Alien: Earth is the first-ever TV series set in the Alien universe. With the show coming from Fargo creator Noah Hawley and running on FX/Hulu, people expected Alien: Earth to equal or exceed a lot of the other great sci-fi shows on TV these days, maybe even measuring up to the likes of Andor. At times, it looked like it would.
But now that the first season has wrapped up, Alien: Earth feels like less than the sum of its parts, and the season 1 finale is the weakest entry so far.
This article, obviously, includes spoilers. So if you haven’t watched the finale yet, read on at your own peril.
The Alien is sidelined in its own show
There’s not enough Alien in Alien: Earth
The iconic Xenomorph alien, with its long tube-like head and mouth-within-a-mouth, was introduced in the 1979 horror classic Alien (although it wouldn’t be called a “Xenomorph” until Aliens in 1986; you’re welcome for the fun fact). Since then, it’s starred in six more movies of varying quality (not counting the ones where it fights the Predator). Most of those films have one thing in common: the Xenomorph is always at the center of the story.
That’s not to say the Alien movies haven’t explored other topics. Corporate greed is a running theme, and each film has taught us more about the synthetic people, or synths, who live and work alongside human begins. But it always comes back to the Xenomorphs: what are they, why does everyone want to capture one, and why is that always a terrible idea?
There’s some of this in Alien: Earth. Early on, a ship carrying extraterrestial specimens crash-lands on the planet. Our protagonists — a group of dying children whose brains have been transplanted into synthetic bodies — are sent to collect them on behalf of Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), a Zuckerberg-esque trillionaire brat king who runs a company so big it controls a large chunk of the world. The Xenomorph is among those specimens, but it isn’t the star. The internet has fallen in love with the crafty eyeball monster that burrows inside your head and puppets you like an evil version of the rat from Ratatouille. The flies that spit face-melting acid and the super-leeches that grow in your chest cavity have kept me up at night.
On balance, the creatures are the best part of Alien: Earth, but it’s weird for the actual Alien to play second or third fiddle. We see Xenomorphs move around in broad daylight a lot, which robs them of the menace they have in many of the movies. By the finale, the one active Xenomorph acts like an obedient lapdog for Wendy (Sydney Chandler), the first of the dying children to get her synthetic body. It’s hard for the Xenomorph to be an unstoppable representation of human hubris when it’s at someone’s beck and call. Alien: Earth just doesn’t feel like its story.
The robot kids aren’t that compelling
Wendy becomes borderline insufferable in the finale
If Alien: Earth has a main character, it’s Wendy, formerly known as Marcy, currently turning into something new. I was a little thrown when this Alien show began with her story and the story of the other kids being given a second shot at life, but I went with it. After the finale, I think I’m ready for a pivot, because the kids are not alright.
Wendy especially is getting on my nerves. In the finale, she decides that she and her fellow hybrids should be ruling Neverland island, the research facility where most of the season takes place. She’s done listening to Boy Kavalier or any of the other humans who want to control her. That sounds interesting in the abstract, but the show lurches into this twist in cringey, eye-rolling fashion.
Wendy’s turning point comes when she, her fellow hybrid Nibs (Lily Newmark), and her human brother Hermit (Alex Lawther) try to escape the island. They’re caught by guards, some of whom we’ve gotten to know as decent people, and the unstable Nibs starts popping off heads and punching through jaws. Horrified, Hermit hits Nibs with an electronic blast that temporarily immobilizes her.
For Wendy, this is beyond the pale: Hermit has chosen human beings over her and her kind…but has he? Nibs is nuts and was murdering people left and right, so Hermit took her down with non-lethal force, a courtesy she did not show her victims. I wouldn’t have a problem with Wendy’s reaction and subsequent march into hybrid supremacy if the show depicted it as wrong-headed or obtuse or even ambiguous, but the episode frames it like she’s in the right and Hermit is an anti-synth bigot for wanting to stop Nibs from tearing off his friends’ faces. I didn’t buy it. It felt like the writers assumed the audience would be on Wendy’s side no matter what and didn’t stop to consider how this would play.
I should also mention that at this point, Wendy is a strong leader, a genius with a super-computer for a brain, can order around the Xenomorph, and has complete control over all electronics and synthetic beings on the island. The term “Mary Sue” refers to a lead character who’s awesome at everything to the point of being boring, and while I think the term gets overused, Wendy is definitely entering the danger zone.
We’re going to have to wait forever to see what happens next
That’s a long time hanging off that cliff
The first season of Alien: Earth ends on a series of cliffhangers. The hybrids take over the island, with their former minders now their prisoners. The eyeball monster hops into a corpse and starts driving it around. The Xenomorph is…out there somewhere, waiting to become important.
Cliffhangers aren’t bad automatically — Hawley and company naturally want to entice people to come back next season — but I think a lot of fans wanted more resolution than this. The episode is easily the lowest rated of the first season, so I’m not alone in feeling let down. What makes it worse is that we’re probably going to have to wait a very long time to see any new episodes, since expensive shows like this can go years between new seasons. Right now, Hawley isn’t even sure a second season will happen, although he’s optimistic. “I’m pretty confident, given the show’s success, that we’ll get to make more,” he told Polygon.
There are some shows that can get away with making fans wait years between new installments; for example, the final season of Stranger Things is coming out later this year, and my bet is that it will break ratings records on Netflix. But Stranger Things is a television phenomenon and Alien: Earth is an uneven sci-fi show with a shaky finale. If there were new episodes coming our way next year, the show could win people back before they forget it exists. But the more time passes, the more likely they will move on.
Lightyears to go
That said, there’s nothing here that isn’t salvageable, and there could be a long-term plan we don’t see yet. Maybe the Xenomorph will take center stage in future seasons. Maybe Marcy is at that awkward stage in a human-robot hybrid’s life when they’re exploring different philosophies. The show is well-made and has lots of fun ideas. Perhaps it merely needs another season to come completely into its own. It doesn’t have to be another failed film-to-TV adaptation.
But for now, the first season of Alien: Earth is going out with a bit of a whiff. If we’re talking about iconic sci-fi franchises that are being revived for modern audiences, I think the Predator has finally beaten the Alien.
- Release Date
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August 12, 2025
- Network
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FX, Hulu
- Directors
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Dana Gonzales, Ugla Hauksdóttir, Noah Hawley
- Writers
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Bob DeLaurentis
