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Alasdair Stuart been pretty ambivalent about Alien: Earth – but the new trailer has him intrigued…

The fact the first trailer went out of its way to kill a female crewmember on screen for no good reason beyond cheap drama was one reason. Sir Ridley Scott’s involvement was another, which I’m aware is controversial but after Prometheus and Alien: Covenant I’m very dubious about anything he brings to the franchise. Then there’s the fact the show is run by Noah Hawley, who has a very specific style I rarely vibe with.

Here’s what I found.

0.10– Eyeshine

There’s an interesting thing being done with all the new Alien/Predator stories we’re getting: eye shine. David’s eyes roll back onto the W-Y logo in Alien: Romulus, we see the same thing in the trailer for Predator: Badlands and now we get the briefest artificial internal lighting on Wendy’s eye here.

0.23 – Terminal care and implications

So it seems Wendy is the first synthetic, and she’s also a human with a terminal condition downloaded into a synthetic body.

Superficially, that’s a massive change and it also raises fascinating questions about the agency and ethics of synthetics that the franchise as a whole has started to bring to the fore recently. There’s also context, and there’s been context for decades. Remember Alien³? The organic Charles Weyland Bishop? What if Bishop as a model was his means of living forever? A networked series of backup bodies that could double as a surveillance network as wide as settled space. Is there a human Andy? or Ash? or Annalee Call? Is this what Call’s talking about in Alien: Resurrection when she was discussing how synthetics were protesting for their rights?

I have a raft of issues with Hawley but this? This is a unicorn. A wrinkle that a decades old franchise has never explored, but has always been there. Well done!

0.35 – Prodigy City

The science city that our main characters live in. Note the large mountain in the background suggesting we’re somewhere both well built and remote.

0.39 – The crash

We just a flash of it but it’s nice to see a ship that’s chunky, functional but doesn’t look like the Sulaco. Lots of curves instead of straight lines. Nicely done.

0.48 – ‘We’re fast. We’re strong. We don’t break.’

The ambiguity on this line fascinates me. It’s both a plea and a moment of defiant agency. I’m really excited to see how synthetic politics is dealt with now.

0.52 – Katana

That’s a shame. Not so much because it’s not a cool weapon, it is, but katana are the easiest reach for a series like this and I’d have liked to see something different, especially given the choices made elsewhere.

1.05 – Five different lifeforms

A line about how the ship has gathered 5 (!) lifeforms from the darkest corners of the universe. This is where they sold me. Five creatures including the Xenomorph? That’s a monster variety pack that’s going to make this a very different proposition to the usual Alien stories.

1.05 – Seed Pod

That’s both very large and not an alien egg…

1.15 – Massacre

This is the shot that fascinates me. It’s deliberately obfuscated but something is ripping through what seems to be the group of soldiers in the next shot with extraordinary violence. Note the blood spatter.

1.17 – Marines?

A brief shot of the fire team we see getting flensed a few seconds earlier. Interesting that with the exception of the Smart Gun all the gear looks very contemporary.

1.21 – Marines! We are IN FOCUS!

A much better look at the marines we glimpsed earlier gives us confirmation they are marines. That’s an extended magazine early version of the M41-A Pulse rife (Maybe the M-41?) and the big soldier covered in cameras and exo-frames is clearly carrying an early Smart Gun

1.35 – T.Ocellus’ school report

A delightfully old school computer readout on one of the four other monsters the ship brings home. Here’s what I could transcribe:

‘Once replaced in the eye socket, T.Ocellus takes over the ocular pathways to the brain, overriding the neuro transmissions through the body

More study needed to gauge emergent intelligence thought T. Ocellus has shown remarkable problem solving skills at a near human measure.’

That’s reassuring then.

1.37 – Un Oeuf, Un Jesper

Our first Xenomorph egg but not our last. Also something gooey in the test tube in centre shot. Also grey haired eyebrowless Timothy Olyphant. And Kit Young! Beloved round these parts for his top notch work in much missed Shadow and Bone, he’s apparently playing a character called Tootles here.

1.43 – What the hell is that?!

The tentacles we see emerging from that open containment capsule look guided and intelligent. They’re also not remotely Xenomorph-esque.

1.46 – Egg split

We get a shot of two eggs here. One is the Xenomorph egg we’ve come to  know and… let’s say love. The other is the green seedpod we glimpse earlier in the trailer and any doubts about it being something different vanish here. It opens very differently. Almost botanically. Is this a third creature we haven’t seen yet?

1.54 – T.Ocellus in action

It’s very brief but we get a look at T.Ocellus, an eyeball covered with eyes, settling into an ocular socket in a human. Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch. OUCH.

1.56 – That HAS to hurt

Just an insanely badass moment. Wendy has a meat hook through the inner mouth of a Xenomorph and is dragging it along! I don’t know why! I do know it’s badass!

1.58 – Slowmo Xeno

This is such a showy moment but it’s also very cool. I love that they seem to have really streamlined the Xenomorph design so it’s just a clean lined death machine

Alien: Earth is scheduled to show on FX in the US from August 12 and Disney Plus elsewhere.