Tech bros the real horror in Alien: Earth
Almost half a century on, Noah Hawley, the show-runner of Fargo, whose genre-bending talent adapted the Coen brothers' bleak classic into one of TV's most innovative dramas, leads a new prequel, Alien: Earth.
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ABC News
3 days ago
- ABC News
In Alien: Earth, Fargo creator Noah Hawley brings fresh ideas to the Alien franchise
"There's a creature loose, approximately 8 feet tall, armoured." Fast facts about Alien: Earth What: A prequel to the original Alien (1979), where a team of human/synthetic hybrids must contain an alien infestation before it spreads across the world. Created by: Noah Hawley. Starring: Sydney Chandler, Timothy Olyphant, Alex Lawther, Samuel Blenkin and Essie Davis. Where: Streaming now on Disney+. Likely to make you feel: Fear, dread and a few chuckles. This is how medic Hermit (Alex Lawther, The End of the F***ing World), trembling with fear, describes what he sees when calling for backup. It's a reminder that these aliens (or xenomorphs, as they're often referred to) are most terrifying when a character encounters them for the first time. The Alien franchise has been many things over the years, but it's this fear of the unknown and the nightmarishness of their newness (plucked from the mind of Swiss artist HR Giger) that made Ridley Scott's 1979 original an all-time sci-fi horror masterpiece. Fast-forward seven years (and 57 years in narrative time), with the aliens no longer having that same element of surprise, James Cameron pivoted the sequel (1986's Aliens) to be less horror and more action-oriented. That movie, featuring a now-pantheon-level bad-ass Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), became an all-time sci-fi action masterpiece. On that spectrum, Alien: Earth, the new FX series (Disney+ in Australia) created by Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion), sits somewhere in the middle, serving an entertaining mix of eerie dread and balls-to-the-wall action. And being a series, with almost six hours run time over six episodes, Alien: Earth manages to be an excellent, well-rounded Alien experience that also incorporates (and expands on) several running themes of the franchise, such as corporate greed and the essence of what makes us human. Set in 2120, two years before Ripley wakes up from stasis in the original movie, Alien: Earth begins with the space vessel Maginot (owned by the Weyland-Yutani corporation featured in the original films) mysteriously crash-landing on Earth in a city run by rival corporation Prodigy. When Hermit and the rescue team arrive at the crash site, they find several alien creatures have escaped from containment and the whole crew dead, except for their security officer, Mr Morrow (Babou Ceesay, Into the Badlands), a cyborg who escapes their attempts to detain him. Joining the fray is a group of hybrids (synthetics with uploaded human consciousness), owned by Prodigy, called the Lost Boys (one of the show's many Peter Pan references). The team is led by Wendy (Sydney Chandler, Pistol), who isn't so much interested in the crashed ship as she is in being able to protect Hermit, who was her brother when she was still a human. Oh, and each hybrid houses the consciousness of a once-terminally-ill child, who now gets to be in a super-powered young adult body, with a supercomputer brain, that can live forever. While there's a lot there, the world building is rich and complex without being overbearing. The show deftly weaves new information in and newcomers should be easily able to follow along without having to fire up Wikipedia on a second screen. Noah Hawley's biggest strength as a showrunner is that he's a creative chameleon, which makes him ideal as a caretaker for existing IP. He is best known for his work on anthology series Fargo, which, over five seasons, was able to arguably match, or even outdo the success of the 1996 Coen Brothers film of the same name that it was based on. In Fargo (the series), Hawley was able to harness the essence of what made Fargo (the film) great and then push that concept to its very limits. Likewise, Alien: Earth feels like it belongs in the Alien universe, both in tone and visuals. If you're familiar with the franchise, you will recognise the now-anachronistic macho vibes of the ship's crew, the ponderous musings about the nature of humanity and the ominous shadow of malevolent multinational corporations. You'll also notice the computers having analogue light-up buttons and green text on MDA monitors that visionaries from 1979 apparently couldn't imagine a future without. Hawley has been able to grow this world, populate it with interesting characters and give them the room to develop themselves and their relationships with one another. It feels like an essential expansion for a franchise best known for gnarly alien creatures, visceral body horror and claustrophobic gun-based action. What little lightness there is in the show mainly comes from the natural comedy of children occupying adult bodies, and the interactions between the Lost Boys, particularly between Slightly (Adarsh Gourav) and Smee (Jonathan Ajayi), are welcome comic relief. As protagonist Wendy, 29-year-old Chandler convincingly plays a child growing more comfortable with being in what is essentially an adult superhero body (though she complains about having breasts, saying 'they get in the way'). Her relationship with Lawler's Hermit is the beating heart of the show. Playing the kids' stand-in parents are synthetic mentor and trainer Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant, Justified, Deadwood) and human scientist Dame Silvia (Australia's own Essie Davis, The Babadook). Olyphant, known for charming but emotionally avoidant characters finally gets to play a robot, while the always superb Davis makes the most of a somewhat limited role. The Peter Pan of the story is Prodigy Corporation's CEO and founder Boy Kavalier, a genius megalomaniac played with gusto by English actor Samuel Blenkin. It's a fun performance, but the character is just a little too much of a comic book villain for my liking. It's an eclectic cast of characters — the majority of whom are either synthetic or partially synthetic — that effectively explores themes of family, childhood and humanity … whenever they take a break from fighting off xenomorphs. Alien: Earth is a remarkable achievement, given how inconsistent some of the Alien sequels and spin-offs have been. It's a show that understands what makes the source material so special but at the same time feels fresh and new. It doesn't just play the hits; it introduces new ideas to further build and fill out the world. Given the critical and box office success of 2024's Alien: Romulus, we could be looking at the next franchise resurgence to grace our screens, both big and small. Alien Earth is streaming on Disney+.
