[Riff] Apples and Ovomorphs - aka Alien: Earth Pt I (The Good Stuff).
Intro:
aka, my history with the Alien franchise as a relatively new (but strong) hyperfixation.
(…also how a TV show of all things stops podcast-prep dead in its’ tracks?)
Confession time.
For those of you who may have mindlessly thumbed past a couple of my recent socials announcements about the Inner-Strength Check Podcast and Alien - contrary to best-laid plans of Weyland-Yutani agents, I am not in fact, as locked-in, Keeping Calm and Carrying On as I would like in continuing our Clinical Examination Of A Xenomorph series.
This is due in no small part to a TV show related to the same franchise, Alien: Earth. Progressing through my first and second viewings of the show was an…. ultimately enjoyable but very melancholic experience. I find myself continuing to be hamstrung with polishing off Part of the podcast audio-drama series until I get some things off my chest (good and bad) about the show.
Pictured also: every neurodivergent ever, amirite
Initially, Alien: Earth was a serendipitous and timely arrival for said podcast-episode writing. With Parts 1 and 2 expounding on everything predating science-fiction’s most brutal antagonist, Part 3’s focus on the biology, life cycle and traits of the titular Alien, aka Specimen XX-121, Xenomorph, Space Beast etc - the news we’d be getting our favourite eyeless cucumber-head wreaking havoc on Earth itself was welcome news.
And, particularly the first few episodes, I was able to overlook some later gripes and concerns with the writing in particular. Briefly able to separate my unyielding cynicism from sheer nostalgic inner-chestburster joy, the first half of Season One was endured happily until around the end of the (brilliant, if mainly for fan-servicing) Episode 5.
Unfortunately, the same series also toyed with me. Progressing through and re-watching introduced dissonance, melancholy, suspicion and frustration. Culminating in the woeful disappointment (for me, anyhow) that is Episode 8 in particular, time and viewing introduced an acrid tang. Vaporous stings of cynicism’s acrid breath.
I’ll be clear right off the bat that I don’t hate or even dislike this show - but if you’d prefer to dip after seeing the article length ahead of you, won’t blame ya.
TL:DR: Today’s Riff (our moniker for essay/non-review articles) is introduced via a brief personal hobby-autiobiography reflection on the franchise, then discuss things I liked about the show.
I decided I’d also focus on a couple of elements that were less obvious, even to me at first. There’s some positives I’ve left out that may be glaringly obvious to some, and that’s okay. I waffle a bit and so need to have some brevity here, too.
Do those positive elements see me recommending the show overall?
Yes… with considerable caveats. We’ll get to that in my final thoughts at the end of the whole analysis. In summation ahead of time - I don’t know if I’d recommend the show to a hardcore Alien fan, but as a casually fun romp it’s certainly doable.
Credit: @blackserotonin
So I mentioned our Clinical Examination of a Xenomorph series, yes?
To summarise, it’s an examination of the Xenomorphs’ history, the discovery and development of the ‘Black Goo’, the Engineers and more. I’ve got some pretty detailed notes (thanks in no small part to great community/supplementary resources) and have recorded it from the perspective of a series of lecturers, academics etc giving a private presentation to major Alien franchise movers-and-shakers.
Here’s a link to Part 1, and also a link to Part 2.
In both cases, both the full transcript and reference materials are available to use alongside or in place of the audio. Enjoy!
Back to the show, yeah-yeah.
Where were we?
Look…I hung in there, man. As I’m sure a lot of similarly-melancholic fans did too. I couldn’t not hang in there.
And yet as begrudging as my experience sounds, I did enjoy this show. And I also am not planted as firmly in the disaster-camp as a lot of other content-creators I’ve seen. Many of whom pan and revile the show wholly and universally.
I don’t think such a show-wide panning is merited, but I’m also not going to Weyland-wash my thoughts as we go.
Source: AVP Central’s ‘Full Travel Guide to Acheron Locations’ (great article, here’s the link!)
Setting Off To LV-426, Member-Berries in Hand:
Before all that though, I thought I’d dig into some personal and generational context, as I feel the latter is sometimes overlooked.
Thing is, I’m a millenial.
Yes, being born right before the fall of the Soviet Republic is in of itself the perfect marketing hook. I just have to merely exist, and by virtue of this I’m easy prey for reworkings, reimaginings and redo’s of many beloved things. That’s if the endless, increasing parade of video game, movie/series redo’s, remakes and remasters of remasters in recent times are to be believed anyway, I guess?
Like my vaguely-25-to-like-50-something-aged peers, I’m just as proud in my so-cool individualism and desensitised aloofness, as I am secretly a sucker for being presented a cool Nostalgic TV Movie And Game Blankie. As vapid and annoying as I find a lot of modern shows being pumped out like so much factory-floor mince, none of us can deny a certain IP/franchise inflicts hope and starry-eyed wistfulness at the mention of New Thing In My Fave Thing.
Gen Z kids? I’m sure you guys roll your eyes over how much both the Steam Store and your cornucopia of streaming apps are packed, jam-fucking-filled with all this nostalgia-bait. A lot of it being centered around 90’s-kid culture, with little relevance for yourselves perhaps. I can imagine that’s starting to grate on a lot of you guys.
And to be sure, it’s starting to grate on us, too. You’re not alone in that.
But still… the nostalgia, man. The Member-Berries. They hold sway.
A source of untold hypnotic power from the school of Illusion Magic, nostalgia acts as a powerful mana-force from which various necromancers in the film, TV and gaming industries regularly disseminate these swarms of undead media entities.
