I SAW ALIEN: EARTH (2ND TINGLING REFLECTION)

I commented on FX/Hulu/Noah Hawley's Alien: Earth's opener in August (see post), but upon experiencing the entire season (and pleased to report that it wasn't blunted by Dune: Prophesy's gnawing verbosity), I'm sad to see it go, since it's been artful, creepy and multi-layered. In other words, each episode was so tasty that it made me salivate for more. 

In a large way, the series captured the mood of Ridley Scott/Ron Shusett/Dan O'Bannon's Alien. Certain segments within the stretch, in particular the startling flashback, "In Space, No One ...," echoed the 1979, 20th Century Fox blockbuster when it came to its sequestered, USCSS Maginot menagerie. The wee, spidery-eye specimen (T-Ocellus), rather reminiscent of O'Bannon's beachball creature from Dark Star, was a discomforting, scene stealer, but so were those plump, spine-tingling, flying insectoids (as well as their unsettling, cocoon-ish nest), with the tried-and-true Xenomorphs (in chestburster and facehugger forms) still dominating. (H.R. Giger would no doubt be proud that his 1976, Lovecraftian blueprint still holds its nightmarish grip fifty years after its conception, and perhaps it's even more unsettling in the bright light of day.)    

Another important part of Alien: Earth rode off its Peter Pan motif, pulling J.M. Barrie's fable back to its roots, which as some do know, holds a dark side, as Scott Chambers' Neverland Nightmare has shown.   

Sydney Chandler's intuitive hybrid Wendy, aka Marcy Hermit, was an ideal conduit for the Neverland darkness. (BTW: Her relationship with her brother, Alex Lawther's Joe D., was convincing for its cynicism and therefore, heartfelt.) The way she communicated with an "affectionate" Xenomorph, using her soothing trills and throaty coos, was mesmerizing. In the same vein, the way she and her hybrid "lost boys" contended with not only New Siam's otherworldly beasts, but adult deceit (the residue of "the real monsters") was as enthralling, as it furthered the heart-pounding terror.

As with Scott's Prometheus and Covenant, a Frankenstein motif was there, too, thanks to those hybrids, but it came as well through Timothy Olyphant's synthetic Kirsh and his cyborg rival, Babou Ceesay's Morrow. The rights and entitlements of such cognitive "machines" (of the many contentions and loyalties that denote them), tapped Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?/Blade Runner, which also alludes to Mary Shelley's mythology. In the end, whether the characters were organic, man-made or both, they were no more than corporate puppets for Samuel Blenkin's Pan-ish Boy Kavalier (of Prodigy) and Sandra Ye Sencindiver's Yutani (of Weyland-Yutani), each an engineering, Prometheus and/or Victor Frankenstein understudy in his/her own ambitious right.

With all this said and ruminated upon, it should come as no surprise that the Alien franchise is one of my favorites. There isn't an entry I dislike or feel apathetic about (and that includes David Fincher's much maligned Alien 3). Though I'd like to see another big-screen chapter, Hawley's home-viewing extension has allowed me to experience a new, Alien installment weekly. (This treat reminded me how Ultraman, Space Giants and Johnny Sokko served me a nice, pre-supper serving of daily kaiju when I was a kid.) Because of this, I do hope Alien: Earth is renewed, and if it should be (thanks to a positive rating's grab for FX/Hulu/Disney+), I trust that the new season doesn't take forever and a day to descend.