Review: Alien: Earth, "Metamorphosis" | Season 1, Episode 3
An action movie transitions into a TV show
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Despite not resolving the search-and-rescue mission at the Maginot in last week’s two-part premiere, it becomes clear after the first act of “Metamorphosis” that Alien: Earth is ready to transform into a more traditional serialized television structure. After Wendy manages to behead the Xenomorph while protecting her brother, and after Morrow downloads the ship’s files before escaping into Prodigy City, we see night turn to day. As the sun rises, Prodigy has gained full control of the site, with each of the five alien creatures found in deep space ready for transport back to Neverland. Wendy and Hermit might be worse for wear, but the show leaves its action-oriented entry point behind in favor of the dynamics of Boy Kavalier trying to turn this stroke of fortune into…well, whatever he wants it to be.
The show was definitely comfortable in that action space, getting great mileage out of both the traditional action dynamic of Wendy’s fight with the Xenomorph—including their first discovery of the whole acid blood situation—and the simpler tension of Slightly and Smee geeking out over the eggs as though they don’t represent an existential threat. The latter concern is a great example of the show playing with our existing knowledge of the franchise: those eggs are a trigger, so much so that I was extremely anxious through the whole scene. I probably should have put together that the eggs were unlikely to react to synthetic beings, which Kirsh realizes when he sees them stir as Morrow gets close to them, but the show knows that we’re not going to rationalize that when the two hybrids are treating them like a playground apparatus. As we reach the end of the Maginot crash, the show deployed its franchise bona fides confidently, while also introducing enough new horrors to seed future conflict.