Unlike my X brethren and Boomer forebears, I can’t pretend to have ‘grown up alongside’ Alien. It’s an outright lie. I was born in 1989. I’m 36.
Like any good millenial boy, I watched Alien either at the behest of a lax relative/friend (not me) or snuck a viewing on TV (me, same with Event Horizon - that was a creepy one for an unsuspecting ten-year-old in ‘99. Yikes.).
I’ve found in recent years that the gritty, corporate-dystopian body-horror-filled setting of the Alien franchise has grown on me. Like, really, really grown on me. In fact, it’s only other comparable sci-fi hyperfixation in my life would be Star Wars, and the latter’s more a rosy childhood love than a current squeeze. Particularly considering how quickly things like the prequels, Clone Wars series and the like felt outpaced by my own development/changing interests.
Perhaps a lot of you around this age are similar - the saccharine flavouring of everyone’s childhood space opera has been tempered somewhat through a few TV-show adaptations, sure. Things like Andor at least try to serve more of an edge than the bombastic sheen of latter movies.
But overall there just isn’t a feeling of danger, grit or sometimes even substance to a lot of where SW has headed.
Likewise, a need for grittiness in my media was certainly not sated with The Mandalorian and especially fucking not with Boba Fett (we will not speak of this series again - look how they massacred my boy).
Going back to demographics, I think grittiness is highly sought after by us millenials/X’ers/Z’s right now as a trope/aesthetic. Reality is starkly, profoundly nonsensical and challenging to the point of being something we often actively avoid.
With a timeline ranging from the wet-blanket that university post GFC ended up being re: job market, through to the sheer nuttiness of the online world mid-late-2010’s to now, and a pandemic/lockdowns to top it all off?
Maybe it’s just me, but I require a bit more earthiness, more danger, and some story elements that help give a sense of catharsis to… whatever the fuck you’d call the 2020’s in particular. By the by, as an adjacent example you could call the rise of metallic hardcore and old-school-influenced death metal in those respective music scenes part of a similar cultural yearning - enough with the safe, clean stuff.
Credit: Alex Garcia. via dribbble.com.
And so, dealing with everything we have been over the past long while, Alien: Earth announcements begin to flourish. The perfectly-timed proliferation of nostalgia bacterium in a Petri dish of hype.
All those announcements and marketing materials did for me, though, was solidify a hype that’d been brewing for a good few years - via the medium of tabletop RPG’s and official supplements.
Sure, the Alien: Isolation video game title from a bit further back was also monstrously influential in reinvigorating a love, a wish, a need to return to the classic dread and ambiguity which made the original films so great. To date, that game stands for me as the best iteration of the franchise in gaming form.
For setting-immersion though, whilst great for that as well, Isolation paled in comparison to my experiences reading and running the official RPG.
Thumbing the pages of this sizeable tome, both on first scattershot ADHD glances and later autistic reading-crunch, it was this title specifically that expanded a sense of worldbuilding. Power-plays. Factional elements. Timelines. Fictional history. All that great, next-level-nerd stuff. Yes, with Alien: The Roleplaying Game, I found my ‘they’re making a TV series!’ hype deepen past merely just wanting another body-horror romp. I wanted, nay needed, to see this setting grow and flourish as it had within me.
Then there’s playing the damn game itself. Wow.
The instant and insane levels of pure unadulterated fun I had running Alien: The Roleplaying Game as a game-master (or Game Mother in book parlance), are to this date some of my favourite ever one-shot (single-session/non-campaign) experiences in tabletop gaming. Like, ever. It’s just so well-geared for that context.
Thus a self-sustaining feedback loop was created - run a fun adventure in the setting, read more, prep that for the next time around, read some extraneous stuff like the comics etc, repeat.
And that is when I stumbled upon a truly comprehensive tome. An Alien-franchise bible. One I’d only ever heard allusions to in past, mostly via recommendations from fandom to not try digesting it in one go, ‘cause it is packed.
Well, I was more than ready for packed. Pack it all in there. FEED ME ALIEN UNIVERSE.
And whilst I seriously wouldn’t recommend it to anyone less than hardcore Alien fans, collectors, hobbyists or just autists like me who dig overdoing it re: reading up a good setting, there was one book that gilded the interest as a hyperfixation proper - the Colonial Marines Technical Manual. This thing is fearsome and intimidating in its’ depth and scope for the casual reader. Fearsome in its’ level of details, comprehensive in its’ coverage, it’s both a great flip-and-see and NOT a casual read whatsoever.
Between those two books and the downright ridiculous resource that is AVP Central (shout the absolute fuck out to that community, got to love a great fandom wiki), Xenopedia, etc - the layers to this onion just kept peeling away, further and further.
I was gobsmacked how far the trail led, especially when thinking of the franchise primarily as shlocky action-movie-y space horror fun.
There’s a hell of a lot to the setting - and so there should be, after nearly fifty years of development, expansion and collaboration.
I was no longer interested or intrigued. I was now invested, fixated.
The gritty gunmetal-and-black of space truckin’, corporate sociopathy and biomechanical horror was given a life of its’ own.
HUGE props to Martin Grip, Gustaf Ekelund, John R. Mullaney, and Axel Torvenius for being such a compelling team where visuals/imagery are concerned for the RPG.
It is truly next-level.
Shoutout to Lee Brimmicobe-Wood and team for making one of the most exhaustive pieces of written reference material ever seen for the Alien franchise.
As intimidating as it is expansive, it’s a must for any Alien fan.
We’re not even up to the most recent film yet, but I can assure you it was already far too late. I was already inculcated in the Alien fandom.
