The first two episodes of Alien: Earth did a great job setting up the premise of the show. Episodes three and four focus on philosophical musings as much as corporations studying alien lifeforms.
The Lost Boys have been sent to a Weyland-Yutani ship that has crashed in the middle of New Siam. They are ordered to retrieve the aliens the rival corporation has captured so they can be studied. However, Morrow (Babou Cessay), a cyborg working for Weyland-Yutani, is determined to get the aliens back.
The first two episodes of Alien: Earth focused on a group of terminally ill children having their minds transferred into robotic bodies. There was a debate amongst the adult characters, and The Lost Boys reacted in different ways to their new bodies. There was the question of whether the children’s minds really transferred or were just copies. The Lost Boys had abilities they wouldn’t have in human bodies, like the ability to learn a subject instantly. Some adapt better than others.
Tootles (Kit Young) was a member of the Lost Boys who developed an interest in science and ended up working closely with Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant), the synthetic scientist studying the aliens. Tootles was a great aid to Kirsh, and he wanted to forge his own identity instead of having one that was given to him. Curly (Erana James) was a character with ambitions to become Kavalier’s (Samuel Blenkin) new favourite, which would put her on a collision course with Wendy (Sydney Chandler). On the other end of the spectrum is Nibs (Lily Newmark), who’s struggling to adapt to her new body and said she had a condition that people in artificial bodies don’t tend to have.
The Lost Boys were meant to have a clean break from their past lives, but some of them still had familial ties. The most obvious was between Wendy (Sydney Chandler) and her brother, Hermit (Alex Lawther), and Prodigy had to find a way to placate them. The company executives employed two tactics: threats and gaslighting. The families also act as a potential weak link, as shown with Morrow trying to get the alien samples back. Morrow’s mission offers an intriguing avenue since he’s powerful and determined, since those samples were his life’s work.
The final story thread in these two episodes was the experimentation on the aliens. This allowed for traditional horror elements as Prodigy’s executives and scientists wanted to see what the creatures could do. The sheep scene has already gained a reputation as one of the most memorable scenes Alien: Earth has produced. The eye monster was horrific in concept and watching. It’s a great monster. During the experimentation, Wendy developed a psychic connection to a facehugger, which will play an important role in the series.
Since Prodigy had taken Weyland-Yutani’s property, it has set up a dispute between the corporations. The Lost Boys talks about how the corporations replaced elected governments. They said democracy failed and the corporations. I expect there’s a more detailed explanation in the expanded universe, but the description felt like a commentary about the direction our society is heading.
“Metamorphosis” and “Observation” weren’t as strong as the first two episodes, but they still offered a lot of intrigue, character development, big ideas, and world-building. It should keep audiences interested.
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