LOS ANGELES, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- Alien: Earth, premiering Aug. 12 on Hulu, is a satisfying extension of the movie franchise that explores new stories in depth over the course of several episodes.
Set in the same universe, the show's opening text explains the differences between the types of artificial intelligence seen in the Alien films: Cyborgs are humans with mechanical parts, synthetics are all artificial, and hybrids are human minds in artificial bodies.
The show follows Wendy (Sydney Chandler), a child with cancer who was transitioned into an adult hybrid body. It opens in 2105 with a spaceship crew on the Maginot transporting specimens fans will recognize as the facehugger that implants the chest burster in human hosts.
What causes the Maginot to crash into the Paradise "Neverland" Research Island feels like the ending of an Alien movie: The android Morrow (Babou Ceesay) sacrifices the human crew to preserve the specimens, and viewers are treated to some brutal alien kills.
Viewers don't need to see much more than that though, because there are already nine movies with similar content. Still, the show delivers a scary alien encounter concentrated in those brief moments and it seems at least one traditional alien encounter per episode.
