After 46 years, a tired ‘Alien' franchise gets new life, and new relevance, on TV
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The series also takes care to develop multiple characters without skimping on the terror. And make no mistake, 'Alien: Earth' is terrifying, thanks largely to an assortment of finely detailed monsters that greatly expands the menagerie we've come to know and fear. There are fly-like aliens, and eyeball aliens, and of course the old standby, still one of the great creature designs in film (and now TV) history. 'Alien: Earth' is disgusting in all the right ways, evoking dread and perhaps a bit of nausea. This is, after all, a franchise that kicked off with a slimy critter bursting from a man's chest.
But 'Alien: Earth' also makes for gripping science fiction — and carefully layered drama. Its main characters, particularly a group of state-of-the art, manufactured near-humans with the souls of dead children, have richly conflicting loyalties and motives that evolve throughout the eight-episode first season.
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The world created here, in which rival corporations battle for world domination, is both eerily resonant and, well, alien. Animating the whole enterprise is the timeless sci-fi question of what it means to be human, and not quite human. Innocence and ideals stand side-by-side with venality and greed. The title of one episode speaks volumes: 'The Real Monsters.' As in, they're us.
Since the very first movie, the 'Alien' characters fall roughly into two camps. There are those, like Sigourney Weaver's Ripley, who take the logical approach that these predatory beasts should be exterminated. But then there are the corporations, which see the aliens as cash cows, perfect specimens for weapons research and God knows what else. The franchise's original mega-company, Weyland-Yutani, plays a role in 'Alien: Earth,' but it takes a backseat to Prodigy, run by a preening young tech bro trillionaire with the ridiculous name of Boy Kavalier (played by Samuel Blenkin). Obsessed with Peter Pan, he presides over his island fortress, where he creates the aforementioned near-humans. He seeks to bridge the gap between mortality and immortality, and hopefully add to his trillions in the process. 'There goes that six billion,' he shrugs when one of his creations meets a grisly end.
Chief among these hybrids and the series' central character, is Wendy, a bob-haired dynamo played by Sydney Chandler (daughter of Kyle). This is the definition of a breakout performance. The role calls for a combination of unraveling naiveté and burgeoning guile, and Chandler responds with a performance that brings to mind an action-hero version of Audrey Hepburn. But the actors playing the rest of Kavalier's 'Lost Boys' are also outstanding. As a unit they convey the confusion, excitement, and fear of children placed into new bodies, and the rage of former people who no longer know exactly what they are. 'We're all ghosts,' laments Nibs (Lily Newsome).
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The spectacular catalyst for the action is the crash landing of a Weyland-Yutani ship into a Prodigy skyscraper, which sets up a bitter battle between the corporations
over the ship's alien cargo. The aliens, of course, are deadly.
But 'Alien: Earth' stands out from previous 'Alien' installments by generating at least a little sympathy for them. They are, in the big picture, pawns in a game between warring one-percenters.
The series stands out in other ways as well. Hawley has a genius-level instinct for transforming and departing from an intellectual property without sacrificing what made the original so good.
With 'Fargo' he took a '90s indie film and turned it into an unusually involving crime anthology series. In 'Alien: Earth' he uses some of the themes and ideas (and aliens) from the movies but never succumbs to the overtired cliches that freighted some of the later installments or worries much about chronology or timelines. He does his own thing, along the way paying
homage to everything from 'Lost' to 'The Thing,' 'Blade Runner' to 'Never Let Me Go.' He shows appreciation but avoids imitation or pastiche.
Perhaps most importantly, he spins a ripping yarn. Where so many recent series fizzle and bloat down the stretch, the first season of 'Alien: Earth' — and you can bet your house there will be a season 2 — keeps building until the final scene of the final episode. It's a textbook for how to leave the viewer salivating for what's next.
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ALIEN: EARTH
Starring Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Babou Ceesay, Samuel Blenkin, Timothy Olyphant, Essie Davis, and Lily Newsome. On FX and Hulu Aug. 12
Chris Vognar can be reached at
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USA Today
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When do new episodes of 'Alien: Earth' come out? Season 1 schedule, where to watch
Season 1 of the new TV series, Alien: Earth, is underway, delivering the horror and primal fear that the 'Alien' franchise has brought fans for decades. Set in the year 2120, two years before the original Alien movie and 16 years after the events of Alien: Covenant, the show explores the aftermath of the deep space research vessel USCSS Maginot's crash landing on Earth. ''Wendy' (Sydney Chandler) and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet's greatest threat in FX's Alien: Earth,' the show's description says. Here's how to watch the next episode of 'Alien Earth' Season 1. What is the 'Alien: Earth' Season 1 episode schedule? Here is the full list of episode release dates for Season 1 of 'Alien: Earth' Watch it here: Stream your favorite shows, the biggest blockbusters and more. How to watch 'Alien: Earth' Season 1 New episodes of Season 1 of 'Alien: Earth' will premiere on Hulu on Tuesdays. The least-expensive plan (which requires watching commercials) is $9.99 per month (or $99.99/year), and it provides access to Hulu's ad-supported streaming library. Students can get that plan for $1.99 per month, if eligible. You can get a free trial of Hulu, but you do need to sign up and submit payment details. (You won't be charged until the end of your trial period – the trial length is different depending on the subscription tier you choose.) Other subscription options include Hulu bundled with Disney+, which costs $10.99 (with ads). Bundled with Disney+ and ESPN+, the cost is $16.99 (with ads) or $19.99 (without ads). For more plans and prices, visit the Hulu website. Watch the 'Alien: Earth' Season 1 trailer Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at and follow him on X @fern_cerv_. We occasionally recommend interesting products and services. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. USA TODAY Network newsrooms operate independently, and this doesn't influence our coverage.
