'Alien: Earth' review: Movie franchise comes to TV with mostly entertaining results

WHAT IT'S ABOUT In 2120, the Earth is ruled by five corporate overlords, one of which (Weyland-Yutani) has sent a research vessel into deep space to collect a dangerous species — xenomorphs. This ship's cyborg security officer, Morrow (Babou Ceesay), has one job — to get the company its specimens — until the cargo escapes. The ship crash lands on Earth where it's confiscated by Weyland-Yutani archrival Prodigy, run by Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) who wants those creatures for his own purposes. To secure the foundered ship, the so-called "Boy Genius" sends in his own cyborg, Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant), and a group of children, or more precisely humanoid robots, each with a consciousness supplanted from a real-life child. Their leader, Wendy (Sydney Chandler), has one goal — to save her human brother, Hermit (Alex Lawther), a search-and-rescue officer, from certain death.

Noah Hawley (FX's "Fargo") created this eight-parter based on the movie franchise, which launched in 1979 with "Alien."

MY SAY In spite of that famous source material (xenomorphs!) and pedigree (Hawley), "Alien" fans may want to temper their expectations here. Foremost, "Alien: Earth" is not the movie or even a movie, but a series full of character exposition and back story. With eight hours to fill, the pacing can be unhurried too.

"Alien: Earth" can also be claustrophobic — more often like "Alien soundstage" than "Alien: Earth" — plus any comparisons to the movies, or the best of them, are a potential turnoff. With last summer's "Alien: Romulus," for example, you essentially held your breath, then white-knuckled the cineplex seat you were sitting in from the second act until the final minute. None of those problems here, or at least until the excellent fifth episode.

Nevertheless, comparisons to the movies are inevitable. Hawley understood this with "Fargo," so instead of a full-on embrace of the Coen Brothers' 1996 classic, he spun off the bare essentials into a wholly original TV series. Same thing here, with an outcome not quite as effective.

Of course, what you really want to know about are the horror components. Those are in fact effective, while "Alien: Earth" has also expanded both the canon and the menagerie with brand-new creatures. This little shop of horrors includes a cunning octopus with eight eyes and a slug with a passion for human brains. Like the xenomorph, they too become stars in their own right.

The human and semi-human characters are a little less satisfying because we've seen some of them (or parts of them) before. "Alien: Earth" may be set two years (2120) before the events of the very first movie (2122), but do people ever need to be told it's not a good idea to poke one's head over a xenomorph seed pod? The wisdom of Olyphant's Kirsh seems to elude everyone: "Humans were food or ... I suspect you told yourselves you weren't food anymore, but in the animal kingdom there's always something bigger — or smaller — who would eat you alive if it had the chance."

With "Alien: Earth," Hawley has also fused J.M. Barrie's 1904 play, "Peter Pan," onto the series. Eternal childhood, immortality, limitless imagination and even a Capt. Hook analogue or two — all that, a hungry octopus and a sea of viscera. By bringing a beloved children's classic to a beloved cinematic horror classic, Wendy and the other superhuman hybrids are allowed to look at these horrors with a fresh, childlike perspective (you, too).

While that's an interesting twist, the challenge is buying them as childlike superhuman hybrids — because they mostly just seem like hyper-restless Gen Zers short of an Adderall prescription.

BOTTOM LINE Mostly entertaining late-summer thrill ride, decent horror, too.