Look, I'm gonna be honest. When I first heard about another Alien thing, my eyes rolled so hard they almost got stuck. We've been through a lot with this franchise, haven't we? Highs, lows, prequels that made you scratch your head… it's been a journey. But then, Noah Hawley, the guy who gave us Fargo and Legion—two shows that actually thought about what they were doing—decided to jump into the acid-blooded fray. And now, with this new 5-minute “On-Set Dispatches: First Look” featurette for Alien: Earth, well, I might just have to eat my words. Or at least chew on them a bit.
This isn't just some slapped-together trailer, folks. This is a deep dive, a proper peek behind the curtain. The kind of thing that makes you think, “Okay, maybe they actually get it this time.” It features Hawley himself, along with much of the main cast—Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Timothy Olyphant, Essie Davis, Samuel Blenkin, Babou Ceesay, David Rysdahl, Adrian Edmondson, Moe Bar-El, Adarsh Gourav, and the rest—and they're talking shop. What the series is going to offer, who these new characters are, and, most importantly, the vibe.
And the vibe? It's… unsettling. Hawley himself says it: “When aliens come to our planet, we realize they're really the thing of nightmares… Which we're gonna give people.” Scary! This isn't just about jump scares, though. He calls Alien: Earth “a character study.” A deep, unsettling look at what happens when the pressure of these creatures—these perfect organisms, right?—gets applied to human beings. How do we behave? Do we deserve to survive? (His answer, apparently, is a resounding “No, of course not.”) A bit jaded, maybe, but then, haven't we all felt that way about humanity lately?
The premise is classic Alien, but with a twist. A specimen collection spaceship, the USCSS Maginot, crash-lands on Earth. Not some far-flung colony, not a derelict ship in deep space. Earth. And a young woman, Sydney Chandler's character, along with a ragtag group of tactical soldiers, makes a fateful discovery. You know what that means. Face-to-face with the planet's greatest threat.
Hawley, who's written and directed and showrun this whole thing himself—no other writing credits yet, which is… bold—is apparently aiming for something that evokes the feeling of first watching the original film. He's not trying to bring back Ripley or shoehorn in familiar faces. This is a standalone story, set in 2120, just two years before the events of the original Alien [2120]. It's about competing corporations, some sci-fi trickery, and that eternal question: who's the real monster? The Xenomorph, or us, with our corporate greed and endless need to screw each other over for a percentage? As one report put it, Hawley is exploring humanity “trapped between the primordial parasitic past and the AI future.” Deep stuff, for a show about slimy creatures.
The series is produced by Scott Free, 26 Keys Productions, 20th Television, and FXP, with Hawley, Ridley Scott, Dana Gonzales, and Joseph E. Iberti executive producing. And mark your calendars, because Alien: Earth is set to launch streaming on Hulu starting August 12th, 2025. Yeah, August. So, still excited to watch? I mean, I'm a skeptic, but even I can admit, this “First Look” [00:00] has me… intrigued.
