episode is a bit of a letdown. The hierarchy is upturned but that leaves the obvious question of what's next? Most of this season takes place on Kavalier's island, so the events are isolated. It's an unfulfilling question with so many plot points remaining open. Wendy has asserted herself as the leader of the synths, the evolution of humans, but what's her next step with her xenomorph pet?