Longtime readers of the Nerd Factor know that one movie that really shook me up as a kid was Alien (1979). That movie chilled me to the bone, even though I was watching it on HBO in the afternoon on a bright sunny day at my aunt’s house. The long anticipated sequel Aliens (1986) was well worth the wait. But ever since then, the Alien franchise has never quite made it back up to the high bar it set for itself in its earliest days.
Now though, we have Alien: Earth, the FX/Hulu television series that wraps up this week. Seven episodes in and nearing its season finale, this show has not missed a beat. The program has kept the tension high, somehow nostalgically connecting to the earliest outings in the franchise while charting new directions.
One of the more innovative approaches was to introduce new extraterrestrial threats. This is not the Alien franchise’s first team-up. The alien Xenomorphs have fought Predator in the comics and on the big screen (again, to varying results). But this time, the familiar Xenomorphs have been joined by a variety of new menaces, which create particular problems when a deep-space exploration ship containing them all crashes on planet Earth. Like Noah’s Ark in reverse, viewers are left worrying about these creatures coming out one by one, let alone two by two.
The four new entries are the “Blood Ticks,” the “Octopus Eye,” the “Orchid,” and the “Flies.” The Orchid has yet to do much. It just hangs menacingly from the ceiling and waves a tentacle/appendage near people’s faces. This slow-burning reveal makes me think it is up to something horrible.
The Flies and the Blood Ticks are small insect-like creatures. As their names suggest, they behave similarly to animals we know on our planet. The Blood Ticks absorb blood from their targets. The real difference is their speed. They suck their targets dry and swell up like those red balls we used to throw around in gym class. The Flies have a similar modus operandi, only they regurgitate powerful digestive enzymes at their targets. Apparently, their world was low in organic matter and rich in minerals, so they chow away in that lethal way.
The real breakout monster star is the Octopus Eye. This small, multi-tentacled being has an eyeball-like structure for a head. Its multiple pupils and irises can be reoriented and merged at will. The Octopus Eye attacks living creatures, grabbing onto their target’s face and burrowing out one of its eyes. After that, the eye basically has it, with the creature controlling the body it has invested in. Of all the new creatures, the Octopus Eye has shown the most intelligence.
Why on earth would anybody want these things on Earth? As always, runaway corporate greed is a strong theme in the Alien franchise. A world-spanning conglomerate has secured these entities for study and weaponization. After the crash, a different conglomerate seeks to possess the extraterrestrials themselves. Once again, greed and corruption is endangering the safety of our planet and its people.
I love a good monster. I have always said that some horror monsters work like puzzles to solve. As I watch, I think about how one could escape these creatures.
I have also been thinking about what lifeforms on Earth would be of interest to extraterrestrials. If the situation were reversed and an interstellar civilization raided other planets for their most dangerous lifeforms, what would that civilization take from Earth? We humans are all kinds of dangerous, but we develop slowly, and it takes us a long time to cause harm. We have some particularly crazy and dangerous creatures. Crocodiles and sharks come to mind. We also have a number of fearsome, poisonous insects and spiders. That makes it sound like these bio-weapons from beyond the stars should take Australia.
Ultimately, though, I would like to offer the mosquito up as the most dangerous creature on the planet. Those disease vectoring little blood-suckers kill more humans than any other animal. They would make an ideal bioweapon.
