Alien: Earth will show the life cycles of monstrous aliens other than the Xenomorph
The Alien franchise is set to continue on the small screen with an “FX on Hulu” TV series called Alien: Earth, from Fargo creator Noah Hawley, and the 8-episode first season of the show is set to debut with two episodes on Tuesday, August 12, at 8 p.m. ET on Hulu and the FX linear channel, and via Disney+ internationally. New episodes will drop on Tuesdays on Hulu and FX at 8 p.m. ET. With the premiere date right around the corner, Hawley has revealed that the Xenomorph isn’t the only monstrous alien species that will be featured on the show, as it will be digging into the life cycles of other terrifying aliens as well.
One of the first things we heard about the Alien TV series – and one of the most surprising things about it – is that it will be set on Earth (thus the title), a couple of decades before the events of the first movie. FX chairman John Landgraf said the show would take place “right near the end of this century,” which would put it “a few years before Prometheus,” which Hawley has previously said he has chosen not to acknowledge. But the setting is actually 2120, which is just a couple of years before Alien. In fact, if it goes on for multiple seasons, it might even overlap with the events of Alien. Hawley decided to set the show on Earth because “The alien stories are always trapped… Trapped in a prison, trapped in a space ship. I thought it would be interesting to open it up a little bit so that the stakes of ‘What happens if you can’t contain it?’ are more immediate.“ Variety noted that the Alien TV series will “explore the formation of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation and the race to create android life.”
Alien: Earth has the following synopsis: When a mysterious space vessel crash-lands on Earth, a young woman (Sydney Chandler) and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet’s greatest threat. During the time the story takes place, five corporations – Prodigy, Weyland-Yutani, Lynch, Dynamic and Threshold – wield the power of nations, and proprietary advancements in technology provide the promise of a new tomorrow.
Sydney Chandler’s Alien: Earth character is the meta-human Wendy, who has the body of an adult, but the brain and consciousness of a child. Her co-stars include Essie Davis (The Babadook) as Dame Sylvia, David Rysdahl (Fargo season 5) as Dame Sylvia’s husband Arthur, Alex Lawther (The End of the F*cking World) as a soldier called Hermit, who was Wendy’s brother when she was in her original human form; Samuel Blenkin (Black Mirror) as a CEO named Boy Kavalier, Adarsh Gourav (The White Tiger) as a character named Slightly, Kit Young (Shadow and Bone) as a character called Tootles, Adrian Edmondson (The Young Ones) as Boy Kavalier’s first lieutenant Atom Eins, Babou Ceesay (Guerrilla) as cyborg security officer Morrow, Diêm Camille (Washington Black) as soldier Siberian, Moe Bar-El (The Peripheral) as soldier Rashidi, Jonathan Ajayi (Wonder Woman 1984) as the Hybrid called Smee, Erana James (The Wilds) as Curly, Lily Newmark (Sex Education) as Nibs, and Timothy Olyphant (Justified) Kirsh, a synth who acts as a mentor and trainer for Wendy. Sandra Yi Sencindiver of Foundation will be playing Yutani, “a senior member of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation,” in multiple episodes, and her role could be expanded as the series continues. To learn more about several of these characters, click over to the Vanity Fair link. The Lost Boys are a group of Hybrids, “artificially made bodies containing a consciousness uploaded from the body of an actual human being,” that were created and named after Peter Pan characters by Boy Kavalier. Wendy is one of them.
Richa Moorjani (Never Have I Ever), Karen Aldridge (Severance), Enzo Cilenti (Game of Thrones), Max Rinehart (Unforgotten), Amir Boutrous (The Crown), newcomer Victoria Masoma, Tom Moya (Midsomer Murders), Andy Yu (Mid-Love Crisis), Michael Smiley (Bad Sisters), Jamie Bisping (Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power), and Tanapol Chuksrida (The Green Deal) have guest roles.
The trailers have revealed that the crew of the crash-landing space vessel had been collecting monstrous lifeforms from the darkest corners of the universe. Hawley told SFX magazine (with thanks to our friends at Bloody Disgusting for sharing the quote), “These are five unique species that have been collected on this Maginot ship, which I saw as like the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin going around collecting his specimens from around the universe. The reason that I did that is because I think if I have a skill at reinventing these classic films for television, it’s in understanding what the original movie made me feel and why, and then recreating those feelings for you. On some level, the most critical feeling that you get from seeing Alien for the first time is the one that’s impossible to recreate, which is discovery of the life cycle of this creature. Every time you think that you know what this monster is, it changes into something worse. You can’t ever get back with those creatures. But if I bring in new creatures, you don’t know how they reproduce, what they eat, how they’re parasites. My hope is that we’ll reawaken those feelings in the viewer when they watch the show from week to week.” Producer David Zucker admitted that trying to come up with multiple “great new creatures” was quite a challenge for the production, and Hawley’s ideas even got a big “Whoa” out of Alien director Ridley Scott.
Hawley also told SFX magazine (as shared by Games Radar), “If you have a story about monsters coming to Earth, the question is, will humanity survive? Then the next question is, does humanity deserve to survive? This idea about humanity and the terrible things that we do to each other, it really opened my mind as to the types of horror that would populate the show, not just body horror or creature horror, but also the moral horror of what people do.” And he revealed that when he was heading into the production, “I ended up having a conversation with Denis Villeneuve because his movies, I’ve never seen anyone better at showing me that something is big. That feeling of being dwarfed by the size of a ship or a sandworm… One of the things that was really important to me to convey was a sense of scale. I wasn’t looking for trade secrets because I also feel it’s about intimacy as well. You have to have the two, the big and the small. That’s what’s really important to me in this show and I think we’ve achieved it.“
Are you looking forward to watching Alien: Earth and seeing the other monstrous aliens that will be sharing the screen with the Xenomorph? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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