A remarkable new heroine defends humanity from outer space creepy-crawlies in this eight-episode addition to the Alien franchise. Evoking the original 1979 sci-fi/horror blockbuster in all its grimy, gooey, and gutsy glory, Alien: Earth is set in 2120, shortly before the events of the mothership film that featured warrant officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) trapped on a spacecraft fighting a face-sucking monster.
In this thrilling new series, a deep space research vessel crash-lands on Earth and a brave but inexperienced young fighter, Wendy (Sydney Chandler, above, third from left), joins the rescue mission. She’s been mentored by an android named Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant, center). The cargo turns out to be a terrifying menagerie of intergalactic life forms collected for an entity familiar from Alien, the Weyland-Yutani Corp. They planned to profit from the extraterrestrials, but they didn’t expect them to escape.
“This is the first time we’re focusing on Earth,” says creator and executive producer Noah Hawley (Fargo) of the franchise, which spawned six more movies plus two crossovers with the Predator universe. “The question is, will humanity survive? The next question is, does humanity deserve to survive? [Director] Jim Cameron’s [Aliens, 1986] has that line from Sigourney, ‘I don’t know which species is worse.’”
Wendy, it turns out, is not your average human. She’s a hybrid created by Prodigy Corp: a terminally ill child whose parents allowed her consciousness to be placed into a humanoid robot. Hawley hints she might ask the same question as Ripley: “It becomes a push-pull — why be human if this is what humans do to each other [vs.] the beauty of the human experience. Human nature is front and center — morality and why people act the way that they act toward each other.” Hawley opened the hatch for us on his history with Alien plus creating and casting the series.
Sydney Chandler as Wendy — ‘Alien: Earth’
FX
Did you see the original Alien when it first came out?
My parents did not let me go to see Alien in the theater for some kid’s ninth or 10th birthday party. I went to see The In-Laws instead, which explains a lot about my career. I did obviously [eventually] see the film. You don’t realize how bad it’s going to get! It lulls you. I wanted to recreate it for an audience where you feel like, I’ve seen Alien movies, I’ve never seen this before.
What did you have to consider when taking it from a film to a TV series?
An Alien movie is a two-hour survival story. It’s a monster movie. A television show can’t be that. A television show has to be long form, with characters that you can invest in, and relationships, and dynamics.
A constant in the franchise is a female lead. Was it tough to cast the role of Wendy?
I always saw Fargo as a female franchise because of Frances McDormand. Alien is the same because of Sigourney. When you’re casting, especially in an age group in which not a lot of actors are well known, you have that fear: is that actor out there? I was shooting Fargo in Calgary and I FaceTimed with a few actors. Sydney got on a plane and flew to Calgary. She’d been offered a big movie, but she’s a sci-fi geek and she wanted this gig and she earned it. She’d done Pistol for FX and they recognized that she was a star. It was super critical to me not just to have one strong female character, but to have multiple so that she’s not alone in her journey.
Right. One of the characters who “raises” her on the island is Dame Silvia played by Essie Davis, who sometimes clashes with Wendy’s “father” figure, android Kirsh. How did you end up casting Timothy Olyphant in that role?
When we were shooting that fourth season of Fargo, I said, I have something for you that’s very different. There’s something erudite or aloof about many of the androids [in previous movies.] Tim’s Americanness was interesting to put into that role. Just like with Jon Hamm, when I thought, oh, there’s a constitutional sheriff in there [Hamm played a villainous lawman in the fifth season of Fargo], there’s a dark character in this leading man. I love that Tim plays both sides of the moral spectrum. Is he a good guy or a villain? We definitely explore that in this season.
One way you made this different from the movies is that the familiar xenomorph is joined by more aliens. Why bring them in and how did you create these new species?
I was interested in that idea of, if you’re going to bring these creatures to a terrestrial environment, how are they going to change it and how are other creatures going to interact with them? The idea of seeing these creatures in an earth landscape is such a profoundly unsettling and kind of exhilarating thing. Some of it is just — what’s the worst thing I could think of? Who do they kill and what do they eat? How do they reproduce? That’s going to be gross. I adjust every element from the skin texture to sound design until they tell me I can’t do it anymore. It all goes to getting into your nightmares. My hope is that people who watch this show will never do anything comfortably again. They’re like, should I eat that? I should probably pick that piece of bread up and look what’s under it.
Alien Earth, Series Premiere, Tuesday, August 12, FX
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