Alien: Earth Post-Mortem - Too on the Nose, or Perfect Sci-Fi Horror?

On Earth, everyone can hear you scream...

With Alien: Earth wrapped and despite one episode in particular being a standout for not being as strong as the other seven (you know who you are, "Emergence"), the overall delivery of what should be considered proper sci-fi horror, in episodic TV form, was largely excellent. Noah Hawley’s riff on the Alien universe that reveals a further deepening of humanity’s affiliation with one of the galaxy’s ‘apex’ predators wasn’t just a great new chest-bursting iteration, but a wholly unique presentation that was anything but flashy, yet was somehow still flashy.

No small task.

More importantly, it maintained the retro-future presentation of Romulus, the OG and the genre-defining Aliens while also utilising the in-series timeline passage of time to equally be kitsch and relatable in 2025 -- all in one. Shot for shot and transition to transition, however, it was a drawn-out old-school horror-slash-slasher experience with fantastic pacing that coalesced with the show’s two major titans -- Kirsh and Morrow -- putting on a cage match for the ages, reminiscent of Rowdy ‘Roddy’ Piper and Keith David’s seminal They Live fight scene. Its heavy-handed Lost Boys motif also wound up being more creepy and more poignant than the telegram it all came written on initially suggested it would and left us wanting more.


You know, true horror.

In all, every studio and platform involved in this original series delivered above and beyond, while contributing significantly to the canon of the IP overall, to the point we now have even more questions, need more ‘modern’ details, and have a serious eye towards its future.

Alien: Earth

What’s The Pop?: Alien: Earth TV Series
From: FX/Disney+
Release Date: August 12, 2025
Official Link: Watch Alien: Earth Here
Author: Stephen Farrelly
Date: August 27, 2025

The Man Who Would be Space Cowboy

There’s a moment in Episode 3 of Alien: Earth where the ‘children’ are being worked out by Weyland-Yutani’s resident cyborg, Morrow. Brilliantly portrayed by Babou Ceesay. Morrow will seemingly do anything for his parent company, including disturbing innocently-minded kids-turned-synths; already terrified enough performing ‘survey’ of a crashed deep-space research vessel full of collected alien specimens. (An ‘adventure’ that we later see still haunts them.) 

The scene is reminiscent of an overbearing adult imposing themselves on actual children -- entirely relatable and tense. Morrow, in the moment, sees that something is amiss with both of the boys, working out very quickly that they’re an altogether newer ‘species’ of synth, and obviously infantile. His cognitive working immediately sends him into manipulative, near predatory behaviour, further jarring the boys and amplifying the scene even more. The beads of sweat his biological side produces here are a palpable reminder that he’s something in between man and machine which makes the whole confrontation all the more menacing. 

That is until the parent or ‘carer’ for those children comes along and, calmly, assesses the situation. Kirsh, an OG synth who operates as something of a nanny to Prodigy’s “Lost Boys” (and in many ways its on-the-nose CEO, Boy Kavalier) enters the room as portrayed by the enormous Timothy Olyphant whose presence and signature gait dominate the scene.

Gravity in this shortest of moments suddenly feels tripled.

“We’re not here to talk about what I am, Mr Morrow. 

"I read the manifest: Chief of Security, sole survivor, cyborg. Lost a lot of friends… did you?”

"Kirsh assesses the situation with the keenest of eyes but isn't so robotic as to miss the opportunity to be manipulative in his own right..."

Despite Ceesay’s excellence overall and his specific work in this scene expressing the futility of Prodigy’s acquisition of Yutani merchandise at the hands of these ‘children’ -- and it is incredible and might currently be the best in TV in 2025 -- it belongs now to the former Sheriff of Deadwood. Kirsh assesses the situation with the keenest of eyes but isn't so robotic as to miss the opportunity to be manipulative in his own right, learning more about the crashed vessel’s underlying mission and the import of its cargo, specifically around biological entities -- entities he will later be even more keen on. 

But more importantly, the sequence serves as a larger reminder that Olyphant, for all his work in Westerns and Western-themed roles, simply fits sci-fi -- a sentiment we learn more dominantly once we pass the halfway mark in subsequent episodes to the one highlighted here. 

What’s obvious, though, is that Olyphant more than enjoyed his role as Kirsh as well as the intricate themes of the show, specifically those around “metamorphoses” (read our “Would you like to know more?” box out for… MORE!). Moreover, his presence and stature as an actor don’t overshadow one aspect of this overall production. 

All of the above reaches its tipping point when the two characters face off at the tail-end of the series, but with both being ‘fixable’, we also know this won’t be the last we see of them.

