Intermezzo: A Review of Alien Earth
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| "Don’t feel bad. Your tutor was Noah Hawley.” |
“Everyone’s a critic!” So goes the complaint of creatives the world over. And in a world awash in social media, where monetized outrage can turn a hate channel into a revenue stream, it’s easy to see why.
While I can be critical of entertainment, I like to think I’m forgiving with most creative efforts. Case in point: I recently watched a much-lauded Korean neo-noir that struck me as disappointingly cornball, with action sequences so outlandish they’d make Michael Bay blush. I didn’t care for it—but I could see why others might. Hence, no takedown from me.
But every now and then, you encounter something so poorly made, so narratively botched, that silence would be a disservice to fandom at large. Like a pool of acid, it demands barriers, warning tape, and a hazmat suit.
That spill is Noah Hawley’s Alien Earth. And this post is your warning to avoid it like the wreck of an otherworldly spaceship on LV-426.
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To be clear, I was excited about Alien Earth. It was the first science fiction show since SyFy's The Expanse that had me genuinely eager for its debut. I didn’t go in wanting it to fail. In fact, I was cautiously optimistic after the double-episode premiere. Sure, the end credits featured a jarring blast of contemporary metal music that was oddly out of place, but the rest was watchable—even entertaining.
But I’ve seen this play before. Many shows frontload their best content to hook the audience, only to shift into low-budget, low-effort autopilot for the rest of the season. Alien Earth would be no different.
And the warning signs were evident from the outset.
When Alien Earth was announced circa 2021, I recall Noah Hawley offering a glimpse into his grand vision. He said the show would explore one of the central themes of the Alien franchise: the dangers of AI.
Huh?
Now, I don’t know about you, but if someone asked me to name a central theme of the Alien franchise, I’d probably start with, oh, I don’t know—the TITULAR ALIEN in the freakin’ title.
I have never, nor have I ever known anyone, to walk into an Alien movie hoping for a nuanced meditation on artificial intelligence. If I ever did meet someone who said that, I’d gently suggest they might be better off attending a different film—perhaps the next Disney bomb, TRON: Ares—rather than a franchise that, you know, features its central theme right there in the name.
This idea—that the dangers of AI are a central theme of Alien—isn’t even supportable. Sure, in the original film, Ash, the synthetic aboard Nostromo, did become murderous in his efforts to enforce Weyland-Yutani’s directives. But in subsequent entries—particularly Aliens and Alien 3—the synthetic Bishop was helpful to the point of being self-sacrificing.
So… just what theme are you referring to, Hawley?
Not surprisingly, Hawley’s remarks came around the time HBO’s Westworld was starting to catch fire. Right away, I suspected he wasn’t interested in making an Alien show at all. He wanted to ride the coattails of what appeared to be a new pop culture hit.
(Spoiler: it wasn’t. And never was going to be, as even a quick glimpse intimated. Sometimes, sci-fi geekdom can be so hungry for something new and different that it elevates thoroughly mediocre efforts.)
My misgivings only deepened when it became known that Hawley was obsessed with injecting childhood fare into the show—specifically, Peter Pan. When I read that, I knew there was now a better-than-even chance the series was heading for disaster.
As someone with nearly half a century of entertainment consumption behind him, I’ve learned one rule that’s rarely—if ever—been disproved: when you use a childhood fable as the foundation for your adult show, you end up with entertainment suitable for neither. Alien Earth is just the latest piece of space debris to be thrown on that pile.
Much like Hawley’s misapprehension that the Alien franchise is centrally about the dangers of AI, injecting a story about children who refuse to grow up into a universe of biomechanical space monsters is, frankly, daft. On its face, it should have been rejected. It’s as outlandish as me making a show about, oh, I don’t know—serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer—and using Humpty Dumpty as my theme.
This phenomenon—showrunners injecting childhood fables into adult shows—is regrettably all too common. I recall how, in the wake of the unexpectedly smashing success of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and HBO’s Game of Thrones, networks, eager for their own fantasy hit, suddenly started raiding childhood fables as the basis for their own fantasy efforts. (Do you recall ABC’s Once Upon a Time? Of course not. Despite taking up space for seven seasons, no one does.)
The use of childhood tales as a foundation for adult entertainment is always a creative tell—an indication that the showrunner isn’t familiar with the bedrock principles of the genre they’re dabbling in. So, in a desperate, lowest-common-denominator grasping effort, royalty-free fairy tales are substituted.
It never works. Even Steven Spielberg's AI, which was based on another Disney favorite, this time Pinocchio, struggled to find a lasting audience. And that was freakin' Spielberg!
In light of Hawley’s misunderstanding of the central theme of the Alien franchise—and his decision to use Peter Pan as his narrative base—I get the strong impression that Hawley might have heard of Alien, he might even have seen the movies when they were new, but he clearly had no idea what made the franchise so iconic, or why fans loved it so.
