drael64

Aliens is set an a basically dystopian, completely corporate run cyberpunk world, not dissimilar to bladerunner (and in some respects crossing over), replete with AI, synthetics, and high technology. But we've never really seen much of this part of the world.

This is quite a lovingly crafted TV series, with deep care over recreating retro futuristic aesthetics, and expanding on the lore of that world, with of course a deep focus on claustrophobic xenomorph horror thrills.

Anyway, in that, perhaps it's probably not going to appeal to die hard fans of the movies that ONLY want to see the Xeno's in action on some dark isolated space ship and aren't much interested in the corrupt high tech world. But in it's execution, it has a lot of love for the flair and detail of the story it's telling - the excesses of the corporate like fiefdom's, the merger of human and machine, the reckless pursuit of power. The story it tells for that reason is quite different, even if it does still center on a lot of alien scares.

If you like retrofuturistic, cyberpunk, sci fi worldbuilding AS WELL as a bit of xeno horror, you will like this.

From an opening scene that could have been ripped straight from a Blair Witch project movie, this series features a largely fairly predictable premise and arc that is full of flawed well executed characters. Some events and decisions that don't entirely make psychological or physical sense although this is typical in shows with a teen ensemble. But this aspect does expound as the series goes on, with the team able to do extraordinary things in their survival efforts, but simultaneously unable to do other simple things. It all starts to be a little absurd. And the plot drags on, and on, without any sense of resolution.

Weaknesses in the script are made up for with the competency of the acting in the first season. From there it's down hill and the mystery pay offs when they come tend to be, so far, less satisfying than the suspense, and are sparsely distributed so as to lengthen the series. Some choices are fairly trope bound. What remains, really is the drama - and that is enough to make this worth watching along side the compelling cinematography and 90s soundtracking - but only for the first season. From there you may feel like you are wasting your time.