As promised by Disney+ Alien: Earth’s first two episodes dropped on the 13th of August, with the rest of the season, six more episodes, dropping on a weekly basis to the ever clambering fan base. Naturally the shills have been out in force, with early reviews claiming the show is the best thing ever in the franchise, but who the hell really cares what they think at the best of times. Equally the haters have also been out in force nit picking the show to death, and generally calling the demise of the franchise. So just how good is the first episode? Are we getting the next advancement in the franchise or another half arse attempt at expanding the mythos. 

The show opens in the year 2120, putting it between Covenant and the original movie, with the deep space research vessel the USCSS Maginot returning to Earth after a 65 year mission to discover and capture some of the more virulent organisms in the universe, what could possible go wrong! Director Hawley does his best to ensure the audience are getting so many remember berries from life aboard the Nostromo in Alien that many viewers risk whiplash. The crew are coming out of hyper sleep four months out of Earth orbit with naturally a meal going down. We learn chief security office Morrow is a cyborg, more on this later, and believes that the maintenance of the captured specimens is the priority, crew are expendable, welcome to work life balance as practiced by Weyland-Yutani. The only other crew member of note is Mr Tang, who seems to have some very strange pastimes. The majority of the crew decide to go back into cryo for the remainder of the journey, why were they defrosted again, and Morrow and a select skeleton crew are left to determine why exactly the mission logs are corrupted, and how come the Maginot is using a whole bunch more fuel than it should be. In pretty kinetic fashion we learn the captured critters have got loose, the crew are being wiped out, and the Maginot has lost anything like controlled navigation. 

And it’s here that the first cracks in the narrative begin to appear; has any concept of physics disappeared from the Alien franchise? Out of control and on full afterburner the Maginot crashes past Gateway station, phew that was lucky – passed right through the middle of the station without much apparent damage, and enters Earth’s atmosphere. Naturally the ship doesn’t burn up, remember this is an uncontrolled descent, and proceeds to crash land in New Siam, a Prodigy City. You would think the crash would wipe out everything in sight, perhaps creating an extinction event, but nope the Maginot is barely scratched and only a single apartment building would appear to have suffered damage. We are in the hands of teen fan fiction writers here folks, and it’s going to get a lot worse. We’ll get back to the crash site in due course.

The only narrative thread in the episode is the Prodigy company, it’s youthful leader Boy Kavalier, and the whole “Lost Boys” project. We discover Prodigy is the fifth and latest big corporation running the human sphere and I was immediately wondering if perhaps Boy Kavalier was any different to any of the CEOs of Weyland-Yutani. We are introduced to a whole bunch of lead and secondary characters on the Neverland research Island Kavalier is using as a testing ground for his Hybrid technology, human consciousness downloaded into synthetic bodies. He has got his hands on a bunch of terminally ill twelve year olds, how exactly isn’t explained, and is in the process of switching their consciousness from their deteriorating child bodies to adult synthetics. It’s explained that synthetic bodies cannot develop and older minds are too inflexible to be switched. Kavalier’s first attempt at the technology works like a brought thing, with the mind of Marcy being transferred to the renamed Synthetic Wendy. More transfers are immediately happening, as Kavalier continues what amounts to mad science. While the focus here is on Wendy, as the first hybrid, the rest of the hybrid pack also adopt names from J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. Hopefully we’ll get to meet more of the hybrids in future episodes, but beyond the whole Neverland theme of mad science, we learn Wendy is stronger, faster, and less mature than your normal adult human. Oh and the whole Peter Pan thing is a recurrent theme, suck it up kids.

Which brings us to the central theme of episode one, and we assume the whole season, what does it mean to be human? We are told there are three forms of immortality available to the human universe, and which ever corporation picks the right one will dominate the cosmos. How this exactly works isn’t explained, getting dumb plot vibes already folks. Firstly we have the cyborgs, cybernetic enhanced humans, Morrow being a prime example. Clearly this technology is being worked on by at least Weyland-Yutani. Secondly we have the Synthetics, AI enhanced artificial organisms, and finally we have the hybrids. Are all three human or are each something more and something less? I’m getting Prometheus vibes here, which is no issue as long as we’re not going to get bogged down with exploration of the theme. I’m not going to speculate here, but we kind of know in the future Synthetics are central to the Alien franchise while Cyborgs and hybrids are notable by lack of appearance. And I’m including the extended universe here. Noah Hawley may have blown his wad already, hmmm which corporation is going to come out on top here I wonder?

There are any number of problems with this first episode, from a narrative point of view, but it does manage to get what it should done successfully. Anyone writing this one thought out the idea of sending a group of what are pretty much twelve year olds into a crash site, considering the blood and guts likely to be involved and the resulting trauma? Not to mention the idea that the Lost Boys, as the twelve year olds are called, are Prodigy’s new technology and chance to drive into future profits. But we do at least get the large cast introduced and some motivations established. Did I mention the synthetic Kirsh and scientist Dame Sylvia?

Perhaps however the major problem I had with the episode was central character Wendy, who does get the concept of what it means to be human on table. Anyways Wendy drops off a high cliff at one stage, doing an MCU landing with no apparent damage. The person I watched the episode with immediately voiced the obvious, Girl Boss, and this could be a problem. We learn she can reprogram computers by some unknown method, and sorry we are left with the opinion that Wendy is going to Mary Sue it while being the most important character in the narrative. Jesus wept, thought we were beyond this whole concept, guess Noah Hawley didn’t get the memo. 

Did I mention the moon dancing Xenomorph we see in one scene, apparently the critters can now move backward, oh and Cyborgs are in as much danger as humans from them. This may or may not be of importance later as Morrow continues his mission objectives.

So in the wash up was the first episode worth the hype the House of Mouse created around the first season’s release? A guarded yes kids, I still enjoyed what I was seeing, though the narrative issues are already building, and we’re at episode one! The shills clearly are shilling for the big D as usual without any critical thought, while the haters are going to hate regardless of what appears on screen. We haven’t got a good look at the monsters yet, which are going to be pivotal for mine, and therefore the jury is still out. There are some themes and sub-themes going down, excellent stuff, but things are being made way too obvious leaving very little room for speculation about what we are watching from a narrative point of view. Like the greatest hits compilation, Alien: Romulus, the visuals are great and you can readily believe you are either on a space ship or in a future city, excellent result there. Anyone else get a Bladerunner vibe from New Siam? One thing I’m hoping is that they are not going to try to push the whole Peter Pan thing too much; I’m already at overload there. Hey excited for the next episode, mixed feelings on Neverland, but still rocking to the beat being laid down here.