Alien: Earth

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.

First of all: the production is excellent. Great atmosphere and cinematogrophie. I give that 5 stars. BUT... the story is absolutely BS. What idiot came up with the children being the superheros?! I really wanted to like this... but i ended this series for me at episode 4 when the totally unlikeable character Wendy started talking in the "alien"-language. I laughed out loud and stopped watching.

I had expectations like the Aliens actually invading Earth. Roaming throu the streets of Manhattan and doing their Alien-thing. Something like a mix of "Cloverfield" and "Jurassic Park". Instead we got a mix of "Stand by me" and "The Goonies" in space.

The best part, and maybe one of the only grown up scene of the show so far, which is the story of the ship carring the monsters, is abruptly fast forwarded so they can get fast to the part they can play and be Disney kids.

They are super fast, they can jump from the moon, yeah yeah, action starts and I was surprised they didnt sit on the floor and cried.

It is kinda of fair their excuse to use kids because of the growing brain and so, but in a super future world where you have no clue a giant space ship is gonna hit your planet, and you have technology from a 90's future perspective gives me the impression that reasonability was not the priority, but rather extract money from every age group possible.

Aimed to please shareholders, not fans.

Pretty disappointing conclusion to a great set up. 8 episodes later, it seems that the only motive provided for any of the characters was to get to series two. Once the Alien rehash was out of the way to satisfy audiences in episode five the showrunners seemingly gave up on any of the threads they set up in the beginning of the series in favour of a directionless mess.

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.