TV review: 'Alien: Earth' a frightening, provocative sci-fi entry

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1 of 5 | Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) examines a specimen in "Alien: Earth," on FX and Hulu Aug. 12. Photo courtesy of FX
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- Alien: Earth, premiering Aug. 12 on Hulu, is a satisfying extension of the movie franchise that explores new stories in depth over the course of several episodes.
Set in the same universe, the show's opening text explains the differences between the types of artificial intelligence seen in the Alien films: Cyborgs are humans with mechanical parts, synthetics are all artificial, and hybrids are human minds in artificial bodies.
The show follows Wendy (Sydney Chandler), a child with cancer who was transitioned into an adult hybrid body. It opens in 2105 with a spaceship crew on the Maginot transporting specimens fans will recognize as the facehugger that implants the chest burster in human hosts.
What causes the Maginot to crash into the Paradise "Neverland" Research Island feels like the ending of an Alien movie: The android Morrow (Babou Ceesay) sacrifices the human crew to preserve the specimens, and viewers are treated to some brutal alien kills.
Viewers don't need to see much more than that though, because there are already nine movies with similar content. Still, the show delivers a scary alien encounter concentrated in those brief moments and it seems at least one traditional alien encounter per episode.
What's more pressing are the two questions the series inherently asks:
1) Why did the Weyland Yutani company send Alien's Nostromo to pick up aliens on planet LV-246 if they already collected specimens?
2) If those specimens got to Earth, why hadn't Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley or her crew, let alone the people she met back on Earth in Aliens, ever heard of them?
Those are questions that may take more than a single season to answer. Alien: Earth poses many more immediate issues that are equally interesting.
The scientists at Neverland talk to their child test subjects like doctors trying to make patients comfortable. They tell Wendy about Neil Armstrong and show Disney's Peter Pan on the ceiling, leading her to choose the name Wendy.
The scientists gave Wendy an adult body because her physical form is going to stay the same age forever. Staying in a child's body forever would be impractical, and Wendy's young mind is forced to catch up to her new body faster than even the most challenging puberty.
The bodies also have no hormones, so emotions become an issue. The scientists led by Dame Sylvia (Essie Davis) attempt to simulate emotions, which will surely come with a lot of trial and error, but the android caretaker Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) raises the relevant question of why bother with emotions in the first place?
These hybrids do need to pass for human, but the push and pull between emotions and logic are a classic science-fiction theme. Dynamic visuals portray the children uploaded to their adult bodies in succession in a single take.
The scientists also specify that the procedure only works on children because adult minds are too stiff to transition into synthetic bodies. This also adds a generational separation between the hybrids and human adults.
The hybrids are shown to be capable of extraordinary feats without overdoing the visual effects. Wendy can leap from a cliff and land on the ground easily, or lift four children with little effort.
Hybrid technology was invented by Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), who behaves very much like Mark Zuckerberg was portrayed in the film The Social Network. He invented this life saving and potentially revolutionary technology, but he is insufferable.
Meanwhile, the alien specimens on the Maginot include new species with their own horrifying attributes. Series creator and director Noah Hawley uses the frame to show aliens of all varieties crawling in the background, unbeknownst to the characters. Corporate control over human bodies is more terrifying than aliens, though.
The Maginot crash leads to a shocking disaster that can suddenly be graphically violent and then just as quickly move on. The search and rescue crew gives space marine vibes, thus including a sense of the sequel Aliens in the series.
The design of the show is faithful to the original 1979 movie in a modern context. Since it is set a few years before the movie, settings and technology can look a bit fresher before they've been run down.
As he did with Fargo, Hawley invented an Alien show that is faithful to the movies while exploring original ideas within. There is more connective tissue to the Alien movies, with the creature itself and broader mythology addressed, but Hawley has enough ideas of his own to warrant investing an hour a week.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.