Alien: Earth

It is Hawley’s astute attention to detail and desire to construct an intricate story that distinguish and make “Alien: Earth” a big step up in quality for the “Alien” series overall. It’s certainly one of the best series I’ve seen this year, and better than the majority of studio blockbusters this summer in theaters.

It’s one of the best shows of the year.

He [Noah Hawley] has, in other words, done a remarkable job of retaining the look and atmosphere of a sci-fi classic while taking the story in a different direction – a mash-up that makes Alien: Earth feel like the best sort of homecoming.

What ultimately separates Alien: Earth from other intelligent sci-fi is, as ever, more simple: the queasy primal horror of those drooling, repugnant creatures. Nasty? Very much so. But this is also frequently terrific.

Noah Hawley reawakens our fears, imagination, terror, and awe. And thanks to an outstanding cast and crew taking his vision to the next level, it blows most contenders to the spacesuit throne right out the airlock.

He [Noah Hawley] takes the essence of three art forms—the film world of one of the biggest sci-fi franchises of all time, the structure of episodic television, and even the literary foundation of, believe it or not, Peter Pan—and makes something that feels like nothing else on television.

“Alien: Earth” is the most satisfying entry in the franchise in a long, long time — and one of the best television shows this year.

The Alien movies set the standard for suspenseful science fiction laced with classic monster-movie horror. Earth, created by Fargo‘s brilliant Noah Hawley, honors that tradition with imagination, intelligence, impressively epic style, and a devilish taste for graphically gruesome ick that recalls John Carpenter‘s iconic 1982 The Thing.

Andor for Alien, Hawley’s series is a rare prequel that serves to enrich its source material, breathing new life into a once-tired franchise. This is the Alien resurrection we’ve long been waiting for.

[Noah Hawley] excels at taking existing IP and contorting it in new ways to reveal what really sets those universes apart. He does that once more in Alien: Earth. .... I very much dug the incredible performances of Alien: Earth‘s ensemble cast. .... The cinematography is lush, the production design sumptuous, and the kills are horrifying.

Nearly 50 years after Ridley Scott introduced the xenomorph, Alien has rarely felt this alive.

It’s a remarkable ride, as this show keeps such a tight lid on where it’s going that you only understand its full scope towards the very end.

“Alien: Earth” is a lavish production – more so than any of the films in the canon – but just as claustrophobic and, easily, as memorable.

Make no mistake, “Alien: Earth” is terrifying. .... But “Alien: Earth” also makes for gripping science fiction — and carefully layered drama. .... 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.

Hawley trains our focus on the corporations that brought the xenomorph nightmare into being. This aspect of the franchise is begging for illumination and expansion. In these first episodes, “Alien: Earth” makes a stellar effort to conquer that mission.

After a riveting first half of the premiere, too many slow-burn action and horror sequences all but arrest the development of the plot and characters until Episode 3. But the fourth episode is a revelation. .... From there, like a spaceship fleeing to the safety of its home solar system, Earth is firing on all cylinders: narrative, stylistic, psychological, philosophical.

Simultaneously providing fans with the eggs (Easter and Xenomorph) they expect, and shedding concerns of fitting into continuity, Noah Hawley has made an amazing piece of science fiction on the strength of solid production and creature design, an incredible cast, and needle drops that make me want a cigarette.

A devoted fan’s dream come true, staying faithful to the franchise’s lore while expanding it in horrifyingly inventive ways.

The series manages to preserve the aesthetics and feeling of "Alien" while creating a truly unique, compelling story.

In lesser hands, a series spinoff of the theatrical “Alien” franchise might seem like just another IP play — a money grab. But pair Noah Hawley, the writer behind FX’s “Fargo,” with “Alien,” and you get a show that’s significantly better than that.

Alien: Earth still feels at times like an eight-hour movie, slowly building to a chaotic climax, and it’s hard to see at this point how the story could continue for multiple seasons. Hawley has earned our trust by now, though… and once again, with a seemingly unadaptable franchise, he has delivered.