I suppose you’ve been expecting a rundown of my thoughts on the films. Alien and Aliens are in my mind some of the most classic and iconic pieces of science fiction cinema in human history - I’d waffle unrestrained too much on either/both of these movies, so let’s leave it at that.
Alien 3 will always stand up for me as its’ own awkward oddity, Resurrection is great mindless action-movie fodder and an unintended but hearty laugh or two. Of the latter, this was the first time I’d been horrified by the Xenomorph - a kid barely double-digits was thoroughly spooked by the impressive (for the time) slickness and nastiness with which our titular villain was portrayed.
Prometheus drops years later in the early 2010’s and, whilst I loved the visual aspects (it was intense in 3D, from memory), I hadn’t yet had the appreciation of more-lore-please that came later in the decade/early 2020’s. A film I think stands the test of time, but is burdened like its’ protege Covenant with some hamfisted characters in particular.
Both of those more than happily sated my lust for more Alien things in the visual/fun department, but post-Covenant and around the time I really cranked the research knob up, the announcement of Blomkampf’s ill-fated Alien series had my hopes soaring and later dashed.
To tie us over, we were fed a McDonald’s/chinese takeaway outing in the spectacularly fun (but also flawed) Romulus. Look, I’ll be transparent that I don’t have the same stakes in the silver-screen as proper film buffs, but I did have a thorough enjoyable time with each of my three successive viewings at the theatre.
(Oh and for what it’s worth - to date, I believe this is the only film I’ve ever gone and watched thrice at the movies. Consider that an endorsement).
Imagine my nascent but rapidly-growing hunger when we cop some news about Alien: Earth. Not just prospective, but some real concrete news.
Finally, it’s 2025 and the show releases. Carrot dangled each week with one of eight new episodes.
And erm. Hmm.
Alien: Earth, upon conclusion of the (godawful) ending to Season 1, left me partially with that tummy-full-but-heart-yearning McDonald’s/takeaway fullness. But this time, it felt like someone may left the fries out too long, or the wok hadn’t been cleaned.
Something was just… off. I had to go back to restaurant Disney for another round to sample it. And again.
Turns out sometimes, like doggedly insisting a place will have done the same meal better this time ‘round, you should probably by now taking stock of the repeated pattern and its’ impact on your brain/feels-tummy.
And the resulting feeling is very mixed and melancholic.
Now, as to the title and why the RPG is included? Yeah, look. Given there is absolutely NO comparison between the acts of tabletop roleplaying and film consumption (but also WAY more similarities than you might think), it might feel bogus to include Free League Publishing’s brilliant adaptation in this Riff.
It can’t be extricated from the discussion, though. Not when it was such a pivotal piece of media in elevating Alien from ‘cool shit, man’ to ‘ohhh - actually a hyperfixation’. Likewise, whilst it’s unfair to expect a TV show to deliver as much reference material as an RPG core-book, it’s a useful point of contrast/comparison. And it contextualises lots of my melancholy where Earth is concerned.
I’d really love to hear your thoughts on the show, be that via the comments section here or our social media platforms, or even an email.
Be the change you want to see out there, space-truckers; let’s Build Better Worlds ™ together.
Peace, Love and Hybridised Plot-Armour Mecha-Children - Brady.
Crash out if needed babes, just stay wary of power-loaders.
SO…Why the Alien RPG of all things, then?
Credit: Jarek Kabuki
Short Answer: I haven’t played enough Aliens: Dark Descent to really feel up to date/warranted in providing a comparison using that perspective as well. Similarly, whilst I really enjoyed the brief flirtation with Fireteam Elite, it really does amount to a Shooty-Mc-Shoot-Shoot fest, and isn’t really intended as a lore-expansion device.
Perhaps there’s some better comparisons online from those more versed in those games - hit up that search bar!
Longer Answer: ….Because I’m not sure if those outside the fandom are aware of exactly what a fantastic and comprehensive resource Free League Publishing’s first edition of Alien: The Roleplaying Game is. Seriously, as a bridge between the semi-impenetrable lore bible of the Colonial Marines Technical Manual and the films, there’s a surprising and accessible amount of setting flavour and lore detail in the book.
Great care, attention and work evidently went into the book where setting and context are concerned. That is to say, at the very least compared to my expectations.
Expectations which weren’t low, especially not with Free League Publishing’s involvement. I’m a huge fan of the Swedish publishers’ works and in fact have found myself running Year Zero Engine campaigns for multiple years now, with the same group, to great success.
The fact franchisor consulting was involved to double-check the efficacy and merit of the contents likewise shows commitment to the canon.
You’re plonked straight into present-day canon in the year of our Xenomorph Lord, 2183, with a pretty decent timeline and inclusion of major events up until now for reference.
Bridging story arcs from the films with all manner of background detail about civilised space to the Frontier’s edge, this little ditty of core rulebook really boils it down without dumbing it down, either. Stitched together from the aforementioned impenetrably-dense, autistic-fan-tier (raises hand) Technical Manual but also deriving from novels, comics and other official franchise media, it pares down a universe whose lore can actually get intimidatingly deep if you plunge far enough.
Look - I really don’t want to exposit for too long on the virtues and merits of the RPG, but I can’t understate it’s effectiveness as a reference tome. And that’s completely bypassing the game itself in terms of mechanics, systems etc (another time).
It ain’t a cheap book to buy, sure - it’s a tabletop RPG core rulebook - but it’s also not offered at Monte Cook Gaming prices, and would act as a fantastic coffee-table/shelf companion for folks completely uninterested in RPG’s but also wanting a very cool, thorough Alien universe book.
