Roush Review: ‘Alien’ Comes Down to Earth in a Thrilling Series
Review
Alien: Earth
Ever since the first Alien movie in 1979, we’ve been told that in space, no one can hear you scream. But that doesn’t apply to the living room, and I expect there will be many howls of delighted fright echoing across America as FX’s spectacular and terrifying Alien: Earth brings the nerve-wracking franchise to the home screen.
At their best (in the first two films, most agree), the Alien movies set the standard for suspenseful science fiction laced with classic monster-movie horror. Earth, created by Fargo‘s brilliant Noah Hawley, honors that tradition with imagination, intelligence, impressively epic style, and a devilish taste for graphically gruesome ick that recalls John Carpenter‘s iconic 1982 The Thing. (One new creature, a skittering eyeball with octopus legs, has already invaded my nightmares.)
The premise, while familiar, is blissfully simple: A spaceship, the Maginot, crash-lands on Earth in 2120 with a lab full of creepy specimens, and at least one fully grown Xenomorph (Alien‘s signature drooling monster) on the loose. The doomed ship, whose fate is explained in the thrilling fifth episode on September 2, belongs to the powerful Weyland-Yutani corporation, but now resides in territory controlled by the rival Prodigy Corp. and its soulless boy-wonder visionary, who goes by Boy Kavalier (a smirky Samuel Blenkin) and claims the ship’s sinister contents as his own.
This sets up a battle between Prodigy and Weyland-Yutani, with the Maginot‘s security officer, the cybernetic Morrow (Babou Ceesay), determined to retrieve the creatures. His sole mandate, even before the crash: “Nothing matters but the cargo.”
All of which is great fun, but Alien: Earth goes deeper with its most inspired characters: new human/robot “hybrids,” developed in secret by Boy Kavalier, which embed a live human consciousness into nearly indestructible humanoid robots, the next evolutionary step toward immortality. The catch: The only minds flexible enough for the experiment come from dying or impaired children, who aren’t emotionally prepared for what comes next after their miraculous resurrection. Especially when monsters are involved.
Inspired by (and imagining himself to be) Peter Pan, Boy Kavalier dubs his first prototype Wendy (the mesmerizing Sydney Chandler in a star-making role), a child in an adult body who becomes the big sister by default to the next batch of hybrids, called the “Lost Boys” and bearing names like Smee, Slightly, Curly, Nibs, and Tootles — the latter a wannabe scientist who poignantly declares he wants to be known as Isaac (after Newton). Wendy has an even more intense sibling connection to her actual brother, Prodigy medic Joe Hermit (Alex Lawther), whose perilous adventures amid the aliens draw Wendy and her Lost Boys into danger.
Patrick Brown/FX
Their handler, a soon-to-be-obsolete “synth” robot named Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant, commanding and startling in platinum hair), lacks the hybrids’ emotional wavelength but understands the gravity of their situation. In a soliloquy that’s classic Hawley, he reminds the wide-eyed Wendy that not so long ago, humans used to be food. “In the animal kingdom, there is always someone bigger or smaller who would eat you alive if they had the chance. That’s what it is to be an animal.”
And that’s Alien in a nutshell. You’ve been warned.
Alien: Earth, Series Premiere (two episodes), Tuesday, August 12, 8/7c, FX and Hulu
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