Sure, the xenomorph is an all-time great screen baddie – but it’s no match for the eyeball-octopus parasite stuffed in a sheep’s head
F
rom the moment it was announced, Alien: Earth was a bold punt. Ridley Scott’s movie (and James Cameron’s first sequel) painted the xenomorph as a classic baddie. It was unstoppable. It was seemingly unkillable. It was largely seen in flashes, and motivated only by death. Whenever subsequent movies attempted to broaden the alien’s mythology, its impact only diluted. So the thought of subjecting it to an entire television series – one designed to run for several years, no less – risked destroying it completely.
And yet Alien: Earth is a wild success. But this isn’t really to do with the xenomorph at all. Instead, almost every last atom of glory has been stolen by a new alien; one whose smarts, menace and weirdness trump almost anything the franchise has given us so far. Yes, it’s time to give the demon sheep eye its props.
When the show was announced, the broad strokes of the plot – and all the promotional material – hinted at a series where a xenomorph would crash-land on Earth and run around murdering everyone for eight hours. This is partly true, but the show gambled on showing us some of the other extraterrestrial species that were captured in space at the same time.
