Back at Boy Kavalier’s Neverland research centre, Wendy is forging ever closer links with the Xenomorphs, much to the concern of her brother Joe, while Slightly is drawn deeper into cyborg Morrow’s ominous schemes. Kirsch continues to experiment on the other life forms, while Nibs starts to manifest some alarming ideas about her own physiology…

Last week, the sheer volume of storytelling in Alien: Earth was breathtaking, so as we hit the series mid-point, it’s hardly surprising that the pace drops off slightly – however that doesn’t make this latest episode any less gripping.

While there are certainly echoes of Ellen Ripley’s growing interconnectedness with the Xenomorph, as explored (with arguable degrees of success) in the third and fourth movies of the franchise, there’s a far lighter touch to the way showrunner Noah Hawley has fashioned child-robot hybrid Wendy’s journey into the alien’s consciousness, achieving an extraordinary cocktail of both dread and tenderness.

Less successful, is the occasionally heavy-handed plotting around Morrow’s recruitment of vulnerable Lost Boy, Slightly. For the first time in the series I found myself wincing at a few obvious plot holes and implausibilites, although it’s simultaneously hard not to be swept along, and lick one’s lips at what is surely to come should Morrow’s plans come to fruition.

Back to dread – the emotion this series conjures up better than any others I can think of – Kirsch’s experiments on an unsuspecting sheep might have you chanting ‘Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better’ in a way that I suspect George Orwell never anticipated.

Lastly, Nibs’s increasingly eccentric ideas about her synthetic physicality give a whole new and extremely disturbing spin to the idea of ‘body dysmorphia’.

Verdict: At the mid-point, the pace may have slowed, and the plot creaks minutely in places as the show prepares to run-up to its denouement, but it’s still compelling and emotionally taut TV, finding extraordinary and original ways to ask familiar questions.  8/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com