AU Financial Review
4 days ago
- AU Financial Review
Tech bros the real horror in Alien: Earth
In Hollywood's book of big budget franchises, Alien has been a shape-shifter. In 1979, director Ridley Scott fused gothic horror with blue-collar sci-fi to birth the xenomorph: an H.R. Giger-designed space monster that's haunted screens ever since. Almost half a century on, Noah Hawley, the show-runner of Fargo, whose genre-bending talent adapted the Coen brothers' bleak classic into one of TV's most innovative dramas, leads a new prequel, Alien: Earth.
News.com.au
5 days ago
- News.com.au
Verdict on Jenna Ortega in Wednesday's new season as the terrifying Alien: Earth delivers a new phobia
We've sifted through the latest offerings from TV and streaming platforms to find the best shows you should be watching this week. ONE SHOW. TWO VIEWS NEW EPISODES WEDNESDAYS, DISNEY+ So effective was the terrifying, slavering, jaw-snapping, chest-bursting Xenomorph in Ridley Scott's first Alien film that of the many sequels in the 46 years since, even the bad ones are still pretty good (we don't talk about the two Predator-adjacent abominations of the early 2000s). But by last year's not-half-bad Alien: Romulus, they were starting to feel a little repetitive. In the franchise's first foray on to the small screen – set two years before the events of the first film – creator Noah Hawley has come up with something that feels both familiar and fresh and adds depth and nuance to the world in a similar fashion to what Andor did for the Star Wars universe. Yes, there's plenty of acid blood, spiked tails and gory dismemberment after a stricken space freighter oaded with deadly cargo crash-lands in a city, but there are also new creatures to make your skin crawl, androids and other augmented humans that resonate with the current big questions about artificial intelligence and amoral tech giants who will make viewers wonder who the true enemy is. JAMES WIGNEY I have never quite recovered from seeing a blood-soaked alien burst forth from John Hurt's chest in the original 1979 film. The iconic scene introduced cinema goers to the killer creature (while also serving to reinforce my distaste for canteens). While plenty of folk relish jump scares, they have never been my thing and usually just result in nightmares or planting seeds for another phobia (case in point being It fostering a hatred of clowns and Misery making me deeply suspicious of jovial older ladies). This is why – despite my immense respect for Sigourney Weaver's groundbreaking performance as Ripley – I have tended to avoid anything to do with Alien. Until now. Like its predecessors, this prequel is scary stuff. But perhaps not for the same reasons. Set in 2120, in a time when the world is now ruled by corporations and egotistical trillionaires are experimenting with merging humans with machines, the problems created by humankind feel almost as scary as the murderous extraterrestrials. Worse yet, this future feels frighteningly possible. Cue new phobia. SIOBHAN DUCK WEDNESDAY NETFLIX It was always going to be a big ask for Tim Burton to recreate the magic of the gothic black comedy's first season, with its visually stunning take on the ooky, kooky Addamses, the cracked version of Hogwarts that is Nevermore Academy and the rogues gallery of Outcasts that populated its halls. But there's still plenty to like in the first four episodes of the follow-up season – with the second half due to drop next month. Jenna Ortega's title character is back at school trying to hone her psychic powers, much to the consternation of her mother, while also juggling a stalker, another murder mystery and new-found notoriety. Among the fresh faces leading up to a cracking cliffhanger are Steve Buscemi as the new principal, Billie Piper as a mysterious music teacher and Joanne Lumley absolutely revelling in the role of Wednesday's filthy rich, no-nonsense grandmother. AFL WOMEN THURSDAY, 7.15PM, CHANNEL 7, 7MATE, FOX FOOTY, KAYO This year's milestone tenth season will get underway where last year's wrapped up with North Melbourne's dominant showing against Brisbane at Melbourne's Princes Park to secure their first flag. Traditional powerhouse rivals Carlton and Collingwood, both of whom are yet to win the competition, will face off tomorrow night, followed by the West Coast Eagles hosting the Gold Coast Suns. Friday will see Sydney at home against Richmond and on Saturday it's Geelong v North Melbourne, GWS v Essendon and Western Bulldogs v Melbourne. On Sunday there's Brisbane V Hawthorn, St Kilda v Adelaide and then Port Adelaide taking on Fremantle to close out the opening round. PLAYING