Mr. October

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.

I had high hopes for this series, but so far the writing and characterisation feel unconvincing. Despite a clear sense of extreme danger, the characters behave casually, with no apparent risk assessment. It's frustrating to watch actions that defy logic. By the second episode, major questions remain unanswered - how did the space crash happen in the first place, and why was there no Earth defence against an out-of-control ship? Too many elements don't add up. Hopefully, the story will improve in the coming episodes.

Consider this to be my review of the series so far, since the first two episodes came out together.

Right up top I will say this seems to me like one of the better entries into the franchise, even surpassing the latest Alien: Romulus movie. It is quite clear that the people working on these movies were big fans of the original movies. The sets, costumes and overall production design are very reminiscent of the original movie. What is very reminiscent of the first movie as well are the opening scenes which felt as if I were watching a remake of the original movie.

The movie doesn't mess around and gets right to action fairly fast. The first episode felt longer than an hour not because I felt bored, but simply so many things had happened. The action might even feel off-putting to some (as I've already seen in negative reviews). The Xenomorph gets plenty of room to be brutal leading to some interesting set pieces, even if those might seem as fanservice to some. Personally I am keeping an open mind for now, there is the majority of the plot still in front of us.

Some quick notes:

The artistic choice to have kids in enhanced bodies be the main team inside the ship seems weird to me, but let's see what they do with this setup.

Timothy Olyphant is great in his role. I fear his character is unlikely to see the end of the series, but I am enjoying his scenes so far.

It kept feeling weird that the rescue team would arrive heavily armed, but I guess if their goal was the inside of the ship all along, than that could be understandable. A bit distracting at first though. Does real Army at Earth wear weapons for rescue missions after similar events?

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.

Literally only writing this review because of getting blown away by tool's stinkfist as the ending song...

Giving this series a real chance and if that song choice was the writer director's doing then I have hope. You'd only get it if you're a fan... I honestly cannot think of any show or movie with a tool track.