FX's new Alien series offers the tantalizing prospect of the Xenomorphs in TV format, but it may have already miss
FX’s new Alien series offers the tantalizing prospect of the Xenomorphs in TV format, but it may have already missed the point of the Alien franchise.
FX’s new Alien TV series is generating significant excitement, but it may have already missed the point of the entire franchise. Helmed by Fargo‘s Noah Hawley, Alien tells the story of a near-future Earth some 30 years before Ripley and the Nostromo crew’s fateful voyage in 2122. As a result, The Alien TV series will be the first Alien franchise installment not to take place in space, throwing up several issues when compared with Ridley Scott’s well-established Alien format.
Currently set for an unspecified 2023 release date, FX’s Alien show marks a change in direction for the iconic franchise, with the show bringing the Xenomorph into an episodic format for the first time. Prior efforts to create Alien TV series have famously failed to gain traction, starting with 20th Century Fox and ABC’s doomed Alien idea. Subsequent animated Alien TV show attempts have fared little better, with 1992’s Operation: Aliens and 2007’s Aliens: War Games both canceled in their infancy.
Yet despite being green-lit where its predecessors have failed, Alien‘s TV series looks to have already missed the point of the entire franchise. Hawley’s Alien show takes place on Earth, focussing on humanity’s greed in a dystopian, futuristic landscape, which is a far cry indeed from the narrative elements that made Alien and its sequels so great to begin with. As a result, here’s why Alien‘s TV series appears to have missed the mark at this early stage, as well as what FX and Noah Hawley have said about their Alien show.
What The Alien TV Series Will Be About
As aforementioned, the Alien TV series is confirmed to take place 70 years in the near future, placing great emphasis on the burgeoning Weyland-Yutani Corporation that forms the backbone of later Alien narratives. This unscrupulous, profiteering mega-corporation will be shown to dabble in deep space transport, planetary colonization, and terraforming, with Alien‘s TV show emphasizing the company’s corporate training programs, dispatches in space, and ulterior motives. In addition, FX’s Alien will, of course, show Weyland-Yutani’s experimentations on the Xenomorphs, which will undoubtedly lead to terror and carnage on their futuristic version of planet Earth.
What Noah Hawley Has Said About FX’s Alien
These narrative plans have been backed up by the Alien series’ creator Noah Hawley, who confirmed (via Esquire) that the vast majority of the show will take place on a version of Earth. Hawley’s Alien series, therefore, will focus on the inequalities and social divides ingrained in the futuristic Earth’s culture, with Hawley stating: “you will see what happens when the inequality we’re struggling with now isn’t resolved. If we as a society can’t figure out how to prop each other up and spread the wealth, then what’s going to happen to us?” According to Hawley, this social commentary is derived from the original 1979 Alien‘s characters and their wider world, with the showrunner describing Alien as “this blue-collar space-trucker world in which Yaphet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton are basically Waiting for Godot. They’re like Samuel Beckett characters, ordered to go to a place by a faceless nameless corporation.”
Alongside his clear focus on the social commentary of both contemporary and futuristic cultures, Hawley’s Alien is stated to mark a huge departure from what franchise fans have become accustomed to. In a separate Vanity Fair interview, Hawley expands on this approach, saying: “The Alien stories are always trapped. Trapped in a prison, trapped in a spaceship. I thought it would be interesting to open it up a little bit so that the stakes of ‘What happens if you can’t contain it?’ are more immediate.” This new focus certainly marks a stark deviation from Ridley Scott’s claustrophobic formula, with Hawley’s Alien sounding like it will focus on big picture narratives instead of the insular, terrifying settings of Alien, Aliens, and Alien: Resurrection.
Why The Alien TV Series Has Already Missed The Point Of The Franchise
Yet Hawley’s grand plans suggest FX’s Alien has already missed the point of the franchise, shedding what made Alien 1979 so compelling in favor of a more grandiose storyline. Ridley Scott’s Alien remains the best franchise entry due to its insular setting and multi-faceted, intimate character portrayals. These human touches and close quarters introspection conspire to make Alien a stunning exploration of claustrophobia and psychological trauma in a pressurized setting – which is something the Alien TV will find impossible to replicate on Earth.
As such, Hawley’s Alien is already thinking too big in both its scope and attempts to create new Alien lore via Weyland-Yutani, making it feel like generic sci-fi TV fare from the get-go. While Hawley’s ambition must be applauded, as must his willingness to shed the temptation of using original Alien characters, other aspects of his series plan fundamentally work against the nature of the Alien movie franchise itself. Hawley’s comments on the Alien stories being “trapped” are the most concerning here, with the inability to escape ratcheting up the Alien movies’ tension and stakes in a way an open-world setting such as Earth simply cannot. Despite Hawley’s assertion that the stakes will be higher in FX’s Alien, the planet’s fate feels a hollow storyline played out in countless science-fiction entries before the new Alien TV series.
Even the Alien prequels in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant understood the franchise’s reliance on insular settings, stranding their respective crews on harsh worlds with little to no chance of escape. Despite their flaws, both prequel movies successfully convey the dread aspect of the Alien franchise as hope slowly ebbs away from the human characters battling the Xenomorphs. In this way, Alien‘s TV series has already missed the mark tonally for its own franchise, making Hawley’s show feel more like a faceless sci-fi story with the Alien name tacked onto it rather than a direct prequel to Ridley Scott’s seminal 1979 movie.
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