Alien: Earth is receiving excellent reviews

I'm a HUGE Alien franchise fan and I didn't even know about this! It has really good reviews. I'll be watching this. Thanks OP.

Here's the trailer in case anyone is interested. It looks excellent.

It's television, Jim

Its a series ........ Disappointed it's not a movie.

Anyone watching yet?

No. Next.

Don't all shows start off with excellent reviews? I can't remember the last time I saw a new release that had bad reviews.

Thanks for reminder OP. Noah Hawley has an impressive track record. I have high hopes.

Ridley Scott is executive producer so this will be top notch.

It has the 1979 look down pat.

Yeah it looks really authentic and faithful to the original Alien but also updated and modern at the same time R10.

Wow Hulu is really trying to keep me as a subscriber right now between this and the return of King of the Hill.

I just watched the first episode on FX. It's bleak and scary and very well done. If you're depressed do not watch it.

[quote]Ridley Scott is executive producer so this will be top notch.

Oh, please. His films suck now.

I was getting bored during episode one, trying to figure out why the black android and the Asian man in the spaceship are so disagreeable, watching some sick girl get her body switched into an adult with super powers, then we have to see her "learn" about having boobs now and watch old movies. Following some sad sack through rainy streets and some billionaire genius acting funky. Why is Timothy Olyphant looking like a meth lesbian or cracked out Billy Bob Thornton?

I kinda tuned out around when the alien ships started falling to earth. Guess I'll try again

I'll give it a go, but the portentous dialogue and plodding ASMR line readings in the trailer don't inspire confidence.

I like Noah Hawley, but after watching forty minutes of this I’m confused why it even exists. They spent an absolute fortune on it, well north of 250 million. It certainly looks expensive. Given the diminishing returns of the Alien movies in the past decade, it makes little sense for FX to spend that much. It’s received barely any promotion, and the promotion that it has gotten has been troubled at best with the main star not showing up to interviews because she clearly dislikes Hawley and Olyphant (who is doing some sort of weird performance copied from Guy Pearce in Prometheus.

The first episode is an uncomfortable mix of Blade Runner, Spielberg’s A.I. and a direct copy of the first Alien with multiple dumb jump scares that have no effect. I just… don’t get it. The action is dull and the talky scenes even duller. Make it make sense.

The first episodes are usually to introduce characters and plotlines. I'll give it a chance. I have always been a fan of the franchise. It's better than most science fiction out here and Ridley raised some terrifying possibilities about the future of the human race. I thought the weakest movies were the Alien vs Predator ones. Those were garbage. I never got why they literally killed children after transferring all the usable parts to the clones or who ever they are. Super Androids? This is a very dark series. I can already see that much. I don't recommend it for those who are fragile.

They had major productions issues. It’s been in production since 2020. Pandemic screwed it and then screwed again by the writer’s strike. They finally finished shooting early last summer but took another year to release. It feels disjointed to me, that’s probably why.

It was pretty engrossing story wise, and I love the characters with children’s brains and adult bodies.

I do wish the acting were at a higher calibre, which has been my big problem with a lot of the post Prometheus films. When that first chest bursted popped out in the original Alien everyone on camera looked fully and truly SCARED, and the palpability of the actors’ fear was a huge reason why the film succeeded.

The scene in this show were the female crew member was banging on the door to the control room begging to be let in because the monster was coming had zero stakes, she didn’t seem terrified to be dismembered by a lovecraftian monstrosity, instead it was as if she needed to pee real bad. Veronica Cartwright is missed.

I find it very hard to be truly engrossed in a film if the actors are bland, let alone subpar, but that's just me. I'm very finicky about audiobooks of novels for that reason. I'd rather bring the narrative to life in my head.

Fully agree that the cast from the original film was untouchable. What an amazing ensemble of stage and screen actors.

It's wonderful. I love the Alien Franchise and I loved Episode 1. More please!

Episode 2 was dropped and it's much better than the opener, IMO. I've also read the recaps on Collider and it helps make things clearer. But I am R22. This is gonna be amazing.

