Although the Alien franchise has promised one major event numerous times, it is the upcoming series Alien: Earth that will finally make this a reality. Created by Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley, Alien: Earth is an upcoming TV series that will bring the Xenomorph to the small screen for the first time. Anyone familiar with the Alien franchise timeline can attest that the movie series has a complex, knotty chronology, but Hawley has already ᴀssured viewers that his show won’t delve into the complexities of Ridley Scott’s prequel plot too much.

In an interview with KCRW’s The Business podcast, Hawley said he is more interested in the Xenomorph’s depiction as a perfectly lethal organism than as “A bioweapon made half an hour ago.” Since Alien: Romulus solved Prometheus’s biggest mystery and proved that David didn’t create the first Xenomorph, it should be easy for Alien: Earth to sidestep this convoluted storyline from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. However, this won’t make the show’s biggest challenge any less daunting. After 35 years of false promises, Alien: Earth’s very тιтle promises to do something viewers have wanted for decades.

Alien: Earth Will Change Alien Lore Forever By Bringing The Xenomorph To Earth

The Xenomorph Only Appeared On Earth In Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem

Until now, the Xenomorph never appeared on Earth in any Alien movie other than 2007’s Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem and that was retconned by Prometheus alongside its predecessor Alien Vs Predator. This means Alien: Earth will have a big task on its hands as the show finally introduces the Xenomorph to humanity’s home planet. The reason this is such a complex and difficult plot point is multi-faceted. For one thing, there is the fact that the most effective, scariest Alien movies all take place in self-contained settings.

Whether it is the Nostromo of Alien or the тιтular space station in Alien: Romulus, the best Alien movies are lone-location horror stories. For all of Prometheus’ biggest problems, Scott’s prequel still understood the importance of this basic setup. Prometheus strands its crew on a largely lifeless planet, like its follow-up Alien: Covenant, while 1990’s Alien 3 takes place on a prison ship. Letting Xenomorphs roam free on Earth seems to have a lot of potential, but it means the series will have a lot of explaining to do.

Once Alien: Earth unleashes the Xenomorph, the show then needs to justify how such a hyper-lethal predator didn’t end up wiping out much of the planet in short order. Until now, the Xenomorph’s attacks have always been contained by whatever ship, space station, or empty planet they are on. Alien: Earth pointedly breaks with this tradition, setting up a problem that could prove to be bigger than all of Prometheus’s unsolved mysteries combined if the show doesn’t work out a way around this issue.

The Alien Franchise’s Complicated History With Planet Earth Explained

The Alien Movies Themselves Never Sent A Xenomorph To Earth

It might surprise some readers to learn that Xenomorphs never arrived on Earth before now, since the franchise has never been shy about teasing this. The Alien series promised to send a Xenomorph to Earth as early as 1990, with the infamous first teaser trailer for Alien 3. While Scott’s movie was sold with the iconic tagline “In space, no one can hear you scream,” Alien 3’s teaser trailer remixed this as “On Earth, everyone can hear you scream.” This was an incredible start to the movie’s marketing campaign, but there was one major problem.

Alien 3 isn’t set on Earth, despite what its earliest promotional materials may have promised. The tagline had no relation to the movie’s plot, a downbeat story that trapped Ridley on a prison ship after the off-screen deaths of Newt and Hicks. For all of Alien: Romulus’ controversial moments, no other Alien movie got away with such comically audacious false advertising. 17 years later, Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem did send Xenomorphs to a small town in America, but this under-lit, chaotic, dour sequel was a major disappointment.

While 2004’s Alien Vs Predator was shockingly bloodless for a face-off between two тιтans of sci-fi horror cinema, Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem proved that gore alone did not make for a great Alien or Predator movie. The plot was muddled, the action almost indiscernible, and there was a palpable sense of mean-spiritedness that dragged down the entire affair. By the time Xenomorphs were attacking an entire maternity ward of defenseless pregnant women, it was hard to find any fun in this grim, swiftly retconned outing.

I’m Still Curious To Learn How Alien: Earth Will Bring The Xenomorph To Earth

Alien: Earth’s Future Setting Complicates Its тιтle Promise

Although the Alien tie-in comics have brought Xenomorphs to Earth in various storylines, I will still be curious to see how Hawley’s show manages this feat. This won’t necessarily involve changing the Alien timeline Prometheus established, since Alien: Earth’s story takes place a year earlier than the 2012 prequel. According to the show’s synopsis, Alien: Earth will see “A young woman and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet’s greatest threat” after a ship crash-lands.

Bringing the Xenomorph to Earth seemed impossible for the longest time, but Alien: Earth does have one major factor working in its favor. As a TV show, Hawley’s upcoming project has a far longer runtime than any earlier Alien project. Many of the movies in the series, and Scott’s prequels in particular, hint at a lot of lore that they simply don’t have sufficient screen time to explore. Alien: Earth could take this approach further. Namely, Alien: Earth can delve deep into the untold backstory of the franchise’s overarching villains, the faceless Weyland-Yutani Corporation.

Alien: Earth Will Not Necessarily Break Alien Canon (But It Will Likely Retcon It)

Alien: Earth Proves Weyland-Yutani Had Experience With Xenomorphs Before Alien

Alien: Earth’s story could explain exactly how much Weyland-Yutani knew about the Xenomorph both before and after the events of Prometheus. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the show needs to retcon Alien’s story, but it could mean that the shadowy corporation sending the Nostromo to its doom was more intentional than it seemed at first glance. Alien: Earth can bring the Alien franchise’s story together by taking the events of the prequels and marrying them to the original movie’s plot, all while the show brings the villain of the series to humanity’s home planet for the first time.

Source: “The Business” podcast (via KCRW)