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Potentially typecast or only ever chasing roles as a badge-wearing gunslinger, whether in the past, present or on Tatooine, Olyphant has largely always been tied to the Cowboy archetype. (He has had other roles and excelled in them, but he is literally and figuratively the “Spirit of the West”.) In Alien: Earth, however, we get to a new range for him where his signature cool is replaced with a more collected and calculating synth. The interesting angle here is that throughout the Alien films only a few synths have ever been represented as *not* nefarious in the likes of Bishop, Walter and Andy (and Annalee, to a degree). Ash, David and Rook, however, are clearly cold and calculating with no real sub-routine for the preservation of human life. Kirsh strides, currently, somewhere in between, as seen with his nurturing of the children, namely with Smee and Slightly, but also in his fascination with the alien specimens Prodigy procures and his so-so relationship with Boy. Where his arc takes him next is a fascinating watch and we’re just so happy it's in Olyphant’s hands.

Eye See You

AVP has a lot to answer for. But we also ought to be thanking the writers at Dark Horse from all those years ago for being given the greenlight to merge the Alien and Predator IPs together in what could, back then, amount to fan-fiction. 

So we now have a shared universe and over the journey there have been a handful of other ‘entities’ drip-fed into the AVP worlds (and even the other standalones for each property), but until now we haven’t had so much to play with. Hawley’s introduction of four brand new alien monstrosities marks a milestone shift in not only the isolation of Alien and Aliens (and Alien 3, while we’re here -- wholly underrated), but also in the general purpose of Weyland-Yutani as an entity and the other four corporations that now control Earth in competition with one another. This series only touches on two of them, but rest assured we’ll be seeing the hand of the others but, more importantly, we might see how the other four alien species mentioned here make their way to them.

"How does he and his writing team make sure it doesn’t overtake the series due to its fan-favouritism..."

The “T.Ocellus” ‘eye monster’ instantly became a fan favourite and might actually be creepier than even the Xenomorph due to its obvious intelligence. As something of a symbiotic organism, its ability to take over a host is immediately fascinating, but that it can reanimate a recently-deceased one means its place in this entry in the Alien canon is simply wrought with possibility.

Its final moments on Neverland Island at season’s end are purely the thing of nightmares and an even more poignant reminder that throughout Alien: Earth we have been watching true sci-fi-horror. Where Hawley takes this monster next will be an edge-of-your-seat watch -- the query, however, will be: how does he and his writing team make sure it doesn’t overtake the series due to its fan-favouritism or, do they simply embrace that popularity and potential and let the next major “alien” in Alien be more than the one monster?

Additionally, as we touched on momentarily above, including the Xenomorph, there are five alien species that we know of on Earth right now, not-so-coincidentally the same number of corporations running the globe in the timeline...

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“Wouldn’t that be nice, to be all machine instead of what I am; the worst parts of a man” -- Morrow to Slightly in “Metamorphosis”. Babou Ceesay’s Morrow is one of the most interesting characters to enter the fray for the franchise in some time. At once he represents new narrative and character potential for cyborgs, while also highlighting how horrible humans can be, especially with power. While his back and forth with Kirsh is arguably the strongest narrative and character pull of the series for ours, his standout performance is in “In Space No One Can Hear…”, an ostensible throwback to the entries of yesteryear and one that actually, genuinely outdoes a few of them in less time and on a far smaller budget and scale (it was one of our favourites, by far). We simply can’t wait to see more of him and his arc in Season 2 and hopefully beyond.

Protecting the Predator™ of Predators™

As with any great monster or dominant alien joint, the age-old trope that “man is the true monster”; manipulative, conniving, gas-lighter extraordinaire… killer or, as is the case with Alien: Earth, willing participant to death, destruction and profit., permeates this series. Led entirely by the callous, ADHD-loaded Kavalier and his expensive toys, remote island and penchant for ignoring, you know, safety precautions as owner and CEO of Prodigy, the “man is the true monster” angle plays out before our eyes to great, if on-the-nose, aplomb.

Exposition for the first time towards so many of the *kind of* questionable deep-space decisions we’ve queried over the IP’s journey have been at least planted in a kind of reality within Alien: Earth. Albeit in a somewhat more terrifyingly believable sphere given our real-world climate where mega-corporations are concerned, and the underlying tenant for greed that helps make up man’s ‘monster’ self in the aforementioned trope, we can now see a certain level of folly that is intrinsically tied to the hubris that has made the world what it is within this expansive IP. 

It’s pupa point, if you will. 

"It’s also where the slasher component of Hawley’s narrative gets to flex large, highlighted best with the gruesome slaughter of an aristocrat-themed dressup party..."

