Mr. October

Knowing what Noah Hawley is capable of, I'm wondering how such plot holes, non-existing character development and general emptiness could take place.

As for the direction, there is no tension and nothing appealing despite the high budget displayed on screen.

There is absolutely no soul in these first two episodes.

I understand the expectations some viewers had going into this series, and though it definitely has its share of classic Alien horror, it isn't like anything else in the franchise. It isn't really like anything else I've seen honestly.

There are some weird tonal shifts, I'll admit, but this episode ascended Alien Earth into true science fiction rather than just outright action/horror. I'm in love with the heady concepts this show is putting forward.

Ugh!!! The level this show works at is mind numbing. There's a bunch of half thought ideas mashed into a template that simply doesn't work.

"Hey Let's have the alien who is quite clearly a man in a costume rip a room full of people into chunks of meat".

Cool, let's do that.

"Hey let's have a spacecraft crash into a building. But the spacecraft will land beautifully intact and nothing will be damaged, except for a continuous stream of sparks coming from nowhere and a bunch of small fires bubbling in the background, cos that looks cool".

Cool, let's do that.

"Hey let's have a character do the Amélie hair cut and for no reason have a samurai sword strapped to her back".

Cool, Let's do that.

It makes no sense except on a children's cartoon level and the direction is obviously style over substance but there isn't much style to it either.

It's just distressingly flawed on so many levels.

Rival business empires fight to get their hands on the valuable cargo, but the group that is first on board the crashed ship discovers a deadly foe. The ship proves to be the unlikely venue for a family reunion.

It surprised me just how good this was; it's a terrific second episode that really held my attention and left me wanting more. Pace, action, horror, and some of that anticipation you get from the franchise-simply waiting for something bad to happen.

When I think of the early Alien movies, I think of the horror element: helpless people up against a deadly and terrifying threat, beasts that kill without thinking. This brought back some of that intensity.

I'm enjoying the characters, and I like the interesting relationship between Wendy and Joe. I also like that Wendy and her friends are still children; I think they're doing a reasonable job with that.

8/10.

In the year 2120, alongside humans, cyborgs (people with both biological and artificial components) and synthetics (humanoid robots with artificial intelligence) exist. But everything changes when Prodigy unleashes a new technological advancement: hybrids (humanoid robots imbued with human consciousness). The first hybrid prototype, named Wendy, marks a new dawn in the race for immortality. After the Weyland-Yutani spaceship crashes into Prodigy City, Wendy and the other hybrids encounter mysterious life forms more terrifying than anyone could ever have imagined.

But first, the positives. After watching two episodes, you have to conclude that the sets look fantastic. The opening scene, which manages to imitate the atmosphere of Alien 1978 fairly well, is unfortunately not continued in a longer scene with more depth. We get transitions to Earth and more or less cuts where a lot of the story is skipped.

Unfortunately, there are also some negative aspects. Goldsmith's traditional soundtrack is sorely missed, and at times, the film even switches to a kind of rock music that completely ruins the atmosphere and saps the tension.

Furthermore, the characters don't always react logically to the horror they witness, often too apathetically or almost indifferently, as if what they see is practically normal.

We see this especially when the young rescue worker walks through the ship, encounters the alien several times, experiences the greatest horror but still carries on as if nothing special has really happened instead of being in shock, compare that to the original Alien in which the crew members react in a much more human way, traumatized and panicked.

The series seems promising but it could go either way and I have a feeling that one small mistake could ruin the whole series.