We Finally Have Details About Noah Hawley’s 'Alien' TV Show Set on Earth

Movies have been adapted to television for as long as I can remember, and the practice happened long before I was born. Movies like M.A.S.H., In The Heat of the Night, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer had wildly successful television adaptations. More often than not, the shows will start by recreating the events of the film they are based on, then move on to new adventures with a different cast. It’s about getting the excitement of the movie on a television budget. But, with television budgets now mirroring some big-budget flicks, TV adaptations of movies are (arguably) more popular than ever.

A good example would be Fargo, developed for FX by Noah Hawley. The first season took the events of the Coen Brothers’ film, remixed them, and presented them with some new twists and turns (with one such twist happening right in the pilot). Since then, the show has stood on its own while occupying a new universe created for the show, with a nod or two to its movie counterpart existing as well. But what if there were more than just nods? Plenty of television shows have attempted to continue the events of their source material, a practice that has seen increased popularity in recent years.

The MCU spent the last five years attempting to continue its heroes’ adventures on streaming with differing results. Cobra Kai, which picked up on the characters of Karate Kid decades later, was more popular than the streaming service that launched it (RIP, YouTube Red). The idea is viable, even if it doesn’t feature characters that appeared on the big screen. Some shows simply exist in the same world and pull on the same threads, and audiences eat it up. That’s what Hawley is banking on with his newest venture.

Hawley has created a show based on everyone’s favorite xenomorph. But there will be no Ripley, nor David, nor Paul Reiser’s character (I assume). Instead, Hawley’s show will take place before the original film and (presumably) after its prequels. The big twist here is that Hawley will be bringing the xenomorphs to Earth for the first time. Those were the only details we had about the show, aptly titled Alien: Earth, for some time, now, we know even more thanks to the folks over at Deadline. The following is a description they shared (along with some photos which you can find here).

“In the year 2120, the Earth is governed by five corporations: Prodigy, Weyland-Yutani, Lynch, Dynamic, and Threshold. In this Corporate Era, cyborgs (humans with both biological and artificial parts) and synthetics (humanoid robots with artificial intelligence) exist alongside humans. But the game is changed when the wunderkind Founder and CEO of Prodigy Corporation unlocks a new technological advancement: hybrids (humanoid robots infused with human consciousness).

The first hybrid prototype, named Wendy (Chandler), marks a new dawn in the race for immortality. After Weyland-Yutani’s spaceship collides with Prodigy City, Wendy and the other hybrids encounter mysterious life forms more terrifying than anyone could have ever imagined.”

I’m still all hopped up on last year’s Alien: Romulus, so I’ll happily take another trip to this universe. It helps that I’ve also loved Hawley’s work on Fargo. Throw in a dash of Timothy Olyphant (which this show was smart enough to do) and, baby, you got a stew going.