In previous iterations, Aliens notwithstanding (given its location setting -- LV-426), the confines of a spaceship make sense for dread and impediment, but on Earth it’s a different tale with a different set of rules. It’s also where the slasher component of Hawley’s narrative gets to flex large, highlighted best with the gruesome slaughter of an aristocrat-themed dressup party filled with entirely ignorant goers, presumably all of money and wealth. Again, it’s super on-the-nose, but works oh-so-well in terms of building out the ridiculousness of the state of the world, ergo the state of mind of the punters within it and challenges us, as the viewer, to care for humanity here at all. This makes the rare ‘human’ component of Alien: Earth important, because on the surface the only real human element is Wendy’s brother, Joe D. Hermit, and the two scientists on the island working with Prodigy’s “Lost Boys” program (though that alone makes their ‘humanity’ questionable). 

To this end, Joe’s status as a medic is all the more poignant; altruist and naive and innocent -- from a corporate perspective, he’s as juvenile as the synth children the show champions, but his metamorphosis comes when he goes against an assumed hippocratic oath to shoot one of them which helps pose two all-important questions as the series hits its third act: what do the synths mean to him and therefore technology as a whole. And does he view his sister in the same light? What’s expendable in the mind of an ‘average’ (not-so-average) Joe in this Alien: Earth world sworn to save lives? 

Lung(e) Capacity

Philosophical queries above, all, but the show points to Joe also serving another purpose that, if you think hard enough about it, could mean he’ll have his own relationship with the Xenomorph that was artificially gestated in his removed lung. This could suggest now that it will share at least some of his DNA and therefore harbour some sort of bond or paternal affiliation with him, which would be a first for the IP. Joe is also unaware of the experiment and only thinks he owes Prodigy even more for whatever ‘replacement’ he was given. Plenty to ponder here for wherever Alien: Earth goes next, especially around our Alien Whisperers in Wendy and potentially Joe.

Will they each have a ‘pet’ Xenomorph? It sounds kooky, but the show has also been that and more. And Hawley is no stranger to kooky.

"The remaining three corporations are destined to learn about the alien samples now taking up residence on Earth..."

We’ve already established that there're five alien species now (Yautja aside), most of which are now reproducing, and five corporations. In each company there’s employ, tech secrets and inter-corporate politics. Plus very strict borders. Humanity is pretty much a slave to whichever conglomerate it operates within those borders of and you’re wholly owned for predetermined amounts of time for work and loyalty in a debt-based system -- something more broadly explored in the brilliant Romulus, but even more pertinent here, as experienced through the reluctance and blindness of Kavalier’s security forces on Neverland Island. That, alongside the ‘free’ lung Joe inherits explored above means we get a greater idea of just how far corporate creep can (b)reach. 

Exploitation is key, overall, and the remaining three corporations are destined to learn about the alien samples now taking up residence on Earth and, rather than combating them as would be the right thing to do given the dangers they pose, will likely go out of their way to obtain and leverage them for gain and profit.

The actual title of the last episode was “The Real Monsters” and as our feature title suggested and as has been peppered throughout this piece, many tropes and themes for all eight episodes of Alien: Earth have been heavily on-the-nose. But…

What we also see is an establishment of both sci-fi and horror in disparate parts, yet synergistic in their married arcs. A world with rules around technology: Connected devices, machine learning, medical advances to keep people alive (to work and owe), space travel and more. And abnormal horrors made normal: No oversight or societal laws, no repercussion for death or destruction. No real care for the people or a greater good -- only greater profit. And it’s here the series blooms, or metamorphoses. Sci-fi and horror come together in a new environment different to the confines of a spaceship surrounded by the dead and dread of the vacuum of space; an entirely relatable playspace for monsters to thrive and terrorise us, both human and alien alike.

Season Two is going to be the tits.

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With Predator: Badlands furthering the shared universes between both of Hollywood’s favourite non-terrestrial species, it’s important to delineate Alien: Earth from where Predator is right now. Considered “Disneyfied”, Badlands is a bombastic and mostly family-fun entry in that IP’s topsy-turvy release manifest, which is at odds with both Prey and Predator: Killer of KIllers. Still, Disney also technically owns Alien and the Alien: Earth run, as we’ve explored here, is very much a mature horror experience with no punches pulled. What does it all mean? Not much, except that when you get that ultra-mature spin on either, lap it up. We’ve learnt for many years across both to take the good with the bad, and in 2025, that is no different.

About the author

Written By Stephen Farrelly
Stephen Farrelly is a veteran journalist and editor with more than two decades experience in the worlds of gaming, entertainment, lifestyle and sport. He is a proud pug dad, loves art in all forms (particularly street and tattoo culture), and is the director of Swear Jar Editorial and Media Pty Ltd, this site's owner and publisher. When not dispensing words, he's also dispensing boutique beers as a taproom fixture at Bracket Brewing in Marrickville, NSW...
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