It’s been almost five years in the making, but one of the most anticipated sci-fi horror shows in recent memory is almost here. August 12 sees the debut of the first two episodes of Alien: Earth on FX and Hulu, with the remaining episodes airing every Tuesday night. And the show has an immensely talented creative team behind it: Ridley Scott himself will serve as an executive producer, with Noah Hawley (of Fargo and Legion fame) taking the coveted spot of showrunner.
Set two years before the events of the original Alien, the show centers around the crew of the space vessel Maginot, which is carrying dangerous biological samples from across the galaxy. The ship abruptly crash-lands on Earth, and one of the crew members, Wendy, a “hybrid,” makes a discovery that threatens her entire team, setting up a terrifying confrontation with the Xenomorphs. As the first TV series set in the Alien universe, the trailers thus far have looked hugely promising, and we can’t wait to finally watch it.
‘Earth’ Is a Different Kind of ‘Alien’ Prequel
While Alien: Earth isn’t the first prequel to the original masterpiece, it’s by far the closest to it in the timeline. But don’t feel like you need to be up-to-date on Prometheus or Alien: Covenant before the show premieres: if word from creator Noah Hawley is to be trusted, he’ll be incorporating little to nothing from those installments.
Indeed, Ridley Scott’s two prequel films fleshed out the backstory of the Xenomorph, revealing that the alien was created as a bioweapon by an ancient race called the Engineers. This retcon proved considerably polarizing among fans, as they felt it cheapened the inherent terror of the Xenomorph, which was originally so frightening because we didn’t know where it came from, thus making it feel like an unstoppable force of nature.
Hawley seems to share this sentiment; in a 2024 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he detailed: “For me, and for a lot of people, this ‘perfect life form’ — as it was described in the first film — is the product of millions of years of evolution that created this creature that may have existed for a million years out there in space. The idea that, on some level, it was a bioweapon created half an hour ago, that’s just inherently less useful to me.”
While Prometheus and Covenant were technically prequels, they were also some distance removed from Alien, and they felt like part of a standalone story. While details on Alien: Earth are still shrouded in mystery, Hawley has hinted that the show will explain how Weyland-Yutani first learned about the Xenomorphs, knowing that they will eventually send the Nostromo crew to specifically investigate them.
‘Alien: Earth’ Sets up Exciting New Characters and Lore
Noah Hawley recently detailed one of his biggest goals for Alien: Earth — to capture the sense of mystery and awe of the original film, he wanted to have the audience experience that feeling firsthand alongside a new cast of characters. Everything that’s been detailed about said cast of characters promises to add some interesting new heroes to the ensemble, as well as some exciting new expansions to the lore.
To begin with, the series lead, Wendy (Sydney Chandler), has been revealed as a “hybrid,” a person whose consciousness has been transplanted into a synthetic body, thus giving her the body of an adult and the brain of a child. As press releases have detailed, the first hybrids were children with terminal illnesses, who volunteered for scientific research. Timothy Olyphant plays Kirsh, Wendy’s synthetic mentor. Samuel Blenkin stars as Boy Kavalier, the inventor of the hybrids and CEO of Prodigy Corporation, a rival competitor to Weyland-Yutani.
The ensemble is filled out with The Babadook’s Essie Davis as Dame Sylvia, a mentor to the team, Atom Eins (Adrian Edmondson), a fixer for Boy Kavalier, and researcher Arthur Sylvia (David Rysdahl), who’s skeptical of the hybrid experiments. Hawley has also hinted that there will be new aliens in the mix; in an interview with Consequence of Sound, he stated: “I want you to have that feeling because that feeling is integral to the Alien experience. But I can’t do it with those creatures. So let’s introduce new creatures where you don’t know how they reproduce or what they eat, so you can have that, ‘Um, I’m out’ feeling many times a week.”
All in all, Alien: Earth sounds like a hugely promising addition to one of the longest-running sci-fi horror franchises, and a clever expansion on the series’ themes of corporate greed, artificial intelligence, and primordial terror. The wait is officially less than a month away for one of 2025’s most anticipated new shows, and we couldn’t be more excited. Alien: Earth debuts on FX and Hulu on August 12, with new episodes every Tuesday night.
