This story contains spoilers for Alien: Earth.
The new TV spinoff Alien: Earth bursts from the chest of the 1979 classic Alien, proving once and for all that in the streaming era, no beloved big-screen franchise is safe from telefication. (Then again, we already knew this: nowadays, even Star Wars is more of a TV thing than it is a blockbuster behemoth. In space, everyone eventually streams.) The brainchild of Fargo creator Noah Hawley, Alien: Earth is a season-long prequel to the original Ridley Scott sci-fi horror masterwork, taking place five years prior to Sigourney Weaver’s fateful encounter with cinema’s favorite acid-spewing phallic symbol.
The Xenomorph returns, of course—and pretty soon into the series’ eight-episode run. No huge shock there. The bigger surprise is that this ain’t just some questionable streaming cash grab. Alien: Earth might just be one of the best TV shows of the year.
Full disclosure: I’ve only been able to catch the first three episodes so far, two of which are now available to watch for the public. Nonetheless, my early sentiment seems to square with the broader critical consensus that emerged after the review embargo lifted last week. For starters: technically, Alien: Earth is very, very impressive. The first episode involves a spaceship crashing into the base of a futuristic high-rise building, and the effects are staggering for the small screen.
And aesthetically, Hawley has performed some crazy alchemy, blending nearly every vibe that we might associate with Alien as a franchise. It’s all there: the galaxy-brained musings of Prometheus; the cigar-chomping, militaristic thrills of Aliens; the Gothic terror of Ridley Scott‘s OG. (Altogether, it’s the most I’ve enjoyed an Alien installment since the original movies, and I say this as an Alien 3 defender.)
We begin aboard the Maginot, another doomed space vessel akin to the Nostromo, this time inhabited by a bunch of human researchers and at least one creepy cyborg (Babou Ceesay’s villainous Morrow). This ship is a Weyland-Yutani deep-space research vessel, which hosts no end of extraterrestrial nasties—including plenty of facehuggers and other similarly parasitic monsters. As you can imagine, an alien escapes and does its whole “mercilessly tear everyone to bits” thing; amid the chaos, the ship is forced into a collision course with the Earth.
Back on terra firma—a future Earth that’s done away with nations and democracies, and is instead ruled over by five evil tech companies, a true Bezosian nightmare—we’re introduced to Wendy (Sydney Chandler), a terminally ill little girl who is given a second chance at life. Well, sort of. On a secretive research island operated by the Prodigy Corporation, led by maniacal-genius-twink Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), Wendy’s consciousness is transferred into a synthetic body, making her the first-ever human-robot hybrid. It also may make her the key to eternal life, given that synthetic bodies never age—a thematic preoccupation that ripples throughout the Alien franchise. Wendy may become Prodigy property, and she’ll never drink a milkshake again, but there are a few upsides: superhuman abilities, and the chance to live forever.
More kids are eventually brought in for the same procedure, and are collectively nicknamed the Lost Boys (and Girls), a la the children who never grow up in Peter Pan. (An on-the-nose metaphor that the show really milks, but eh.) Eventually, the two plots collide via CJ (Black Mirror‘s Alex Lawther), a medic who is among the first responders to the Maginot disaster. He also happens to be Wendy’s human brother, who is unaware that she is still alive, and that she is using her newfound android capabilities to spy on him from afar, tapping into video feeds to keep close. Realizing the profound danger of CJ’s mission, she volunteers to lead the Lost Kids on a rescue mission of their own. And so kicks off the gnarly, visually spectacular, oh-so Alien action.
Is it quite as subversive and fresh as Andor, the acclaimed Star Wars show to which Earth has been compared online? Not really, but it’s definitely one of the other rare TV spin-offs that justifies itself—and a clever, horrifying hoot.
This story originally appeared in British GQ.