The iconic tagline for Alien has always been, “In space no one can hear you scream,” but for the first time, the franchise is bringing its terror directly to our home world. In the new edition of Empire Magazine, Noah Hawley, the creator behind the upcoming FX series Alien: Earth, has revealed the fundamental reasons for shifting the saga’s signature setting from isolated spaceships and desolate planetoids to a terrestrial landscape. As its title betrays, Alien: Earth unfolds on humanity’s home planet, following a desperate fight for survival after a ship crashes near a city, unleashing multiple predatory alien species on our planet.
“If you’re looking to do a recurring series, you can’t be trapped in a spaceship for 50 hours,” Hawley explains. “And if you can set a show on the planet on which you’re filming, it’s a lot easier.” In addition to practical limitations, Hawley also justifies the decision based on specific storytelling demands of the TV format. “An Alien movie is a two-hour survival story at the end of which, if you’re lucky, one person survives,” he said. “A television show can’t be that. It has to be multiple characters with conflicts and dynamics that play out over multiple seasons.”
The original Alien masterfully weaponized its setting, turning the winding corridors of the Nostromo into a key component of its claustrophobic horror. Sequels like Aliens and Alien 3 expanded the locations to a sprawling processing station and a desolate prison facility, but they always maintained a crucial element of containment and isolation. Alien: Earth shatters that formula. The trailer reveals that the story of Alien: Earth begins on the fringe of a populated city, a terrifying prospect that immediately changes the stakes. With Hawley already planning for multiple seasons, his comments strongly suggest that this initial outbreak is only the beginning, hinting at a long-term conflict where the Xenomorph threat could spread far beyond a single location.
Everything We Know About Alien: Earth
Alien: Earth establishes its narrative in the year 2120, placing its events just two years before the doomed voyage of the USCSS Nostromo. The series presents a world where the infamous Weyland-Yutani Corporation is not the only power player, introducing a major competitor in the Prodigy Corporation. The story is driven by Prodigy’s ambitious CEO, Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), and his most significant creation, Wendy (Sydney Chandler), a sophisticated synthetic built with a hybrid human consciousness. This unique concept places Wendy at the center of the show’s exploration of identity. The cast also includes Timothy Olyphant as Kirsh, a synthetic who acts as a mentor figure for Wendy, and Alex Lawther as a soldier named CJ.
The central conflict of the series ignites when a Weyland-Yutani deep space research vessel, the USCSS Maginot, mysteriously crashes into Prodigy City. Viewing the catastrophe as a prime opportunity to steal a rival’s secrets and technology, Kavalier dispatches Wendy to lead a team of soldiers to the crash site. Their mission uncovers that the crashed ship was a mobile laboratory transporting a horrifying collection of five different invasive alien species, including the instantly recognizable Facehuggers.
Alien: Earth is scheduled to premiere with its first two episodes on Tuesday, August 12th, on FX and Hulu.
What are you most excited to see in an Alien story set on Earth? Let us know in the comments!
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