Alien: Earth stumbles on with “Emergence,” a chaotic episode that strains to ramp up tension through betrayals and a jarring confrontation. Penned by Noah Hawley and Maria Melnik, and directed by Dana Gonzales, it digs into the fractured loyalties at Neverland. Wendy, fed up with Prodigy’s schemes, plots an escape with Joe, while Slightly aims to deliver Arthur’s body to Morrow. Yet internal clashes and Xenomorph threats muddle their plans.
Despite slick production values, “Emergence” falters with erratic pacing and glaring inconsistencies. Running 10-15 minutes shorter than prior episodes, it races through plots, leaving viewers dizzy, as if cuts were made to hide structural flaws. Subplots vanish abruptly, and characters—even background ones—act erratically, especially at the docks, blending overstuffed chaos with odd padding. This isn’t escalation; it’s narrative whiplash, favouring emotional beats over coherence, like a fever dream scripted on impulse.
Logical gaps now gape wide. How does Kirsch find a baby Xenomorph in a sprawling island’s underbrush, when they’re elusive even in tight spaceship corridors? Why do superhuman synths Slightly and Smee struggle with a makeshift raft for Arthur’s body during a lockdown, with no hint of where they got tools or time? Security in this high-tech facility is laughably lax, with guards appearing only when convenient and beaches inexplicably empty. And the overt exposition editing choices of exposure baffles the mind.
The Xenomorph’s handling guts the franchise’s horror. Daylight shots turn it into a rubbery letdown, with choppy editing masking poor choreography and effects. There’s Alien massacre—a rampage where the creature shrugs off bullets like a game boss, lacking the dread of Aliens. Wendy’s role as its handler, siccing it on enemies, strips away its terror, making it a plot prop. Her escape, dragging synths into chaos and unleashing disaster, feels like a forced shock, not growth.
Kirsch’s convoluted schemes—using Slightly as bait, banking on Morrow, snaring a chestburster—strain belief. The synth subplot, once fresh, now feels juvenile, with mature consciousnesses acting like sulky kids and sappy “family” vibes. The facehugger’s “amnesia” twist is a lazy retcon.
Babou Ceesay, Timothy Olyphant, and Adrian Edmondson’s performances hold it together—barely. Without them, I’d have bailed episodes ago.
I’m not going to watch the entire series again from start to finish, or even rewatch individual episodes, and I wouldn’t want to give it extra views that it probably doesn’t deserve. Even if one person’s trash is another’s treasure.
As Ripley quipped in Aliens, “Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?” Here, they’ve crashed into oblivion of space, leaving this prequel floundering. With the finale near, it’s shaping up as a chestburster of letdown.
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