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This disconnect from Alien is evident in the show's presentation itself. Ridley Scott once described Alien as a haunted house in space. You can see this artistic direction in the original film and its immediate successors:
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| Alien |
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| Fury 161 in Alien 3 |
Like any good ghost story, every planet we visit in the Alien franchise is dark and stormy. Not a sunny day in sight!
Even the interior scenes lacked the style of the Alien franchise. Everything about the Alien universe suggests a type of corporate mass production, like everyone is forced to live inside an Amazon shipping container. It is all coldly utilitarian and dehumanizingly claustrophobic in nature. Even Gateway Station's meeting room in Aliens exhibits this mood:
Low ceilings, cramped, and with lighting best meant to irritate rather than illuminate.
What does Alien Earth give us?
Corporate contemporary. Roomy, plenty of windows, greenery, polished surfaces. In short, more like the office of Ubisoft Singapore than what we would expect from an evil corporation in the world of Alien.
This is perhaps one of my biggest disappointments with the show. Like many other fans of the franchise, I did want to see what Earth resembled during this futuristic period. But this was not it. And here's why:
There has been a fan theory floating around for some time now that both of Ridley Scott's classic sci-fi franchises, which is to say Alien and Blade Runner, take place in the same setting. While it has never been confirmed by Scott (to my knowledge), the two do dovetail nicely together: both deal with dark (figuratively and literally) dystopias where evil mega-corps rule. In addition to that, Blade Runner mentions that people are leaving Earth for the "off-world colonies," and Aliens shows us one such colony: Hadley's Hope. Finally, Blade Runner (and its sequel, Blade Runner 2049) tells us that "skinjobs" were invented precisely because of how hard life was in the off-world colonies. Again, this all fits nicely together.
So, when I heard that Alien Earth was set on the titular Earth, I was expecting to see a setting like this:
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| The now classic futuristic vision of Los Angeles, as seen in Blade Runner |
...and not a place that looks suspiciously like contemporary Thailand (spoiler: it is):
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| A sunny rooftop workout space...Alien Earth!!! |
Alien Earth made so many thematic mistakes that it would be easier to list the ones that weren't rather than the ones that are. Speaking of:
The only structure that even remotely nods to the franchise’s history is the Maginot. Yet even here, the efforts fall short, coming across as a cheap knockoff—I couldn't help but notice the same grating used haphazardly for both floor plates and wall decor. It is a visual shortcut that encapsulates the entire show's approach: a failure to understand that atmosphere in the Alien universe isn't a theme; it's the weapon.
But that is about the only good thing I have to say about the presentation of Alien Earth.
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And then we come to Hawley’s most easily avoided misstep: making Alien Earth a prequel.
Haven’t showrunners learned by now that prequels seldom succeed? After all the carnage wrought by George Lucas’s Star Wars prequels—and especially Ridley Scott’s Prometheus and Alien: Covenant—did we really need another reminder of why this is always a bad idea?
As with all the mistakes listed above, this was yet another easily avoided blunder. Worse, if one had to make a prequel, this was a prequel that didn’t even answer any pertinent questions.
Who the heck cares about Prodigy Corporation and its idiotic, laughably named CEO, Boy Kavelier? The only corporation Alien fans are familiar with is Weyland-Yutani. And while Alien Earth briefly introduces us to the CEO of the Yutani half of that merger, it tells us nothing about Weyland. (Yes, I’m aware Prometheus did—but that movie was such a mess that both Fede and Hawley correctly treat it like it doesn’t exist.)
If one were to do a prequel, at a minimum, you’d expect the focus to be entirely on Weyland-Yutani—not on some invented corporation whose only memorable contribution is a batch of child-infused hybrids that appear in no other Alien film. (I guess they turned out to be the New Coke of synthetics.)
Even more perplexing—and I mean truly baffling—is that the show begins with Maginot returning to Earth with a hold full of lethal alien creatures, including the fan-favorite xenomorph eggs. That’s the equivalent of reading a book by starting in the middle. I am at a loss to explain who could ever think this was a good idea.
Again, as the name suggests, Alien is about the ALIENS. That’s what draws the audience in and keeps them hooked. Where do they come from? Are they naturally evolved bio-mechanical apex predators from hostile planetary environments? Or were they engineered, as Prometheus and Covenant ham-handedly attempted to explore? And what happens when they initially come into contact with humans?
Hawley boldly declares that these are questions the audience need not concern themselves with.
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The obvious path for Alien Earth was to abandon the entirety of the show except for Maginot and its crew. THAT was the only story worth telling and in keeping with the themes of the franchise. Imagine a smarter path where Hawley told the story of Maginot investigating distress calls from the off-world colonies. Its crew, comprised of the top xenobiologists and PMC specialists, descends into the atmospheric hellscapes of off-world colonies, like a corporate A-Team, where all sorts of nasty alien critters are terrorizing the settlers. Using their wits and training, their job is to capture these demonic biological specimens and return them for study. In essence, think of my vision for the show being more like The Witcher in space (don't get me started on that Netflix disaster of a show! Was Hawley involved there, too?).