I’m not using the RPG as a yardstick because I think people should be forcefed hobbies I enjoy. I’m using it because it’s just a cool and neat all-in-one for the setting, and it’s interesting to me what the current series and tabletop title get right/wrong from a consumer perspective.
RIGHT.
Kick on!
The Good, The Bad and the Egg-ly. Heh.
Egg-xhibit A - THE GOOD:
Credit: Komik Trips via Twitter/X (the only times you’re likely to find me on that godforsaken wasteland shit-hole of a site is for bands & cool art)
It’s Been Endorsed by Everyone’s Favourite Cat Space-Mum!
I’m being tongue-in-cheek to kick off proceedings, obviously. But also - kind of not? As the iconic flagbearer for this franchise across muiltiple generations, Sigourney Weaver hasn’t pulled punches on her thoughts about many if not all films following the original (and in my opinion, still best) Alien movie.
Chalk it up to any article-author-facing factors you like - ADHD, autism, ?being a Taurus?, stubborn Aussie male generally, etc - but I really don’t factor in celebrity endorsement to my enjoyment (or lack thereof) in my media consumption. That’s especially the case with film and TV, two leisure interests that are more arms-length/casual than other hobbies and artistic mediums.
Does that mean I’m painting myself out to be some cool, staunchly oppositional-defiant Hero Of The People, a rational God of film-integrity? Good Xenomorphic Lord no. See above re: not being a buff or self-professed expert in the medium/s.
But I mean, dude. Look.
Irrespective of your/my/our perspectives and arguments, agreements and the like that may ensue? We can all safely agree that an endorsement from the lead actress of the original Alien quadrilogy is in itself high praise.
Sigourney Weaver, as the real-world embodiment of favourite protagonist Ellen Ripley, isn’t known for coy commentary or being disingenuous. She’s not minced words on the franchise and shoots as straight as her femme-fatale breakout character.
One of many clip-bites indicating said opinion:
Can I compare The Alien RPG to this, fairly? No, not really. Very much apples and ovomorphs re: celeb endorsement.
I don’t realistically expect Weaver and other cast members to be across every piece of Alien paraphernalia, nor do I need them to be as into tabletop RPG’s as myself. It’d be extremely cool if they were, but I’m a n autist realist.
Without burdening you with even more links and materials than your already strained, increasingly impatient eyes are willing to take, I invite you to some of your own research on the general feedback, reviews and discourse for the RPG, and contrast that to Alien: Earth.
Hell, do that but on YouTube alone. Or TikTok or whatever. After a few vids, the difference in overall reception becomes stark.
Part of that’s helped by the fact that film is more accessible/broadspread and therefore receives commentary from the general vox populi versus more intense fans, but it’s my belief the point still stands. I’ve seen a heap of valid criticisms of the RPG, and given my own - what I haven’t seen is the intensity and vitriol on anywhere near the same level and frequency as that levelled towards the show.
Where people seem to be much more universally in agreement concerning Alien: Earth also happens to be my biggest and most enthusiastic thumbs-up for the pro’s list:
2. The Production. The A E S T H E T I C, bro.
Source: AVForums.
If we’re talking visual appeal and film/shows, then Alien: Earth is a degustation of all your favourite home-cooked classics. Done by some pretty top-notch chefs, I’ll add.
This thing as a whole, rounded package is gorgeous. There’s a sense of both clarity and griminess, of warm-couch chic and clinical/industrial brutalism in equal measure. It’s a perceptual and auditory feast, the whole way through. Even the most scathing rebukes on the series I’ve seen/watched online have paid dues to their enjoyment on an aesthetic level, pretty much across the board.
Sure, there’s moments where it feels kind of bereft of character, donning that same bright holographic CGI colour-sheen that everything feels draped in lately. You know the kind - that spectral choma colour-wash that feels like whatever the hell the actual antagonist is in Annihilation.
I’ll pay that. But there’s also a lot of attention paid to set pieces, props and environmental storytelling. Like Romulus, I found myself pleasantly taken aback by the visual TLC and the balance of visual nostalgia/modernity - a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
Scale is important, too. That the same series even dares, boasts, thinks or even dreams to expand outside the industrial-scale box is a risky endeavour. And, to my abject surprise, Disney did not in fact turn Alien: Earth into a continent-spanning romp with leviathan things duking it out with leviathan things in gigantic clanking mechs or whatever.
No seriously, hearing it was called ‘Earth had me pretty worried Disney was going to blow this thing up to Civilisation levels of overhead topography, abandoning the cramped EEV shuttle feel altogether.
Nah. I have to (gut-wrenching as it is to my metalhead ego/street-cred) hand it to Disney of all people for retaining a very decent homage to the original aesthetic vision.
Speaking of said vision…
Decades ago, Ridley Scott instructed his set designers and overall team to think of designing the original Nostromo/Sulaco as dressed-down, workmanlike and minimalist/functional in as many ways as could portray the bureaucratic oligarchy behind the dressing.
(See here for a great little rundown from Creative Briefs, exploring how the specific iconography used for the Nostromo’s set design not only helped that films’ environmental storytelling, but also expanded further into the emergent canon/setting):
The garish metal-and-plastic nature of the architecture, the bulkheads-andWindows-MS-DOS chic of the early films, that retro-tech feeling - that informs a massive part of the collective love and nostalgia for the Alien series. And overall I think Earth does a damn fine job of retaining that feeling as much as it can under new Disney management in 2025.
