Alien: Planeta Tierra

As soon as I found that it's not Ridley Scott who was writing/directing this show, I had high hopes for the series. I watched two episodes and can say with confidence that the show has so far been more disappointing than even Prometheus and all the subsequent Ridley Scott's Alien movies. I am 100% sure the rest of the series will be worse.

The series seem to be turning Alien universe into yet another boring monster universe like that Godzilla and Kong universe. The writing is terrible. The characters are bland and boring. The conversations are so plebeian, soporific, and flat that my fingers had the urge to press fast forward button whenever two people started talking.

I will watch the rest of the series, but I expect the show to devolve further compelling me to downgrade my current 6/10 rating to a 5 or even 4.

Allen: Earth is finally here and I have to say I was hoping it would be a lot better than it is. It almost feels like a teen CW version of Alirn and not the Alien franchise we all came to know and love. I was promised the show would be full of enough excitement and thrills that make the episodes feel like they fly by. It's not. The other thing I can't stand is that we have to wait to wait a week between episodes. I have come so used to binging series that that's how I like to watch my shows. I hate waiting a week when I enjoy a show. I admit I'm not the biggest or most knowledgeable Alien fan, the originals were made before I was born but I have watched them and enjoyed them. I am a big sci-fi fan though so that's why I was looking forward to this so much and why I'm disappointed. I did read that if you are a big Alien fan that this series will reward you with plenty of fun Easter eggs and the more you know about the franchise the more you're going to enjoy this series. That was a lie.

The production values are a solid 10. For better or worse, the target demographic is adolescents and mid-teens of median intellect. The writing and plot are at a level of a 1980s Saturday morning cartoon. Dumbness and plot holes ruin the experience virtually every 30 seconds. For example, a search and rescue team is dispatched to a spaceship crash: they look and act like a comic small town militia, sloppy, inept, no discipline, armed to the teeth, no rescue or search equipment. The WTF moments just keep stacking up until the irritation factor just turns you off.

There have been plenty of Alien projects that have come out over the years since the original trilogy and while some have been watchable and the other down right awful, this is closer to the unwatchable ones than the watchable. Somehow, it's gotten nothing but great reviews from both critics and split from fans of the franchise. It actually currently has a fantastic 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. Alien: Earth is about when a mysterious spaceship crashes on Earth and a ragtag group of soldiers, led by a woman named Wendy, have to make the discovery that will put them up against the greatest threat the planet has ever seen. What follows is a series that looks like it was made for kids and not adults.

As an alien fan for 40+ years, I was hopeful that this series could finally revive the franchise. However, what made Alien great was suspense. What made Aliens awesome was action (and a sublime cast, script, and director). Whoever wrote and directed this has completely missed what makes the franchise great; instead, they think it's about horror about grossing people out. They're going for cheap scares and have just completely missed what makes the franchise great. Sad. Hoping it picks up, but based on the direction the series is going, I hold no hopes.