Alien: Earth Season 1 (blu-ray TV series review)
Thank the illuminati for Chinese release of blu-ray TV series and not having to wait for a UK release. Whether this version, ‘Alien: Earth’, has much in common with the film series is more debatable. In the opening, there are three definitions for cyborgs, enhanced humans and synthetics on Earth which has more in common with ‘Blade Runner’. If robots are more common on Earth, it would have been less surprising in ‘Alien’.
Starting on the starship Maginot, four months from Earth with its crew coming out of hibernation to inspect their extra-terrestrial samples is totally wasted when Morrow (actor Babou Ceesay) the android on-board releases a xenomorph and its facehuggers to kill them all.
On Earth, we see an experiment on Prodigy Island where invalid or dying teens can have their personalities transferred into adult android bodies that are stronger and faster. As far as their relatives are concerned, they are dead.
The Maginot crashes into the city of New Siam and rescue teams are sent in. On Prodigy Island, Neverwhere, Wendy (actress Sydney Chandler) sees this on the news and recognises her brother and thinks, with their new bodies, the Lost Boys would be better helping there and convinces their manufacturer boss and mega-rich, the young Boy Kavalier (actor Samuel Blenkin) to let them do so.
Its rather weird seeing what exactly happen on the Maginot in the seventh episode. In many respects, Morrow is actually obeying the instructions given to Ash on the Nostromo, except he was successful. Not so smart where he chose to crashland, though. From there, its spoiler territory.
There’s a lot of surprises as the episodes continue. Kirsh’s anticipating certain actions and making sure they are fulfilled to complete the trap is superb. I’m less sure about the xenomorphs can be communicated with by Wendy does tend to bring them in line with being dogs. Bringing the eggs to Earth does make me wonder why those that have a facehugger kiss haven’t yielded a queen. Some of the other alien lifeforms are equally bizarre and you have to wonder if they got them from the same source and why they didn’t run into the same problems the Prometheus had or even been to the same planetoid. Placing the timeframe is a lot more difficult or even in the same reality. There’s 57 years between the two original films, so it must be in there somewhere. No doubt we’ll have to wait until the second season or further to see how it was hushed up.
I’m being very careful what I say about this series because so much is spoiler. Certainly, Yutani are involved but as their spacecraft crashed into Prodigy City, its owner, Boy Kavalier has managed to claim rights for the quarantine period, allowing his team to study the livestock. That comes to a head and a principal part of the plot when the only Maginot survivor, Morrow (actor Babou Ceesay) leads a team to assault Prodigy Island.
Considering how powerful Kavalier’s android bodies are, I’m surprised he never installed kill-switches in case of an emergency but, considering his own arrogance, it probably never dawned on him that loyalty could be questioned.
The number of easter eggs visually and script throughout this season range from Blade Runner, Kirsh is a ringer for Roy Batty, 2001, The Thing (second version), not to mention ‘Alien’ itself.
I thought when I saw the two extras that was all there was, principally each at around 5 minutes looking behind the scenes and how all the creature effects were real and not CGI. The various moving facehugger ones should have all you model enthusiasts jaw-dropping. Quite why they couldn’t bring a real one to Earth I’ll put down to quarantine regulations. Then there was about quarter of an hour at Comicon with seven members of production and cast. Show-creator Noah Hawley says he’s spoke to all the ‘Alien’ films directors except Jim Cameron. About what, he does tend to be less clear other than problems with filming. The Maginot interior was matched with Nostromo and enlarged in some places like the cryo-chamber and flight deck relying, in part, on floor plans from the original film. Oh, it was all filmed in Thailand.
I could only monitor times a little through the blu-ray player’s timeline and there was loads of space left over and then it went into the 90 minute ‘Alien: Earth’ original soundtrack by Jeff Russo which hasn’t been release yet. Bet you won’t get that when it’s released on this side of the world. Just to keep the screen interesting, each track gets its title and a line showing the length passing, beneath that sound bumps reflecting the music itself. Presumably that ensures the screen stays active.
As with any TV series based off a successful film or film series, you do have to wonder how close they stay to source and what can they do differently. Considering that all the ‘Alien’ films are threats from xenomorphs with very few surviving, there had to be some sort of expansion and avoiding going to ‘Jurassic Park’ and bringing them back all the time. The switch to the development of synthetics and cyborgs on Earth does tend to raise more questions about how much of that was kept quiet from the human population. Considering the ‘Lost Boys’ had invalid human children personalities imposed on adult bodies brings its own form of immortality. Could such eproms be stored and duplicated in other bodies? We know from ‘Alien 3’ that there was a human Bishop after all. Whether Prodigy or Yutani made the best synthetics only time and another season will tell.
Certainly the series is watchable but how much is canon is likely to be open to debate.
GF Willmetts
November 2025
(pub: 2025 Productions, 2025. 2 blu-ray disks 9 * 55 minute episodes with extras. Price: about £15.00 (UK))
cast: Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Timothy Olyphant and many others