Yahoo
16 hours ago
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‘Alien: Earth' composer and music supervisor on Wendy's ‘whimsical' music-box theme and the ‘cathartic' way of ending episodes with Black Sabbath, Tool, Metallica
In space, as the famous Alien tagline goes, no one can hear you scream. So that's where the music comes in. For FX's hit new prequel series Alien: Earth, the job falls to composer Jeff Russo and music supervisor Maggie Phillips. The two artists spoke with Gold Derby following the third episode, "Metamorphosis," which aired Tuesday on FX. The hour-long installment features Wendy (Sydney Chandler) and Hermit (Alex Lawther) barely surviving their battle with a monstrous Xenomorph, and Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant) dissecting a facehugger to see what really makes it squirm. More from Gold Derby The John Turturro cinematic universe: 'Severance' star on how his 'The Batman' villain spawned 'The Penguin' 'Severance' star Tramell Tillman on keeping fans guessing about Milchick - and hoping for a Beyoncé sighting at the Emmys Alien: Earth reunites Russo and Phillips with showrunner Noah Hawley, with the trio previously collaborating on Fargo, for which Russo won an Emmy and Phillips received a nomination. Russo and Phillips have been working on the project under Hawley's leadership for about five years now, and tell us they're "excited" that fans finally get to watch Alien: Earth every Tuesday night on FX. In the following Q&A, Russo delves into Wendy's music-box-esque theme, which he says has a "whimsical feeling" to it because of the nature of Chandler's character being a child inside an adult synthetic body. And Phillips discusses the reasoning behind the "cathartic" way she ends episodes with hard rock/metal bands like Black Sabbath, Tool, and Metallica. Gold Derby: How big of a fan were you both of the film franchise? Jeff Russo: I saw the second movie in theaters, but I was far too young to see the first movie. I might have actually even been slightly too young to see the second one, too. It's a pretty intense, intense movie, but I would say, it had a profound impact on my connection to filmmaking and my connection to loving movies. It was the very first time that I'd ever gone to a movie and felt my heart pounding and felt nervous and truly on the edge of my seat — not just the proverbial edge of my seat, but actually on the edge of my theater seat. So, I would say that I'm a pretty big fan of the first string of movies, loving the first one, the second one, the third one ... and then I just started to fall away from it. But I've now found my way back to the franchise. Maggie Phillips: My parents were very strict about what we saw. I remember hearing about it for years before I even actually saw it. It was such a pop-culture moment, the alien coming out of the stomach. My dad was a huge fan, so he would talk about it, but I didn't see the first one or second one until I was an adult, or maybe late in my teens, and I loved them. When I found out five years ago that we were going to be doing this, I went back and watched them all in succession, and Jeff and I would talk about different aspects of each. Noah specifically was focusing on the first and second Aliens, so those two I went back and watched a few times. is finally airing on FX after all these years. What is it like to see the audience's reaction? Phillips: It's fun! Jeff and I lose perspective when you work on something for so long. And also, we watched this without the music, without the visual effects, without the sound effects, so we're working on it as a work in progress. Jeff and I were in London for the premiere and watched it together in a theater, with the reaction all around us. There were moments where we were poking each other with sheer excitement. The vibes were the best I've ever felt at a premiere, because it was palpable how cool this is, and how cool it's gonna be, and how exciting it is. It was as thrilling as the show. Russo: With this kind of IP, you always run the risk of, for lack of a better way to put it, alienating the audience. I wrote my very first piece of music for this about five years ago. Noah sent me an early version of the script and a VFX mock-up that he wanted me to start sketching ideas to. When you've been on something for so long, you really do lose complete perspective. There have been moments where I was like, "Oh my God, we're doing it, we're making it happen." Maggie's right, we sat and watched the first episode in a theater with an audience, and it really did feel like nobody knew what was going to happen. And you hear the Black Sabbath song at the end of it, the really big release at the end of the episode. It was really incredible to experience that feeling of, "Holy f--k, we actually pulled it off." So, hearing the feedback, and seeing people enjoying it and drawing those correlations to the first and second films, that's exactly what we set out to do. Jeff, talk about how you pay homage to the original 1979 score by Jerry Goldsmith, while still creating your own thing. Russo: The idea of staying in that lane was a big part of it. The score needed to feel and sound familiar, but it needed to be unique. The way I can make it unique is to write new thematic melodies and material, while still utilizing the same sort of orchestra and the same feelings that Jerry was evoking in that first film. A lot of it was also looking to the