It’s clear from the get-go of Alien: Earth that Noah Hawley really wanted to make an Alien movie. The FX show’s evocative opening scenes, which take place on a Weyland-Yutani deep-space research vessel that is transporting back some dangerous “specimens” back to Earth, could have been lifted straight out of Alien, albeit with totally different characters. Hawley and his production designers meticulously recreate the grimy, claustrophobic corridors of Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic, along with the stark, clinical look of the Hypersleep Chamber and the MU-TH-UR console room. The ship is full of inky shadows and dank, dirty corners that provide the perfect hiding spots for many a xenomorph when all hell inevitably breaks loose — an image compounded by frantic, disturbing flashes of the ship’s residents getting mauled by increasingly unsettling alien creatures.
The rest of the show is equally stunning, painting a futuristic world where billionaire tycoons hide away in damp, tropical oases while the rest of humanity trudges through crowded metropolises populated by towering, crumbling skyscrapers. But a stunning aesthetic can’t wholly carry a series that ultimately falls short of its lofty ambitions.
