Alien: Earth

Last night, the season finale of Alien: Earth released on Hulu. Alien: Earth follows a ragtag group of soldiers who investigate a space vessel crash on Earth and come face to face with the planet's greatest threat. This is the first TV show to be based in the Alien universe. I love the first two Alien movies and had this show as one of my most anticipated shows of the year.

For the most part, I was on board with this show. After getting a lot of movies set in space or on another planet, it was refreshing to get an Alien story that is set on the futuristic Earth. Because of the setting, the show is able to tackle ideas of greed and the moral ambiguity of corporations that the movies only lightly touched on. I like how the show makes the bold choice to center the story around a group of synthetics. However, instead of making them pure synthetics, they have children's consciousness imported into them. This turns the show into a bit of a twist on the coming-of-age story. But instead of becoming more human and heroes, they begin to lose their humanity and become apathetic to the humans as they learn the humans' real intentions for them. This is particularly showcased through Wendy's character, who becomes progressively less innocent as the show goes on. When the actual Alien appears, I thought the action and CGI were well done and looked pretty good for a TV show. I thought the peak of the show was in episode 5, which takes place on the spaceship before it crashes, and feels a lot like the classic Alien film with a twist on the ending.

While there were a lot of highs to this show, there were some lows that need to be addressed. While the action looks good when it is there, the pacing is a bit uneven, with the show lacking the amount of action and horror one would expect from an Alien show. It was great when it was there, but there just needed to be more of it. I also thought that the final episode didn't resolve much. It always bothers me when an initial season starts right with a big cliffhanger instead of trying to have at least some semblance of a resolution, especially when a second season hasn't been approved yet.

Overall, while there is some varying quality in the pacing of the story, the highs of the show far outweigh the lows. However, I do hope season 2 picks up some of the slack of the first season.

Score: 8/10 Grade: B+ Recommendation: Check it out