Some tangential examples outside the gunmetal-grey brutalism I also enjoyed in Alien: Earth include: being invited into an admittedly-kitsch peek at the corporate stylings of Yutani’s leadership (FINALLY), the everyman boring-dystopian look of scenes like the board meeting between Cavalier and his rival, and by god, every minute of Episode 5 just hitting the cramped-quarters nostalgia feeling in the comfiest, there-it-is way (Romulus did this nicely, too).
Heck, I’m even going to give props paid to something that rubbed me up the wrong way both in terms of its’ presence in the script and the resulting visuals!
For the series to be so bold as to step out into literal daytime, on a tropical beach island of all things?
‘but Mu-uum, we didn’t pack sunscreen!’
Come on. Love it, hate it, don’t care - extracting XX-121 and its’ hapless victims out from a hull and onto a freakin’ beach of all places is a ballsy move.
As someone who lives near and loves the beach, even I felt a bit jilted at the inclusion of such a warm and inviting biome to the Alien series.
But you know what? I’ll argue here about that what I’ll argue elsewhere today - the franchise needs to be bold, experiment, take risks and sometimes literally be taken to new places. Lest it suffer in eventual stagnancy. So whilst I’m not in agreement with the execution, at the end of the day I doff my cap to them for making some new thematic moves.
Overall, the visual aspect was the staying-power for me through these past eight episodes.
It’s what piqued my initial excitement and kept my interest maintained, even whilst I was wrestling with a lot of other variables through the eight episodes. In my opinion, the visual component is the linchpin holding it all together.
As for comparing this with the Alien RPG? Well, you can’t… for the most part.
Not in terms of what both mediums are and how the information is presented. One’s static images in a book meant to evoke mental depictions, one delivers you a depiction directly, via moving pixels on a screen.
Without further endless Brady-waffle about how tabletop RPG’s mirror films in more ways than you’d think (separate Riff for another ramble-day - Elodie, tag in for that one maybe!), I’m going to do something unexpected even for myself and give a point to Alien: Earth over the RPG.
You see, a common complaint of the RPG’s first edition (and one I share) is a paucity overall of that wonderful analog-digital hybrid inky, scratchy artwork.
Seriously, I know the book is packed to the gills with information and lengthy enough, but there is some level of longing I find every time I open up that core rulebook - mostly after I’ve snapped myself out of staring at some of the great imagery. That’s especially compounded if you’ve gawked at some of the publishers’ fantastic artwork-filled core/supplemental titles in other settings - Coriolis, Forbidden Lands etc.
I appreciate all of it, but there feels a paucity of it given how visual this franchise is. Alien rests its’ strength and mass-appeal around being a visual spectacle. I know that’s hard to 1:1 translate between moving picture to static image, but you can still do a LOT with it. Check out any number of Alien fan-art threads online as proof.
Thankfully, what you DO cop in the RPG core-book is just sumptuous. Divine. Yum, yum, get in my occipital-lobe tum.
Where both the book and TV series shine together are feelings of a) encapsulating the tone of the setting and b) each proudly adopting their own styles for their medium.
Alright. Alright, alright, alright.
I’ve been pretty milquetoast so far and whilst I feel my takes overall here will be warm, the next couple of sections are probably going to ruffle some feathers. Ah well.
3. Some Lore Additions (a.k.a New Creatures Have Been Added, Cope and Seethe)
Seriously though, cope and seethe if you’re pissed off about there being new creatures in the setting.
Like okay.
C’mon, four decades in developing and expanding fictional universe? A biomechanically-informed dystopic space-hell borne from the sleep-paralysis demons of none other than tortured savant H.R. Giger himself? Not sure if you’ve perused the man’s portfolio, but the very nature of his art is undulating, serpentine. As rigid as it is fluid.
Were he to still be alive today, I’d wager Giger himself wouldn’t have wished for the series to remain fixated on a singular species alone.
Not to mention the franchise itself drops hints of “bug hunts” and the like, implying additional nasties exist and have made contact.
That line’s been enshrined in its’ own board game now, even if you’re still fighting Xenomorphs.
I’m here to opine that T. Ocellus and its’ tick/plant-friend represent something sorely needed in the Alien canon, especially where film is concerned - broadening the bestiary.
I can fully appreciate and understand the reticence too, though. Aforementioned young Brady felt slighted beyond the point of insult when an Alien Queen popped out a gross and awkward animatronic human-alien hybrid…. thing… in Resurrection, for instance.
Likewise, there’s the valid concern that adding too much into the villain-soup might risk diluting the impact and original scope. Easy reference point = how many freaking Pokemon are there now?!
But really, honestly - the franchise runs a risk of staleness if we as an audience are forever subject to variations on one theme, encounters with a Xenomorph.
To have Weyland-Yutani, Seegson, Laselle Bionational, Prodigy, Yutani et al all vying for one single species for development of bioweapons feels short-sighted too, the longer the setting endures. Sure, the Xenomorph may always be the coveted Shangri-la of bioweapons potential, but how many times can we muster up variations on a hunt for the same thing?
Enter… the new guys.
Eyeball-Monster (Trypanohyncha Ocellus or T.Ocellus for short), The Plant (D. Plumbicare) and as-yet-unnamed tick/leech species.
The eyeball-monster feels a little…. BB-88-coded… in its’ execution, but I’m stoked beyond belief it’s there.
It’s also stoked the imaginations and creativity of the fanbase too it seems, with many folks attending conventions with bulging eyes, dressed as a tentacled eye, etc.
