On the downed spaceship Maginot, Wendy abandons her mission in order to rescue her human brother from the Xenomorph; Boy Kavalier plots to keep the lethal alien specimens for his own use; divisions open up amongst the ‘Lost Boys’ – the group of child consciousnesses downloaded to adult synthetic bodies; and Morrow, the Maginot’s cyborg security officer is embarking on his own enigmatic agenda.

There is so much story in Metamorphosis – Episode 3 of Alien: Earth – I had to watch it twice before sitting down to write this review. Indeed, I’d be inclined to say that in an era of over-extended longform dramas, Alien: Earth is a breath of fresh air, but that wouldn’t be true. The air in the doomed Maginot is acrid; heavy with dread, hidden agendas and a sting in the throat from the Xenomorph’s acidic breath. The research facility on Neverland Island isn’t much better. The dark, claustrophobic labs seem airless – suffocating the humanity out of anyone with a conscience, leaving only hubris and betrayal to prosper.

To some extent Alien: Earth is playing out like an ensemble multistrand drama, a bold move for a franchise that has always relied, ultimately, on the survival-of-the-fittest, one-on-one battle to the death promised by the titular alien’s relentless killer instincts. Noah Hawley has skillfully opened up the narrative possibilities by introducing such a diversity of life forms and synthetic consciousnesses; organic humans are actually in the minority. By doing this, he never has to stop to philosophise. The meaning, and the depth of the concepts at play, lie in the interaction of the show’s characters. The hybrid ‘Lost Boys’ are a stroke of genius. Pitting children against the alien (albeit in adult form) – and against the worst of humanity – gives the series an extraordinary emotional core that we haven’t seen before, although for anyone who remembers Newt from the James Cameron sequel Aliens the dynamic isn’t entirely without precedent in the franchise.

I’m not going to say any more about the minutiae of the story, because its various twists and turns are far too good to spoil, and with four distinct narrative arcs (along with hints of at least two others) it’s just great to have forty-five minutes of well-crafted tale-telling carrying you along – and to be keen to find out where all of them are going.

Verdict: Alien: Earth is unpretentious storytelling at its very best. By the end of episode 3 I was genuinely on the edge of my sofa worrying about Alex Lawther’s Joe Hermit (at the wrong end of some decidedly dubious healthcare), Sydney Chandler’s Wendy (recovering – or not – from her encounter with the Xenomorph), and the excellent Adarsh Gourav’s ‘Slightly’ (alarmingly out of his childish depth) – as well as being distinctly unsettled as to which path Babou Seesay’s Morrow is going to take. Roll on next Wednesday! 9/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com