YAASOMWMOMNN – Yet Another Alien Series or Movie We May or May Not Need. This is what I always think first when I see anything regarding this franchise. One obvious question that I’ll likely ask as well is, why? Like seriously, why is this movie/series being made and what is it bringing to the table to wow me? I say this because the original Alien movie is one of the most badass monster sci-fi movies there are now and for its time, which was a long, long time ago. Ever since then, I felt the franchise was just okay. Part of the reason is how each one just makes me feel like it’s a rehash. Same ol’ Xenomorph, same ol’ shots of its mouth and teeth with dripping saliva along with it being, well, the predator that it always has been for the past three decades or so. The last Alien movie, Romulus, I found to be serviceable. With Alien Earth, I was hyped only because I felt like they could do more with the longer run time.

So the series starts off with the premise that in this universe of the future, five major corporations share control of literally everything. Sounds like a reality we’ll be heading towards ourselves, so at least that concept viewers can likely relate to. A research space vessel owned by one major corporation, which of course holds our alien friends, crashes into Earth, and a security officer onboard is hell-bent on retrieving the specimens back for Corporation A from Corporation B. And finally, we have the Synths. Oh, let’s not forget about the fucking Synths. What is a frigging sci-fi movie nowadays without incorporating some elements of Synths and AI into the damn movie? We have a boy genius who finally accomplished the feat of transferring the minds of dying kids into synthetic bodies. But of course, one out of the bunch is more special than the others, because why not.

So what am I getting at? Well, the series is a damn waste of time. That’s what. Eight fudging episodes at almost 50 minutes each. That’s almost 8 hours of run time, and it felt like it could have been condensed into something that was maybe half that. The first two episodes felt okay. It obviously wasn’t enough to judge anything, but I had a sinking feeling once they introduced the synth perspective. I don’t have anything against synths. It’s once again obvious that we’re heading towards that future ourselves, one that I won’t take part in, but my lord, they really didn’t do anything with them that was even remotely interesting in the series. Episode 5 was the flashback episode of how the vessel came to crash on Earth. Then the series took a weird downhill turn after that for the last three episodes. Episode 8 was such a stinker of a closer that I’m literally not interested in tuning in to season 2, whenever that will be.

Let me do what I do best and bitch and whine about what went wrong with the series.

1. WTF is that eyeball alien thing? Like what is its purpose and motive other than surviving? Here we have a much more intelligible and interesting creature than the same old Xenomorph in my opinion, and by the end of the series, we still don’t know jack shit about it other than that it latches onto its host’s eye and takes over. There was a scene or two where it seems like it was trying to help out the humans? In the flashback scene, I remember it attacked the Xenomorph when it cornered one of the humans, allowing them to escape the room. In the same episode, it looked like it tried to warn a crew member by knocking on the glass as one of the creatures escaped and had squirted a bunch of parasites into her water cup. But of course, we get more scenes of it being malicious as well. When it latched onto the sheep, why did it maliciously scare the synth dude into locking himself inside the habitat of the flying bugs? Why does it try to latch onto both a synth (Nibs) as well as humans? Does it not know the difference between them?
2. Why did they make Wendy have god-like powers throughout the series? I loved that Sydney Chandler got cast for the role of Wendy. She really does have that childlike look with the haircut and all. But for some unknown reason, she gets to have all the fun. She gets to control the circuitry to not only change security feeds but also interact with it, like when she used it in the beginning to communicate with her brother. She apparently is also able to fully control other synths on the network to the point of just making them freeze. Throughout the series, I believe it was only her that was shown to have some type of ultra physical strength that the other kid synths didn’t demonstrate. One instance was when she jumped off the cliff and landed on the beach without any issues, and the other was being able to lift a bunch of kids hanging onto each of her arms. Oh, and of course, the ability to communicate with the Xenomorphs to make them her pets. How the mighty have fallen. Is it because she was the first of the synth kids? But I don’t believe I saw anything that hinted at this being the case for her being more special than the others when it came to possessing these powers.
3. As to the last episode, why did it seem like the synth kids were just aware of their identities? I think one particular scene had them getting weirded out by the fact that they each had a tombstone with their actual names on it. But IIRC, way back in the beginning, as soon as they woke up in their new synth bodies, they actually saw their original bodies right next to them!

Seriously, where do they go from here in Season 2? The actual Xenomorph in Season 1 has been relegated to background duties. I’m actually fine with that because nothing I saw here hinted that it will be anything other than what it has always been. It’s just that Wendy now gets to control it. Hooray for a pet Xenomorph. If I must say, Mr. Eyeball is much more interesting, and I’m willing to bet I’m not in the minority for thinking this. I can likely see Wendy and her band of kid synths doing battle both physically and politically with the Yutani corporation. Other than that, I just don’t see what there is to get hyped about.

For what it’s worth, that friggin siren blare in the intro when they show the Alien Earth title on-screen is probably the scariest thing you’ll find in the series. It goes so well with the Alien atmosphere. Great job to whoever chose that!