If I am allowed to be really honest with you, when I initially heard about Alien: Earth, I thought it was a stupid idea. The Alien franchise has always been great in space, where nobody can hear you scream, and it is claustrophobic as hell. There are a few people, there is one alien or many, and there is no outside help. With that said, I also thought, was it not the plan to keep the alien species, the Xenomorph, away from Earth, so...why Alien Earth? One more thing, if you are new here and have not read any of my reviews on the Alien franchise, like Alien Romulus, for example, I have stated before that the Alien franchise is one of my favourite franchises out there. Not all films are great, but it definitely was a return to form with the last film. So, trying not to come across bias at all, and I am sure I am going to fail, but this first episode was incredible.
The show starts off telling us about the different companies that are controlling Earth, and that they are all in a race to essentially control/run the universe. Humans interested in living forever, there are 3 types of additional "species" on the planet, Cyborgs, Sythetics and Hybrids. The first episode starts almost like-for-like as the original Alien movie. When I saw the dark skinned guy, I immediately thought of Yaphet Kotto as Dennis the technician. I felt like I could see the archetypes of specific characters (maybe not) from the original movie, but there was a spin here I did not expect. You get to meet a little girl named Marcy, and through the episode, you follow her and Morrow, whilst there are flashbacks of an attack by an alien or aliens. If I am honest, I was a little confused as to what was going on as I did think there were some flashbacks, but for the most part, the story seemed linear and it is to be believed (at lease for now anyway), that the Weyland Corp are vying for power from the other leading companies and sabotage seems to be the name of the game. The flashbacks are, maybe, what we do not see happen in the natural way the story is being told here.
The music, the sound design, the visuals and the special effects are all top-notch. Money has gone into this, and it stands out and looks stunning. I do not think I can stress enough that this episode felt like an Alien film but as a sidestep and continuation, meaning, it is not a film, it is a TV show, and this is the TV show branch of the franchise that has not dipped in quality nor storytelling OR any of the other things I previously mentioned. I am intrigued about the aliens and where the story is going to go, going forward, but I would be lying if I did not say I was more than intrigued and, in fact, looking forward to the following episodes. Also, I am not sure where we are with Cyborgs and Synthetics within the Alien franchise but I think Wynona Ryder's character in Alien: Resurrection is indeed a synthetic, so it does make me wonder if we saw any Hybrids or Cyborgs and if not, were they made extinct or are they "hiding" somewhere in the universe or still on Earth? So far, though, a cracking episode to get your sci-fi and Alien-loving taste buds watering for more.
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