Not to mention a whole slew of cool hobby creations - one of many examples being Redditor /u/DunderMifflinBTeam’s cute widdle eye-guy cast:
The prospect that we not only have to contend with an unflinchingly singular and malevolent, cunning specimen, we now have to grapple with one showing all that plus sapience/sentience and even a willingness to communicate with us? That adds a new playing-field, one which our eternal antagonist could only broach so far with its’ cunningness but also limited communicatory capacity/desire.
And yeah, Boy Cavalier is a goddamned idiot, but his infatuation with T.Ocellus makes sense. But of course a trillionaire is going to be getting all ADHD OwO What’s This during an actual crisis when he realises Ocellus over here isn’t just capable of inter-species communication - it knows things. It shares understanding of physical concepts we also learnt/developed, and is willing to relay its’ understanding of said concepts via an endoparasitic host.
Add to all this that the bugger is both deft, nimble and shows pretty considerable strength/flexibility in its’ tentacled appendages, and you open up dimensions of possibility for body-horror that an adolescent Xeno is only going to be able to take so far.
T. Ocellus retains a frightening aspect of what drives such fear in us about the Xenomorph, too - it’s hard to get a read on it. We have an eye, yes. We spend a lot of time looking at and into those. But we don’t have accompanying brows or even a face attached. No screeches, howls, unfurling of gnashed rows of teeth in rage. Just a Little Guy. Sitting there. Observing. Looking. Giving almost nothing except eye-movement away to betray its’ underlying intent.
Likewise, the implementation of the series’ endo-parasitoid trope worked well when translated to human form, I felt. Awkward, lecherous and brutishly powerful in the same measure.
The fight scene with the Xenomorph feels a little silly, sure. But as well, no one in-universe knows enough of this things’ capabilities for us to reason it isn’t capable of melee with a solidly armoured natural opponent.
The mere fact we’re now contending with something that’s more than happy to pilot our corpses and throw down with the iconic armoured villain is both cool and frightening. Raising some stakes for the Alien itself is a cool move, and I hope they expand on this in Season Two.
Enter also, D. Plumbicare - such a nonchalant/neutral name for such a meat-hungry…. Plant-Thing?!
Whilst I feel this creatures’ potential is deliberately awaiting Season Two to be unlocked, the unsettling pseudo-fauna/pseudo-flora nature of its’ appearance, its’ limited ability for movement and straight-up gobbling humans introduces a third threat. I get the sense writing-wise that we’re meant to treat it as ho-hum, to scoff and feel less intimidated - for now.
Like Ocellus, though, a more important facet of this specimen’s addition is a spooky answer to the Drake Equation in-setting: the universe not only contains a variety of specimens, but ones which are cunning, adaptive and possess formidable defensive/offensive capabilities.
And finally, we have Species 19, an as yet unidentified tick/leech-like parasite.
Their inclusion as a familiar analogue to our own blood-suckin’ species (with a nasty toxic-gas side effect to boot - silly USCSS Maginot crew) is something I feel is important for sci-fi verisimilitude too.
What I mean is, if we appreciate the logic in-vivo that things like the Xenomorph can exist, it’s not a stretch to think there’s all manner of creepy-crawly, nasty critters skittering between crevices out there amongst the stars. Basically, these leeches/ticks broaden the horror-scope beyond the animalistic (xenomorph, Ocellus) and xenobotanical (?, Plumbicare) to the tiny, the entomological. We can imagine tiny critters crawling into crevices on the plant-boughs or rocky edifices of any number of exoplanets. And what of what hasn’t been found yet, mm?
Scaling these bioweapons-to-be to smaller sizes is also a nice vehicle for the ongoing lesson learned via the franchise - that of man’s hubris and underestimation of natural forces.
Final note on these little suckers - their actual appearance is a little weird. A little phallic, one might say? This also lends to the psychosexual horror instilled by Giger, if nowhere near as overt as said baddie.
What these creatures also represent to me is consistency with the overarching theme. That is, one of unfettered capitalism taking numerous risks to life, self and society in pursuit of gaining advantage over market competitors.
Take the scientists of the USCSS Maginot, for example. Folks from an educated background who nevertheless are under corporate mandate to maximise profit, which in this case means bringing home as many new-nasties for bioweapons research as possible.
They didn’t just stop with a weird egg containing a crab-thing that loves to hug faces, delivering gestation out of anothers’ ribcage.
They also didn’t stop with wrangling a nimble, hostile eyeball which also has a penchant for parasitoid control.
They didn’t just carefully sweep up a hentai-plant-horror and call it a day.
They’d only decided enough was enough to include all these and a sizeable sample of blood-gorging toxic leeches.
That’s just the critters, though. What of the corporate shtick?
You can extract the context within which a show/film is designed usually about as easily as you can pry a Facehugger off a hapless victim.
With its’ origins in the 70’s/80’s and ergo rapid globalisation and economic change, the Alien series saw itself mirroring the stuffy, suit-and-tie, mostly faceless henchmen of the massive transnational oligarchic blocs forming within and outside the franchise.
The smarmy, slimy car-salesman vibe of Bourke fit 1986 - an insufferable middle-management sycophant with his own performative goals underscoring his actions, even with his life in danger.
Come 2025, though, and a petulant, oppositional-defiant CEO playing tech-God has many real-world parallels. In-universe, too, who’s to say talented and aggressive start-ups don’t have a chance to disrupt established economic hierarchies? Again, very Silicon Valley, very 2020’s.
Credit: Hulu
Not a fan of the execution overall, but the inclusion of Kavalier at all is a nice break. It’s an opportunity to peer over the logos, emblems and products walling us off from the higher echelons of entities like Weyland-Yutani (until recent titles, at least).
