Alien: Earth

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 Alien 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.

Like many, I had really high hopes for a new take on the franchise. And elements of the show did live up to my expectations, albeit only to be deeply overshadowed by a mess of a plot, and characters that made no sense.

I enjoyed the glimpses we got into the world-building with the mega-corporations, I enjoyed the creativity put into the new alien species, and I even enjoyed the take on the immortality trope as presented in the show.

But despite my readiness to check my disbelief at the door, no amount of blind-eye turning could allow me to just accept the stupidity of the decisions made by characters, or the nonsense plot holes that achieved nothing that a little more thought and care in the writing could have.

All that being said, episode 5 was exceptional. That alone could've been rewritten as a standalone cinematic sequel to the original Alien and Aliens, and IMO would've been accepted as a worthy finale to the trilogy.

I had such high expectations after 4 episodes. There were a multitude of characters with different motivations. And then slowly this show degraded into one dimensional storyline.

This show is more about synths than aliens. And there is no logic in anything the synths do. They are the most unlikeable protagonists. Are we supposed to root for the synths? By the end of the season I was rooting for the synths to die because they are so loathsome.

Not talking about the kids in your living room, the on-screen versions are the ones that botched the alien franchise. It COULD have been great, because scenes are well-built and the adult characters work, especially the on-board android, but somehow, someone decided to give the main lead to a 12-year old, that acts and think like a 12-year old, with 10 year old friends as the entourage to battle extremely violent and blood-thirsty monsters. It doesn't work. And the constant switching of timelines and pace deludes the storyline more than helping it. Sorry, my rating is generous. A 12 year old would probably rate it higher, but I am not 12.

I was so disappointed by this. It looks amazing and it's clear the series had a huge budget. Whey then is the story so appallingly stupid? There are too many things to list that just aren't how things would work in reality. Many of these things are not integral to the story and I cannot understand how no-one pointed them out during production. Some of these things (mainly character decisions) are central to the story and are just maddening. On top of this none of the characters are sympathetic (they are all stupid to be) and by the end I just wanted them all to die. I really, really wanted to love this show and I actually kind of hated it.