In the privacy of your own home, no one can hear you scream. That is, if you keep the windows closed, you put your hand over your mouth, and you crank the volume up on your television set to mask the sound.
And this summer you can do all that while screaming as much as you like when new sci-fi horror series, Alien: Earth makes its highly anticipated debut. The series, set in the year 2120 (two years prior to the events of 1979’s Alien), is an eight-episode show which sees the notorious xenomorphs arrive on Earth!
What will they do? Where will they go? That’s yet to be revealed. However, it’s unlikely they will be seeing the sights or popping out for a cheeky futuristic Nando’s.
Instead viewers should probably expect lots of death, plenty of destruction, and maybe a drop or two of acid blood. Whatever the Xenomorphs have planned, it won’t end well for all involved (including themselves).
So far, there is a fair bit of secrecy surrounding Alien: Earth, but a few plot details have been offered up about the show. This includes information about how the Xenomorphs end up on our planet.
Describing the new series, Disney+ said: “When a mysterious space vessel crash-lands on Earth, a young woman and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet’s greatest threat in the sci-fi horror series Alien: Earth.
“As members of the crash recovery crew search for survivors among the wreckage, they encounter mysterious predatory life forms more terrifying than they could have ever imagined.
“With this new threat unlocked, the search crew must fight for survival and what they choose to do with this discovery could change planet Earth as they know it.”
Created for television by FX Productions and Emmy®-Award winning producer Noah Hawley, Alien: Earth will air on FX and FX on Hulu in the US, and through Disney+ everywhere else. Ridley Scott, David W. Zucker, Joseph Iberti, Dana Gonzales and Clayton Krueger serve as executive producers on the series, while the writing team includes Bob DeLaurentis, Bobak Esfarjani, Lisa Long, Maria Melnik, and Migizi Pensoneau, with Hawley as chief writer.
Production on the series began in July 2023, but was impacted in August of the same year by the SAG-AFTRA strike. However, as you can never keep a good xenomorph down, work resumed in April 2024 and progressed well from there.
Filming completed three months later in July, and since this time, fans have been watching and waiting for any tidbits about the new series. Despite the longevity of the Alien franchise, this is the first time the property has been turned into a television show, so the anticipation and the expectations are understandably high.
Will Alien work as a show? Will it be worth a subscription to Disney+?
Perhaps more importantly, can the series balance the horror and spectacle fans are used to, while also furthering a story which has already played out across various sequels, prequels, and Predator tie-ins? As far as all involved are concerned, yes, it can.
With Alien: Earth there appears to be a desire to create a show which will intrigue and appeal to old hands and new viewers alike, while also tapping into the existing Alien mythology where possible. It’s something new, but still something familiar.
When Alien: Earth debuts, fans of the Alien film series should expect a few references to the wider Alien universe, including the involvement of a certain ‘Company’ which will be instrumental in the story. That ‘Company’ is of course, Weyland-Yutani, whose spaceship, the USCSS Maginot, is the one that crash-lands on Earth.
According to Disney+, Alien: Earth exists in a corporate heavy time period, where Weyland-Yutani are very much in operation, however, they aren’t the only big business calling the shots. In total, five corporations rule the landscape, including Lynch, Dynamic, Threshold, and Prodigy.
“In this Corporate Era, cyborgs (humans with both biological and artificial parts) and synthetics (humanoid robots with artificial intelligence) exist alongside humans. But the game is changed when the wunderkind Founder and CEO of Prodigy Corporation unlocks a new technological advancement: hybrids (humanoid robots infused with human consciousness).”
The first hybrid is Wendy whose existence is said to signal “a new dawn in the race for immortality.” Sydney Chandler takes on the role of Wendy, and essentially leads the show.
Chandler is joined on screen by a cast which includes Timothy Olyphant as Wendy’s synthetic mentor and trainer, Kirsh; Alex Lawther as Hermit; Samuel Blenkin as Boy Kavalier; and Babou Ceesay as Morrow.
Other cast members include Lily Newmark (Nibs), Erana James (Curly), Adarsh Gourav (Slightly), Jonathan Ajayi (Smee), Kit Young (Tootles), Diêm Camille (Siberian), Moe Bar-El (Rashidi), and Sandra Yi Sencindiver (Yutani). Meanwhile, Adrian Edmondson plays Atom Eins; David Rysdahl is Arthur Sylvia; and Essie Davis is Dame Sylvia.
Music for the new show is composed by Jeff Russo, who has a long-running working relationship with Alien: Earth creator, Noah Hawley. The pair have previously collaborated on a number of projects, including the X-Men-adjacent TV series, Legion; the black-comedy crime series, Fargo; and the crime show The Unusuals.
Meanwhile, the cinematography on Alien: Earth is being handled by Dana Gonzales, Bella Gonzales, and Colin Watkinson. They will be responsible for making the series look as slick as possible, in keeping with what we have now all come to expect from a prestige television show of this nature.
Movies are still big business, but in the age of streaming, television is currently where it’s at. Alien: Earth promises not to drop the ball, and to keep viewers switched on and engaged.
Which then just leaves us, the viewers (and fans) to tune in and watch. If Noah Hawley, FX, and Disney can deliver the sort of flare and spectacle offered up on big screen outings, and perhaps draw in audiences who enjoyed last year’s Alien: Romulus or maybe even the recent Predator movies, such as Prey (2022) or Predator: Killer of Killers (2025), then maybe we could be on the receiving end of a whole new era of Alien goodness.
We can but hope, and wait. Although, we won’t have to wait too long.
Should you wish to check out Alien: Earth, and you live in the US, the show will debut on Tuesday, August 12th. Here you’ll be able to catch the first two episodes either through FX, or FX on Hulu.
Meanwhile, if you live overseas, Alien: Earth will stream exclusively on Disney+ beginning with a two-episode premiere on Wednesday, August 13th. Following the premiere, a new episode will drop each week for a further six weeks.
This will take the show through the tail-end of the summer, and up until the end of September. So, if you are planning on screaming, you may want to lubricate accordingly, so you don’t end up with a sore throat.
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