TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. Noah Hawley has created successful, well-received television adaptations of the Coen brothers' movie "Fargo" - five seasons to date and counting - and of the Marvel comic book character Legion in a series that ran for three seasons. Now he's bringing another piece of intellectual property to TV by presenting his take on the "Alien" movie franchise. His new series, a prequel to the original "Alien" film, just launched with two episodes on FX, and it's streaming on Hulu. Our TV critic David Bianculli has this review.
DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: The first "Alien" movie - the one with Sigourney Weaver trapped in a spaceship with a mutating apex predator from outer space - was in 1979, more than 45 years ago. Since then, there've been several movie sequels and even a few prequels. "Alien: Earth" is a prequel, too. It takes place two years before the events of the original "Alien" film and starts in space on a science vessel that is returning to Earth with five new alien species aboard. But this prequel is different. It's the first entry made for television. And with Noah Hawley, who created the TV versions of "Fargo" and "Legion," in charge, it's bound to be a bold, deep variation on the already established "Alien" themes. And based on the eight-episode first season, "Alien: Earth" is precisely that.
In the opening scene of the premiere episode, the science vessel is being overrun by the deadly alien specimens, and the ship crashes on Earth. It lands in an area of Thailand, now run by one of a handful of mega-powerful high-tech corporations. "Alien: Earth" delivers the action and the scares and thrills just as effectively as the best of its cinematic predecessors. There even are times when you jump with fright or feel squeamish or very, very nervous, at least I did. The action and the visuals are first class, and the special effects are a clever mixture of the latest in computer-generated imagery and the old-fashioned type of practical effects used back in the early "Alien" days. But clearly, Noah Hawley, who wrote or co-wrote every episode and directed a few as well, is interested in more than just the scary action sequences. It's not just the evolution of the alien creatures that interests him, but the evolution of humanity, as well.
One high-tech billionaire, who calls himself Boy Kavalier and quotes extensively from "Peter Pan," is weeks away from unveiling a literally life-changing new product line. This world of "Alien: Earth" already has developed cyborgs. And one of them, called Kirsh, is played by Timothy Olyphant, who has done such outstanding TV work in "Deadwood" and "Justified." There also are synths, which are human-like creations installed with artificial intelligence.
But Boy Kavalier's new breakthrough, which he's just produced successfully in the lab, is a third new form of life called the hybrid - synthetic beings that are downloaded with human consciousness. His first test subject is a young preteen girl named Marcy who has terminal cancer. He downloads her into a synthetic adult body, gives her as-yet undefined mental and physical abilities, and calls her Wendy after the "Peter Pan" character who teamed with the Lost Boys. Once she's a hybrid, Marcy, aka Wendy, is played by Sydney Chandler, the daughter of Kyle Chandler from "Friday Night Lights." And when she joins Timothy Olyphant's Kirsh on a mission to check out the crashed science vessel, he tells her how he sees her - and life - from his perspective as a cyborg.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ALIEN: EARTH")
TIMOTHY OLYPHANT: (As Kirsh) You used to be food, you know?
SYDNEY CHANDLER: (As Wendy) Me?
OLYPHANT: (As Kirsh) Humanity. Your lives were short and filled with fear. Then your brains grew. You built tools and used them to conquer nature. You built impossible machines and went to space. You stopped being food. Or, I should say, you told yourself you weren't food anymore. But in the animal kingdom, there is always someone bigger - or smaller - who would eat you alive if they had the chance. That's what it is to be an animal. You're born. You live. You die.
BIANCULLI: He's not the only amateur philosopher on this new "Alien" voyage. Billionaire tech inventor Boy Kavalier, played by Samuel Blenkin, tends to take big bites from an apple while pacing his office barefoot and spouting big ideas - like this one to his colleague Silvia, played by Essie Davis.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ALIEN: EARTH")
SAMUEL BLENKIN: (As Boy Kavalier) The fear with artificial intelligence is that, you know, we will build a brilliant machine that will build an even smarter machine, so on, until so long, us. What we're doing here, you and me, is exploding human potential. Then we'll see what they build before the machines ruin everything. It's an intelligence race.
ESSIE DAVIS: (As Silvia) But if they don't stay human, then what did we win? I'm serious. We did something nobody thought was possible. We ended death. Now we have to make the quality of life better. Otherwise, all we've done is make consumers immortal.
BIANCULLI: Downloading the minds of dying children into synthetic adult bodies makes these Lost Boys and Lost Girls very unusual heroes, kind of like an action film where the immature protagonists are from the movies "Big" or "Freaky Friday." But it's not played for laughs. And "Alien: Earth" has resonant echoes of other films, as well, including Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" and Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Dr. Strangelove." The cast is mostly unfamiliar, though it's a special treat to see David Rysdahl, who played Dot's husband on the most recent season of "Fargo," featured again here.
After the two-episode premiere, the rest of "Alien: Earth" arrives weekly on FX, and season 1 ends with a stunning finish that provides both closure and exciting possibilities for the future. Here's hoping, as futures go, "Alien: Earth" has a long one.
GROSS: David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed the new FX series "Alien: Earth." It's also streaming on Hulu. After we take a short break, John Powers will review a new mystery novel about a reporter. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS SONG, "MEMPHIS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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