GRACIE DARLING THURSDAY, PARAMOUNT+ It's a foundational principle for horror that any time a Ouija board appears on screen – let alone when it's being used in a creepy abandoned building in the middle of the night – nothing good is going to happen. And so it proves in this intriguing new Aussie mystery thriller when a bunch of teenagers do just that, leading to the disappearance and presumed death of the title character. Years later Gracie's bestie and fellow seance enthusiast Joanie, who is now working at as a psychologist in a youth detention centre and still haunted by the terrifying experience, gets word that another member of the Darling family has disappeared under similar circumstances. Throw in some disgruntled small-town locals, dead birds and burning effigies and it all adds up to plenty of atmospheric and foreboding fun. PROFESSOR T FRIDAY, 8.30PM, ABC Hot on the heels in the same timeslot of autistic sleuth Patience Evans, comes another unconventional, neurodivergent detective in the form of Ben Miller's Professor Jasper Tempest. Punctual, meticulous, germ-phobic, prone to flights of fancy and living with obsessive-compulsive disorder, he's also a brilliant criminologist at Cambridge University who assists the police – sometimes reluctantly – in their investigations. When the spectre of a serial rapist appears in the uni's hallowed halls, a police officer who knew one of the victims and is a former student of Jasper, enlists his help in making connections that no one else can see to find the perpetrator. THE RAINMAKER SATURDAY, STAN Relative newcomer Milo Callaghan follows in the footsteps of Matt Damon for this pacy and more-ish ten-part adaptation of John Grisham's legal page-turner. He plays aspiring lawyer Rudy Baylor, who gets fired from his job at a prestigious firm on his first day for turning up late and bloody and mouthing off at his cocky boss. Turned down by every other firm in town Rudy signs on to a small, ambulance chasing outfit and proves to be a natural Rainmaker – someone who can drum up money-spinning clients. But in taking on a wrongful death case of a man who died in hospital, he finds himself not just pitted against his former employer (John Slattery putting an evil spin on his Mad Man character), but also his girlfriend, who still works for the firm. SURVIVOR: AUSTRALIA V THE WORLD SUNDAY, 7PM, CHANNEL 10 It's the last hurrah for veteran Survivor host Jonathan La Paglia – but he's going out in style with an action-packed, truncated season featuring the some of the best players from Australia's ten seasons facing off against greats of the game from the US, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and Finland. With 16 days rather than 50-odd and 14 players instead of 24, moves have to be made fast and Aussies David 'Golden God' Genat and George 'King of Bankstown' Mladenov (sporting some alarming Speedos) waste no time getting in the heads of their fellow players. On the World side, American Parvati 'Black Widow' Shallow is gunning for record number of days played while hulking South African Rob is not afraid to call the shots early. THE ROOKIE MONDAY, 8.55PM, CHANNEL 7 It's literally an all-guns-blazing start for the seventh season of the much loved police procedural, with Nathan Fillion's John Nolan (back on deck after a bullet in the bum) and the gang backing up a SWAT team to take down a heavily armed house while on the hunt for last season's fugitives Jason and Oscar. As is his wont, Nolan's working smarter not harder in the ensuing chase, but his sporadic self-doubt in not being able to take shot that could save a life leaves him wondering whether he's come back to work too soon, especially with the looming threat of a stolen nuke. And of course there's a couple of new rookies – a cocky cowboy from Texas who wants to be the best and a by-the-book greenhorn who wants to help – setting up a fun rivalry between their two handlers. TRENDING – BRAD PITT As Brad Pitt pulls on his blonde wig for a second time to reprise his Oscar-winning performance as stuntman Cliff Booth in the upcoming spin-off to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, let's travel back to a time before Pitt was one of Tinseltown's top leading men. This 1991 film, made the same year as Pitt's breakout role as a conman with chiselled abs in Thelma and Louise, has the father-of-six starring alongside NYPD Blue star Rick Schroeder. Pitt plays a straight-a student whose well-planned future is thrown into disarray by the return of his troubled younger brother (Schroeder). While the film itself is predictable stuff, it offers a great glimpse at a star in the making.