Also, whilst the implementation feels as on-the-nose as say, House Kurita in Battletech novels (definitely a product of their time, lol) the fact we’re finally entreated to the Yutani side of this corporate juggernaught is a welcomed sight. It’s also just nice to cop an unflinching and calculating representation of the W-Y dyad; where Weyland himself is portrayed as both brilliant and foolhardy via Prometheus especially, Yutani represents a colder, more sober and measured approach to corporate protection/expansion.
Credit: Hulu/FX
The awkward, mostly passive aggressive stance between Prodigy and this longer-standing behemoth also mirrors the poisoned niceties we’d expect from such a corporate dystopia.
(Remember - Part I of this Riff is The Good. I’m leaving out my thoughts on their interaction for later, as I have beef).
The prospect these two bring to setting exploration is great grist for the mill, too.
Could we, for instance, see the Soviet-analogue Union of Progressive Peoples be explored in future film/TV efforts? The Three Worlds Empire? Methinks if the inclusion of Prodigy and Yutani are considered, we’ll slowly see more of the larger geopolitical structures come into play - even if not in Alien: Earth.
Another important aspect of the Peter-Pan-esque inclusion of Kavalier and Co - outside of the hired paramilitary forces, we’re getting more variations on the perennial gung-ho Colonial Marines trope. The faux-patriotic angle is a mainstay of the series and thus we can’t do without some gun-toters, but, hapless as they are, competing forces of hired-guns adds to the Blackwater/Werner Group analogues to our current times.
And how does Alien: Earth shape up against the RPG in this respect?
No comparison - the RPG wins of course.
The book obviously does it better, but in fairness it’s unreasonable to expect encyclopedic lore in 8hrs of TV without being clunky or overdone.
I do feel like the show could’ve dropped us onto Earth with at least some cursory mentions of the many other competing factions, in a way that wasn’t ‘old guy tells young guy on lunchbreak as convenient plot device’.
It should be mentioned at this stage too that the core rulebook isn’t just a lore exposition-dump - if anything, it forms a small minority within the overall word-count. Which to me speaks to it being possible that the show could’ve similarly dropped in a bit more on the setting-front without being a wiki-styled recant.
4. Acting:
Okay, this one is just straight-up fucking fun to discuss.
It’s not fun because of the show, funnily enough!
It’s fun because of where we’re at, as a society of people.
Human beings are intelligent, capable and insighftul, but you scale us up to a large enough degree and we become this collective amorphous mass of stupid, stupid cringe.
And by Ripley Herself, history will likely look back on the mid to late 2010’s discourse around many things and just cringe hard. Real. Hard. I know I do.
I mean… Jordan Peterson having an audience unironically, everyone. Yep.
So. We’ve all collectively matured a little from the days of internally rupturing at the thought of !!female Asian characters in MY Star Wars?! REEEEEEEE!! and !!They Gave Hot Chicks Mostly Bob-Cuts In Mass Effect: Andromeda And That Is Why It Sucked I HATE FEMINAZIS REEE CURSE YOU SARKEESIAN (hint: no, it sucked for many other reasons. It’s an okay-ish game, overall).
‘least, that’s what I like to tell myself.
And yet what’ve we copped in the last few years? Everything from QAnon and the Jan 6th insurrection to a reality TV show host/real estate mogul’s son being President. Not to mention the infiltration of actual US/Western political processes from harmful influencers and the like.
We are living in dangerously crazy, AI-slop riddled times, packed to the brim with hateful rhetoric and small-minded idiocy.
Where some of this idiocy continues, in my books, is the ongoing braying and bleating about DEI and inclusion in acting/media. It’s the latest hyperfixation from a corner of the Internet that absolutely require some form of bogeyman at all times in their otherwise privileged lives. Thus we find ourselves mired in times where you ironically can’t hire non-Caucasian and/or LGBTIQA acting talent without copping walls of paranoid online screed from mouth-breathers.
Alien: Earth is perfectly demonstrative of this, just go look up the online discourse around the series itself. It won’t take long for you to run into this low-hanging fruit.
Before that, though, you’re just as if not more likely to cop equally tired braying about the age of the actors/actresses in this series.
Want a franchise to continue?
Face facts - Mrs. Weaver is in her seventies. Michael Biehn isn’t in fact going to commando-roll through a shattered glass window with an Armat M4A1 standard-issue Pulse Rifle like we all hope. Et cetera.
Face more facts - people with skin that isn’t fair in pigmentation exist, and some of them want to be in the acting game. The mind boggles!
Face even more facts - both the Alien setting and the world its’ constructed in is rapidly globalising. The Global South has increased access to the internet, and previously nominal participants in the tech/media sphere are entering the global game.
And that’s how we arrive at the simple fact that the cast is the cast. These are the people playing roles in your precious franchise. Take it or leave it.
Unlike your preconceptions about me being an SJW, globalist or whatever cooked-trope archetypes you’ve got ready are - diversity in the acting lineup is more just that. A fact.
Facts alone do not a good show make, however.
Ultimately, I view the cast of Alien: Earth as positive not in terms of who/what they are - but what they had to work with.
I said I’d be positive throughout, but I have to defend the actors on this show. And I have to defend them on the merit of a glaring weakness of the show - dialogue and script-writing in general.
Take Episodes I-III of Star Wars, right?
The memey ones, correct. Those.
With time, maturity and being distracted by living our lives/getting over shit eventually, we’ve come as a people to generally recognise the prequels not as exemplary of bad actors, but of actors constrained by their brief. Christensen’s performance as young Anakin was beset by dialogue on a whole new league of kitsch, corny and downright scatter-brained.
