Cosmic horror came to our home planet as xenomorphs and facehuggers wrecked havoc in the Hulu original, “Alien: Earth,” which concluded Sept. 23. When a research vessel carrying extraterrestrial cargo crash-lands on Earth, Wendy, played by Sydney Chandler, and her fellow human-android hybrids, get caught in the middle of a game of corporate espionage between their creators at Prodigy and the infamous Weyland-Yutani. As these monoliths compete to uncover the mysteries of the stars, their robotic creations question whether they are more similar to the corporate entities that manufactured them or the aliens they are researching. “Alien: Earth” imbues a decades-old franchise with captivating character work, driven by complex science fiction concepts, in an eight-hour movie that forgets it’s a TV show.
Robots have been featured in the “Alien” franchise since its 1979 installment, but by making them the main characters of “Alien: Earth,” this show puts them in a fascinating disposition within the plot. Between the three distinct types of robots — cyborgs, synths and hybrids — each of them comes into conflict with where they see themselves fit into the progression of human evolution.
Half man, half machine, the cyborg, Marrow, played by Babou Ceesay, is looked down upon by synths, entirely artificial beings. As such, this almost-human, self-hating machine, will do anything to advance the endgame of Yutani since his robotic enhancements have made him their most vital asset. Kirsh, the synth played by Timothy Olyphant, views himself as superior to humans in every way — even viewing the latest technological breakthrough, hybrids, which are child minds placed into robotic bodies, as lesser since their human side holds them back. Then, there are hybrids like Wendy whose converging, yet parallel existence to each of the mentioned groups drives one of the thematic hooks of the season, “When is a machine not a machine?”
If the hybrids refuse to let go of their human origins, does this make them human? Are they technically cyborgs since they are humans enhanced by robotics? Are they synths since no organic remnants of their past remains? Or, do they have more in common with the dreaded xenomorph, another creature that requires a host to survive and endures a similar fate as a research subject trapped on Prodigy’s island? In light of this revelation, it not only imbues the dynamic between these robot variants with natural sources of tension, creating engaging scenes whenever they are forced into contact, but also allows the audience to properly sympathize with the infamous extraterrestrials for the first time in the history of this long-running franchise.
Since “Alien: Earth” has roughly eight hours to tell its story, as opposed to the two-hour filmic installments, it can develop the iconic extraterrestrial in new and exciting ways. Little touches that include showing the xenomorph grow from its larval and toddler stages through adolescence, before becoming into the perfect killer we all know and fear, get the viewer more familiar with these alien creatures while also paralleling the development of the hybrids – who experience evolution in their own right. However, the best addition to the mythology is the development of their language.
While the inclusion of an alien queen in “Aliens” implies the xenomorphs do have some base level of communication, in “Alien: Earth,” it is shown their language is more complex than an insect-like hive mind as Wendy learns to speak with one. The xenomorphs’ coos and clicks don’t show up as subtitles at the bottom of the screen like he’s Greedo (“Oota-goota, Solo?”), but are relayed via Wendy and its reactions to their conversations. The xenomorphs are given a voice for the first time on screen, and it is a phenomenal piece of world-building that finds a way to explore new avenues in a series that has been pumping out media since the 80s.
These dynamics involving robots and xenomorphs, along with many other high sci-fi concepts brought up within the show, would not have been possible if not for the medium of television. With that said, while it has the ideas and runtime to flesh out an eight-episode story, it lacks the pacing to make it a proper TV show.
All stories are built around the basic plot structure of a beginning, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. So where a movie has to tell one overarching story, a TV show has to develop not only a season-long narrative, but individual arcs with their own conflicts and resolutions episode to episode. While “Alien: Earth” excels at the former, it struggles with the latter. Episode one is a fantastic reintroduction to this world, but episodes two through seven have so many pieces to put in place that they play like a six-hour rising action, where episodes end with no proper resolution. Due to the complex characters and ideas the show seeks to explore, individual episodes can feel overstuffed and unsatisfying as these themes are too big to be properly fleshed out within the confines of an hour of television. However, when taken as one continuous narrative, “Alien: Earth” might just be the best addition to the series.
So even though “Alien: Earth” struggles to fit into the episodic structure of a television series as a fully fleshed-out narrative, its exploration of how the different robots find their place within human evolution and developing the xenomorphs beyond terrifying sci-fi creatures makes it one of the best entries in this storied franchise.
4/5
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Featured Image via FX