The grimy, slippery murkiness of the Alien films can be felt in every frame, but so, too, can this new/old setting of a future Earth. Still, in expanding the story beyond one spaceship or sparsely inhabited planet, some of the movies' claustrophobic horror is lost, evident in the sometimes choppy pacing of the series.

Has a real sense of scale, although it sometimes gets so weighed down that its forward progress slows to a crawl. (At the end of its two-hour premiere, the characters still haven’t left that apartment building.) It’s a big show about big ideas, expansive in a moment when most television is scaling back, and it’s got a whole universe to explore.

It’s usually a bad sign if you’re wondering what the heck is going on in a drama when you’re two episodes in, but there is an exception: you can happily ride on if you sense that, although you don’t know what it’s doing, the show definitely does. Such is the bristling, bewildering, overpoweringly confident aura of Alien: Earth.

[Noah Hawley] knows how to keep things interesting over a long series, and he understands the assignment here.. .... The cognitive dissonance of being kids in grown-up bodies — often the stuff of comedy — is one of the more intriguing aspects of the series, if not as deeply explored as it might have been. But there are monsters fighting for screen time.

A heady, sprawling, occasionally unwieldy but eventually thrilling epic about personhood, hubris and, of course, the primal pleasure of watching people get absolutely rocked by space monsters.

Hawley, like he did with Fargo, ultimately finds a way to make Alien: Earth feel like it belongs as part of this fictional universe.

As is often true of this franchise, the philosophical-existential stuff is never quite as deep as it wants to be. (See: Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.) But on a mechanical and biological level—and on its technical merits—the series is a gripping marvel.

Aliens do not have the inner lives — that we know of, at least — to propel the plot of a show over hours or even seasons, a length that “Earth” is explicitly aiming for. For that, Hawley turns to Wendy and her fellow synthetics, thrilled and terrified and in some cases destabilized by their new lease on life. They’re not as flashy as the voracious monsters, but they prove a richer vein to mine.

For the most part, this is a pretty propulsive series, and even the episodes of 'downtime' are filled with engaging drama and compelling philosophical musings. It's also helped by the fact that all of this takes place alongside a hugely impressive mix of practical and digital effects, as well as with some stunning production design.

It begins as a sometimes unwieldy laundry list of sci-fi concepts, but once those concepts coalesce, the end of the two-part series premiere will have you hooked. It's a sci-fi horror stunner that's as timely as it is thrilling, and a must-see for "Alien" fans.

Much like how he turned Fargo into a celebration of everything that makes the Coen brothers great, he's tapped into every facet of what has made Alien a tremendous and always surprising series of films, and expanded on those details in a clever and fun way.

Plenty of elements of this show are fun revisions on a classic, but Wendy's story is enough to make you wonder if science fiction will ever get a new gimmick.

Mostly entertaining late-summer thrill ride, decent horror too.

“Alien: Earth” doesn’t always keep its footing (at least, not as surely as “Fargo” tends to), but it’s a fascinating and frightening extension of an oft-confined space.

The first two episodes of Alien: Earth throw a lot at the viewer. Some of it is even pretty interesting. It’s striving for a unique tone, but in this premiere outing, it hews too close to the magical orphans of Alien Romulus.

The series is slower, dreamier, and hallucinatory than many of the Alien films outside of Alien³ and Alien: Resurrection, snapping the audience out of its hypnotic spell with either sudden, shocking bursts of violence, or with the well-curated ’90s alt-rock needle drops that end every episode.

FX’s new “Alien” prequel, “Alien: Earth,” batters viewers expecting Xenomorph horror from an additional, less expected angle: The series is practically drowning in “Peter Pan” metaphors that don’t quite work.

In the end, Alien: Earth is a bold, often admirable experiment that never fully coheres.