Alien: Earth has crested the hill of its eight-episode run and is now on the downslope. Hopefully that doesn’t mean a drop in quality, but an increase in momentum.
Previous episode reviews can be found here, here and here.
Before I get to the meat of the episode five review, I will once again share a few additional points about last week’s episode. Thank you to the Outposters who shared their thoughts and theories. I have taken inspiration from your comments last week and given credit where credit is due.
Alien: Earth Episode 4 retrospective (spoilers alert)
- I made the point about Alien: Earth wading into the trans debate, but does it know which side it has entered on? As pointed out by Outposter ‘On The Road with Andy Dufresne,’ adults can’t handle the transition to hybrid bodies. This could be seen as subtle messaging that promotes transitioning children. However, if the kids end up traumatised by the experience, and the doctors tell them they’re delusional for thinking they can get pregnant, it’s hardly a pro-trans message. Maybe none of this is intentional, but the subtext is there, whether they realise it or not. I’m intrigued to see where they go with this.
- ‘Tuxedo Cat’ shared his predictions for the ending, which I won’t repeat because they’ll probably turn out to be true. But one of them made me wonder why Morrow didn’t just give himself up to Kirsch at the crash site. Then he’d be on the inside already rather than having to manipulate someone from afar to steal his specimens.
- ‘The Orange Bat’ came up with a solid theory on why aliens don’t attack artificial persons. If we’re still accepting Prometheus and Alien: Covenant as canon, perhaps David implanted something in the alien’s DNA that keeps them from killing synthetics. Far-fetched, sure, but this is Sci-fi. Noah Hawley has spoken about distancing his show from the idea that the aliens were created recently, which might make this prediction less likely to be true. Of course, he could be lying.
- Slightly’s wall is adorned with an image of the three wise monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. In Buddhism, it means avoiding evil. In the West, the meaning has been corrupted to mean turning a blind eye to evil. This seems to be Alien: Earth’s interpretation of the maxim, because Kirsch uses the monkeys to lecture Slightly on blind loyalty.
- As pointed out by ‘Klaatu B Necktie’, the countdown to Wendy naming the baby alien ‘Tinkerbell’ has begun.
- Check out this image. If you hadn’t seen it, would you believe this was a shot from an Alien show? It looks like Gen Z remade The Breakfast Club.
Episode 5: Attack of the Clones In Space, No One…
Here there be spoilers, but I’ll steer clear of a major one…
It’s a flashback episode! I figured we would get the full story behind the Maginot’s crash, which was only seen in confusing flashes in episode 1. Alien: Earth episode 5 is fully devoted to filling in the gaps.
The Maginot is 17 days from Earth. Some of the crew is awake and the rest is in hypersleep. The ones in hypersleep remain in hypersleep, so they don’t get much to do. Well, apart from the attractive woman seen briefly in episode 1, who lays there in grey underwear while a weird pervert called Teng leers at her.
Nothing comes of this subplot, by the way. It’s an interesting detail, I just wish they’d done something with it.
Anyway, a suspicious fire releases two alien face huggers from containment, and it’s game time.
Detective Morrow
Security Officer Morrow suspects sabotage. It doesn’t take him long to discover video footage of the saboteur, but for some reason, he still doesn’t know who it is! The camera is quite far away, but doesn’t it have a zoom function? Every camera in popular fiction has that, not to mention image enhancing software.
Morrow can’t even tell if the person is male or female, so he wastes a lot of time vetting the crew.
The detective element of the episode is devoid of tension, partly because it seems like a waste of time (just zoom in!) and partly because we don’t know the characters very well. When the saboteur is revealed, the reaction is more ‘who?’ than ‘woah.’
To be fair, the unveiling of the saboteur is more about ‘why’ than ‘who’. Flashbacks shouldn’t just be about filling in the gaps but revealing new information, so this part was well done. I won’t spoil it here, but subsequent events make a little more sense now.
Jailbreak
One of the most interesting aspects of Alien: Earth episode 5 is that the alien isn’t the only escapee. This is a proper jailbreak episode, and it’s cool to see the eye octopus and the ticks making ingenious bids for freedom.
For the crew, it causes utter chaos as they try to handle all these creatures. The eye even attacks the alien at one point, even though it doesn’t have eyes (at least not round ones that are visible). Must have been quite confusing for the little fella.
I couldn’t help but think that episode 5 would make a pretty good standalone Alien prequel. All it needs is half-an-hour of set up to get to know everyone, and a couple more set pieces on the back end and you’ve got a half decent movie on your hands.
Morrow gets some character development. He had a child before he left Earth. But I’m not buying the doting Dad act seeing as he signed up for a 65-year space mission. That’s a lot of missed birthdays.
Action is story
What let Alien: Earth down for me, once again, is the action choreography. The alien is truly awesome and terrifying. Every time it shows up onscreen is a pure ‘fuck yeah’ moment. But why do they keep letting it down with nonsensical fight scenes?
I’ll elaborate: the alien drops down behind the captain, as it does. She turns, and it hisses at her and goes through its posturing routine, as it does. The captain backs off, but it trips her with its tail. She’s now on the floor, on her back, with an alien towering over her, and yet she still manages to get to her feet, turn and outrun the alien in a narrow corridor. I call BULLSHIT!
I love a good alien encounter but please make it believable. Action isn’t just something that happens in and around a story. Action is story. Tell it better.
Anyway, episode 5 is definitely a step up from the previous two weeks, but I still ended up having to forgive a few little moments.
Random observations
- Morrow is open about the mission’s priority being the alien cargo. He tells the captain straight out that the crew is expendable. At first I thought this contradicted Alien, where the crew were kept in the dark by Weyland-Yutani about how little they valued their lives. But then I remembered that the Nostromo wasn’t originally on a mission to collect the alien, so the company had to use subterfuge when they were diverted. The entire Maginot mission was about retrieving hostile aliens, and it seems they were honest about their priorities up-front.
- One of the crew says ‘it’s a xenomorph’ to describe the alien, as if it’s the name of the species. Which it isn’t. Predators are not yautja, and aliens are not xenomorphs. In Aliens, the word is used as a generic term to describe non-Earth creatures. It’s a throwaway line but it stuck somehow.
- The Yutani family has a very strong female bloodline.
On the bright side: in space, no one can hear you fart.