second film and listening to James Horner's score [for James Cameron's 1986 sequel, Aliens], which is a little more militaristic. We needed to do something with some more propulsion, because what I wanted to do was take the feelings of the first movie and the second movie and try to merge them together. We wanted to have that very eerie, very tense, very atonal score that sounds like it's just crashing together, combined with a more militaristic-sounding, propulsive score. The thing that those scores don't really have is the emotional content. So, what Noah and I talked about doing was to connect the characters to the music. What can you tell us about Wendy's music-box theme? Russo: It's played on a celeste, which does have a bit of a music-box vibe to it. It's very high-pitched, and it looks like a mini upright piano. There is something that I wanted to inject into her theme, which is, she's a child in an adult body, so there has to be some whimsical aspect to her. We struggled with finding the right amount of whimsical feeling in it without being too whimsical, because then it just comes away from that dread. Taking a child who is dying and putting their consciousness into a synthetic body, there's something so dark about that. And what's behind it is this evil trillionaire wanting to take over the world with this idea of immortality. Black Sabbath, Tool, Metallica, oh my! I don't remember a TV show having such a hard rock/metal feel to its music supervision. Phillips: I certainly have never done it before. Look, there are no songs in any of the Alien movies, not a single one. Jeff and I got on a call, and we're like, there's gonna be some songs, because it's a Noah Hawley show. No one knew at first what we were gonna do. Noah put together a playlist of initial inspiration, but it was very eclectic. Black Sabbath at the end of the pilot was so satisfying and so fun and worked so well, that the end songs just grew out of that. We just wanted more. It's cathartic. It's this release. It feels like big emotions and big fun. Arena hard rock/metal are big enough for the show. It's just, how do we punctuate each episode with a moment that's big enough for what we just watched? You're both Emmy nominees for , and Jeff, you won for that show. What would it mean to you for Emmy voters to recognize your work for ? Russo: Just to be in that conversation is pretty spectacular. It's special to be involved in the creation of art that is inside that conversation. Noah has put together a team of artists that he trusts, that has come together to make these really great things. He has a way to tell stories that I'm not sure I've ever experienced. Phillips: We really support each other, but we also all demand excellence from ourselves and each other. There's such a strong level of commitment to the craft, and I think just to be considered is always great, but to be considered amongst this family of people that we've been working together with for over a decade, that makes it just special. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 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Yahoo
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Noah Hawley gets a lot of things right in his latest Alien spin-off series, Alien: Earth, and the songs are a big part of it. If you've paid close attention, you'll know that the show is utilizing different genres of music that haven't been used in the franchise before. Here's a list of all the songs from the show, and also what the show creator had to say about the reasoning behind the change. Here's every song that has featured in Alien: Earth episodes 1-3 Alien: Earth is the latest Hulu series based on Ridley Scott's Alien franchise. Scott is also returning as the executive producer for the show. It follows the events after a Weyland-Yutani ship carrying samples of an alien species crash-lands on Earth. The story takes place a few years before the original movie. Hawley's longtime collaborator, Jeff Russo, is the composer for the show. He's previously worked with Hawley on Fargo and Legion. While Russo's incredible and chilling score is used throughout the show, the end credits bring classic metal and hard rock songs into the mix. Here's a list of the songs that feature in the show: Neverland – Episode 1 Nina Simone – Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood TV on the Radio – Killer Crane Lord Afrixana – No Dey Tire Black Sabbath – The Mob Rules (end credits) Mr. October – Episode 2 Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive Stinkfest – Tool (end credits) Metamorphosis – Episode 3 Bayaka – Berg Wherever I May Roam – Metallica (end credits) In an interview with Decider, while discussing the music, Hawley said, 'I mean, classic film, classic rock, right? I think that literally in the movie, Aliens, Vasquez yells, 'Let's rock!'' He continues, 'I didn't go into the filming planning to do that, but as I got into the editorial process, each episode kind of ends on a cliffhanger,' Hawley said. 'What I'm looking for is to make an arena show, right? It's something that feels bigger than a small theater. It's an arena show. And so, you know, I started to put these songs in at the end, these big classic metal or hard rock songs.' With that, we know that we can expect more classic metal and hard rock songs with each new episode. So, now you can stream Alien: Earth for both horror and music on Hulu every Tuesday. Solve the daily Crossword
