Alien: Earth – New Creatures Are Exactly What the Franchise Needed

Like the Yautja are synonymous with the Predator franchise, the Xenomorph is synonymous with the Alien franchise. Every time a crew steps on a ship, there’s a good chance a Facehugger is going to get hold of one of them and make them a vessel for the next step in their evolution. The latest project in the Alien franchise, FX’s series Alien: Earth, begins with the same formula, following the crew of the Weyland-Yutani ship Maginot as they transport creatures from the darkest corners of space back home. There are Facehuggers among the crowd, which leads to the birth of a Xenomorph that wreaks havoc on the ship.

Alien: Earth‘s Xenomorph is only the tip of the iceberg, though, as its escape unleashes all sorts of creatures, each one with a gimmick more terrifying than the last. Through two episodes, it’s clear that, while the Xenomorph and its eggs will lead the charge once again, there’s no reason to overlook the rest of the extraterrestrial threats because they may very well be the future of the franchise.

“Alien” Means More Than Just Xenomorph in Alien: Earth

Since the events of the first Alien movie have yet to occur, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation isn’t focused on any one kind of creature. It’s been sending ships out into the cosmos to collect anything and everything, and when Alien: Earth kicks off, the Maginot is nearing its destination. Unfortunately, the crew loses control, and everyone dies except for a cyborg, Morrow, who hides from the Xenomorph as the ship crashes into a tower in Prodigy City. The Prodigy Corporation quickly sends out a Search and Rescue team to contain the situation, but they’re in over their heads because monsters are loose. A bug-like creature attaches itself to two grunts and removes all of the blood from their bodies. A couple of Prodigy hybrid discovers the terrifying scene, but they can’t spend much time wrapping their heads around it because something else reveals itself.

A regular house cat is on the crashed ship, giving itself a bath when the hybrids walk in. When it turns its head, however, its eye jumps out of the socket, unleashing another beast with tentacles that looks to replace one of the hybrid’s peepers. They call out for Kirsh, their synthetic handler, but it takes him a minute to arrive because he’s outside examining another alien that looks similar to a flower bud. It doesn’t seem as hostile as the creatures inside the lab, but there is still plenty of time left in Alien: Earth for it to last out. No matter what the bud creature does, though, it’s clear that the FX show is taking the franchise in a new direction, one that doesn’t rely on the Xenomorph for all its scares.

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The Alien Franchise Is Finally Moving Beyond the Xenomorph

While there is always some variation of the Xenomorph around, the real terror in the Alien franchise comes from the humans. Corporations like Weyland-Yutani and Prodigy are willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead in the information race, whether it’s creating hybrid humans or unleashing monsters onto the world. With that being the case, there’s no need for the Xenomorph to be the sole focus anymore. Noah Hawley and his collaborators are proving that every distant planet houses its fair share of dangerous lifeforms that are capable of being every bit as formidable as the ones that hatch from the black eggs. However, they aren’t the first ones to try it because 2024’s Alien: Romulus also swings for the fences with its Big Bad.

A group of young people travels to a Weyland-Yutani space station in Romulus to search for a big score. When they arrive, they accidentally unleash Facehuggers that begin to pick them off and unleash Xenomorphs. The chaos leaves Kay, who is pregnant, badly injured, so she injects herself with a fluid harvested from the Facehuggers to help her heal. The process rewrites her DNA and changes her baby, turning him into a human-xenomorph hybrid. The creature grows to a giant size quickly and nearly kills the rest of the group before being shot into space. While Romulus‘ monster seems much more dangerous than the eye creature in Alien: Earth, they’re two sides of the same coin, helping usher in a new era for the popular horror franchise.

Alien: Earth is streaming on Hulu.

Do you like the new creatures that Alien: Earth is introducing? Do you want the franchise to continue to move away from the Xenomorph? Let us know in the comments below!