Back to Alien: Earth - I see a lot of that difficulty and challenge with what the acting staff were presented with. Of course, I meant to be talking about The Good in this one, so I’ll leave my thoughts on why the dialogue/writing isn’t great ‘til next time.
Props to some of my favourite acting from Season One:
As menacingly constrained as I feel his full potential was by the dialogue, Timothy Olyphant delivers a stellar performance as Kirsch. It’s akin to Fassbender’s interpretation of David, and I feel he embodied the coolly dispassionate but cautious older synth model very well.
Babou Cassey as Morrow is literally my favourite actor and character in the show. Well-written, too. Cassey’s reserved range intermingled with a constant sense of arrogance and nefarious intent is executed fantastically. It’s Cassey’s performance I think of first and foremost in pondering positives about the show in general - he really shines here.
At 29 years of age, Sydney Chandler is tasked with not only leading her fellow scripted rabble of teenage-brains as Wendy (and plays the latter convincingly), she also performs the overall role as nouveau femme fatale excellently. Of all the hybrid-children roles, I felt hers was riddled with the most Swiss-cheese plot holes. The fact you can look past some serious writing transgressions to enjoy her performance speaks to a job well done, IMO.
Alex Lawther as Joe Hermit. Joe is often slighted as a character for his meekness and timidity, but I think this is a more common reaction a) to the prospect of extended military service when not wanted and b) IDK, encountering the goddamn Xenomorph with no prior experience? It’s good to see a variation on steroidal hyper-masculinity in male Alien cast, and Alex pulls it off for me.
I hate Boy Kavalier. Mostly because the execution of the character is some of the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen in a TV show, but also because a good actor knows how to mold any character into something truly hateable (see also: Joffre in Game of Thrones). He gets under my skin, and in large part due to the foppish and smarmy delivery of the actor. Samuel Blenkin manifests the arrogance, pseudo-intellectualism and naivete of Alien-does-Big-Tech-startup-CEO really well, particularly once again in the scope of the writing he’s presented with.
Sandra Yi Sencinidiver likewise performs brilliantly as the calculating heiress to the Yutani fortunes. I felt she embodied the character and style of the megacorporation in a way that helped bring a new edge to the W-Y film canon, particularly when contrasted against Prometheus/Covenant’s portrayal of not-quite-boy-genius Peter Weyland.
The whole boyish friend dynamic between Smee (Jonathan Ajayi) and Slightly (Adarsh Gourav) is just so well done, IMO. From the slapstick goofy exchanges and awkward physical mannerisms to the little nonverbal behaviours we don’t engage with anymore as adults (a hug here, a hand on the shoulder there), it was these two who most embodied a developmental difference from the kid-troupe.
And that just about sums it up! There’s a few additional elements across the show I enjoyed, but this has turned into a mammoth amount of typed verbiage as is.
To end with, I’ll throw in something I thought the show did completely unintentionally, but supremely well - even if it was delivered in a very hackneyed, throwaway line or two.
5. Bonus Positive = That Very Throw-away ADHD Line In Episode Eight:
Whilst ribcage-crushingly-cringe in the moment (I felt physical pain, agony even, as soon as Oliphant uttered it) as a peer I’m in many ways thankful they threw in the line pointing out Kavalier’s ADHD and his demonstrated impulse-control issues at the time under stress.
I don’t even think they intended the move to be as positive from a ‘spicy such as myself, but I can’t stress enough how much I feel they actually struck gold on a good neurodivergent thread, here.
Especially in terms of the discourse and what we don’t often talk about. That is, how little narcissism, power and our capacity to be tempted and molded by both can be - it’s not a common means through which we exorcise our demons and overcompensate in neurotypical society, but it can and does happen.
Like it or not and through well-duh-genius means (vulnerability to trauma, fractured sense of self living in a neurotypical world, trying to play the game etc), ADHD and autistic/auDHD people are prone to developing disordered personality traits. Being often sensitive and introverted people, those traits are most often thought of from the internalising/neurotic end of things. Then, where externalised behaviour is concerned, it pretty much always boils down to explosive anger, issues with anger, blah blah.
End of the day, perhaps the ADHD thing is more a useful retcon tool on the writers’ behalf - certainly feels partially that way - but in practice, we as a culture tend to overlook how societal conditions can mold vulnerable people (e.g. neurodivergents) into crass, naive, pseudo-intellectual narcissists.
Heck, even if unintended - the inclusion of ADHD as a comment kind of helps retcon the otherwise nonsensical stupidity/ignorance of Kavalier as his facility comes crumbling around him.
ADHD aside, Boy Kavalier as an individual person is a stupid, nasty, reprehensible piece of shit who makes an unyielding string of dumb calls, sure. But his blinkers-on interaction with T. Ocellus? His sensory-friendly getup? The childish demeanour and general lackadaisical presentation in front of others? Reliance on humour in almost any given moment? The heavy banking on making sure the world knows he’s smart ergo also loveable?
There’s some relatable aspects there for a lot of us dubbed ‘gifted children’ who later morphed into quote-unquote ‘high functioning neurodivergents’ - folks raised on the milk and honey of their own smarts, inhabiting a brain that is equally prone to omissions, errors and even some pseudo-intellectual smugness now and then too.
So yeah. Ultimately it’s very funny that the one line which probably is the whole DEI/corporations including for trendiness’ sake people conspire about online, is one that actually shines a good light on an aspect of neurospicy life that culture and peers often shy from.
Thought that was a whole exercise in really squeezing a few lemons to make lemonade?
Stay tuned - in Part II I’ll be launching into the full rant-tirade, with tabletop RPG in hand.