Such a show would have been much more in keeping with what made fans love the franchise to begin with: a ship, a crew of roughnecks, and a mission to investigate reports of aliens. However, instead of being limited to the original xenomorph, the show would have been free to introduce all sorts of new Geiger-influenced abominations to haunt our nightmares yet again. (Here, I must commend Alien Earth for the new aliens it did introduce, but then utilized in the least interesting way possible.) Even the fan-favorite xenomorph could have been used as the ultimate mystery, a creature that, while not present on every world, was nevertheless integral to the origin of the other creatures. The xenomorph would have been the holy grail of biological nightmares that the Maginot was tasked with finding and collecting. It would have been the narrative thread binding all the episodes together.
In addition to that main premise, the show could also have explored the corporate culture of Weyland-Yutani. We could have had the crew questioning their mission, whether it was wise to attempt to bring back to Earth such dangerous creatures. The show could have had a Burke-like character, a corporate cutthroat ever pushing the crew to do their job with Machiavellian logic (I think Timothy Olyphant's coldly calculating "Kirsch" would have been far better used in this capacity). Such a show would have even expanded the Alien world-building by showing us a more complete glimpse of what life is like living in the harsh conditions of a corporate "shake and bake" colony. It would have been an opportunity to expand the setting into areas that have only been hinted at. Here, I am reminded of Peter Hyam's tragically overlooked and heavily Alien-influenced Outland, a show that made law enforcement in outer space absolutely riveting. (Seriously, if you haven't seen this movie, RENT IT NOW!). The crew of Maginot could have found themselves involved in all sorts of high-stakes situations in addition to alien-hunting, such as busting up a drug-smuggling operation, as in Outland. In other words, Alien Earth could have harnessed the best aspects of classic sci-fi anthologies from years past and truly expanded the entire Alien setting in nearly limitless and unexplored directions.
But, no. Instead of this logical, fan-service trajectory, we were treated to just under eight hours of a pajama-wearing CEO, a bafflingly out-of-place Peter Pan subplot, and hostile critters who spend most of their time in cages (except when the plot needs them to escape, of course, or be recaptured.). Honestly, I couldn't tell you what the point of Alien Earth was, even after watching the entirety of the first (and, hopefully, only) season, or what worthwhile backstory it brought to the franchise. Do they hand out Emmys for masterstrokes of empty-calorie entertainment?
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There is great truth in the observation that a picture is worth a thousand words, so I present you with this still that best encapsulates everything wrong with Noah Hawley's vision than anything I can write:
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| From apex predator to emotional support xenomorph: the evolution nobody asked for. |
Yes! You are seeing that correctly. That is the infamous xenomorph, a creature once described by Ash as a remorseless killer:
"You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? The perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility....I admire its purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality."
And what does Hawley give us? A creature Wendy can not only communicate with - for reasons the show never bothers to explain - but one SHE CAN PET.
THIS is the perfect encapsulation of everything wrong with Alien Earth. It's the most damning indictment of Hawley. This is not just a misstep—it’s a betrayal. No one—let me repeat, no one—who respects the Alien mythos would ever entertain such a subversion of its core terror. Watching Wendy stroke the creature’s head wasn’t just absurd—it was the moment the show’s idiocy crystallized into something far worse: rank incompetence or deliberate sabotage of its core lore.
We’ve seen this before: the Joker becomes a misunderstood loner, Darth Vader gets a tragic childhood, and now the xenomorph gets belly rubs. It’s the age of villain declawing, and Alien Earth is its latest casualty. It is just another stone in the wall of artistic bankruptcy, of professional screenwriting that could be easily shamed by more authoritative fan-fic posted anonymously on 4Chan.
It is inexcusable.
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There’s so much wrong with Alien Earth that I could write another twenty pages. From Hawley’s random use of metal tunes for the closing credits, to hybrids billed as hyper-intelligent and super-strong who, besides a gratuitous demonstration from Wendy, never once demonstrate either trait, to the show wanting us to cheer Wendy as she morphs from heroine to villainess, to a ‘genius’ CEO who never makes a single smart decision—the list is endless. In the final analysis, Alien Earth isn’t just an insult to fans of the franchise. It’s an insult to logic, storytelling, and the very idea of coherent writing.
Ironically, perhaps that’s the ultimate message of Noah Hawley’s Alien Earth: in a time governed by immoral corporations obsessed only with profit, even the ancient human impulse of storytelling begins to collapse. Say goodbye to Homer—it’s all Noah Hawley now.
Be that as it may, Alien Earth is everything a show shouldn’t be. It didn’t just miss the mark—it set fire to the target and asked us to applaud the ashes. Once the stuff of nightmares, the xenomorph now feels like a mischievous pet in a bad YA adaptation.
The xenomorph deserved better. So did we.
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PS: Never forget these bastions of integrity who are now clearly subsidiaries of Weyland-Yutani:
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