Finished episode 2 - so far, I'm not that invested. I count 4-5 different storylines and none of them are making that much impact on me: the black android wanting to keep the xenomorph thriving, the super kids recruited to fight aliens, the genius asshole with a God complex, the girl looking for her brother, the aliens on earth causing havoc. The thing that struck me the most is how bloody and gory the series is.

I wonder if this will skew away from the aliens and become a weekly character study with flashbacks, ala Lost.

The best thing about this is Essie Davis.

it's very bleak.

Alien was very beak R26. The whole Alien series is bleak and fatal. The aliens kill everything they encounter and the victims have almost no chance of surviving. That's their reason for existing. And if you manage to kill an alien then their blood will eat through your ship and kill you that way. Pretty bleak.

I watched the first two episodes last night and LOVED it because I really want to see what happens when the Xenomorphs escape into the general populace. I always thought that an Alien 5 could have been made picking up were Alien Resurrection left off where the ship was in the process of touching down on Earth. I really enjoyed the tributes paid to Alien and how the sets and tech all match the 1979 movie but expand on it. There's obviously been a lot of money spent on the show - I read it was more expensive than Shogun. Agree with others who have said the storyline seems a bit disjointed and what R19 posted makes that make sense. I'm looking forward to more episodes before judgement.

What grosses me out and makes it hard to watch is the very realistic way they have these mutations where a cat or some other familiar creature gets "impregnated" and something gross and disgusting burst from it. That cat licking blood was extremely gross. This series may be entirely too graphic for a TV show even if it is streaming.

Yes, no one expects graphic violence from the Alien franchise.

I was disappointed that the Versailles dinner party massacre occurred off screen

Maybe next week R30!

I absolutely love that shot of the sparks in the mirror when the soldier first realizes the gravity of the spaceship wreck.

The SFX are impressive for a TV show. I love that they kept the widescreen like a theatrical production. And the cast seems perfect for their characters. Last night's back-to-back episodes felt like a movie (without an ending, of course). I'll be watching.

Just to clarify some confusion about the various “androids”:

Androids, or “Synths” are advanced robotics with artificial intelligence.

Cyborgs are robotically enhanced humans.

Hybrids are humans whose consciousness has been transferred into the body of a synth.

R30 me too!

why would there be confusion r34, your post is almost word for word the very first piece of information we get in episode one, after the credits, before the story starts.

R36 Some posts on this thread have referred to certain characters as androids as opposed to their appropriate classification. It’s easy to get confused.

“Excellent reviews” lured me into the theater for the last Alien film and it sucked. Alien fans are easy to please as long as you stick to the formula.

For me, Alien ended with the death of Helen Ripley in Alien 3. Everything after that sucked.

Helen Died?!

R39 that's Ellen Ripley, if you please and she comes back to life in Alien Resurrection enhanced by her favorite DNA, which is a great movie.

Just call me Ripley. No one calls me Ellen.

The show's composer, Jeff Russo, does not have any formal musical training or a background in 20th/21st-century concert music, and it shows. It's all crude gestures and stock sample library aleatorics rendering pale imitations of Goldsmith/Horner/Goldenthal.

R38 Have you checked your expectations lately?

I thought the first two episodes were just meh.

The first two episodes became great when the focus was on the xenomorph and the other monsters (the eye with tentacles was creepy). But when the focus was on Wendy or the Prodigy CEO, the series became really, really dull. Wendy is not a compelling character, and neither is the CEO; both are annoying. The "child in an adult's body" plot point isn't handled well. And if your main character isn't vulnerable to the villain (the xenomorph), then there's no dramatic tension.

The violence is way more graphic than expected. The production itself looks really expensive, and the details look carefully curated. The opening scene on the spaceship evoked the original film really well.

Did the second hour get any better? I turned it off after the first one. The brother/sister thing just ground everything to a halt.

I thought the second episode was better. But that's me.

I saw the first episode. Meh

I went in expecting the level of tension you got from Alien or Aliens, or even Romulus. But this being a series, I think the first episodes are more focused on building up the main characters which ultimately worked for me. The leading brother and sister are sweet enough and smart enough that I can see identifying with them in future episodes.

R46 We don't know if Wendy and the other hybrids are going to be invulnerable. I can imagine the xeno shredding them to bits with those claws or its acid blood.