Alien: Planeta Tierra

Pretty disappointing conclusion to a great set up. 8 episodes later, it seems that the only motive provided for any of the characters was to get to series two. Once the Alien rehash was out of the way to satisfy audiences in episode five the showrunners seemingly gave up on any of the threads they set up in the beginning of the series in favour of a directionless mess.

The entire show is like this: a bunch of teenagers fantasizing about suddenly gaining superpowers to handle all the adults they hate. One of them accidentally gets a vicious dog, she encourages the dog to bite and kill anyone who gets in her way, and finally sits on the roof declaring: "We rule."

Teenagers believe they have grenade in their hands makes them invincible, allowing them to act like adults but without the responsibilities or consequences of adult behavior.

I had such high expectations after 4 episodes. There were a multitude of characters with different motivations. And then slowly this show degraded into one dimensional storyline.

This show is more about synths than aliens. And there is no logic in anything the synths do. They are the most unlikeable protagonists. Are we supposed to root for the synths? By the end of the season I was rooting for the synths to die because they are so loathsome.

Like many, I had really high hopes for a new take on the franchise. And elements of the show did live up to my expectations, albeit only to be deeply overshadowed by a mess of a plot, and characters that made no sense.

I enjoyed the glimpses we got into the world-building with the mega-corporations, I enjoyed the creativity put into the new alien species, and I even enjoyed the take on the immortality trope as presented in the show.

But despite my readiness to check my disbelief at the door, no amount of blind-eye turning could allow me to just accept the stupidity of the decisions made by characters, or the nonsense plot holes that achieved nothing that a little more thought and care in the writing could have.

All that being said, episode 5 was exceptional. That alone could've been rewritten as a standalone cinematic sequel to the original Alien and Aliens, and IMO would've been accepted as a worthy finale to the trilogy.

Plain horrible writing.

This sucks, because I was really hoping this would be good. I mean I'm a huge Alien fan and I've even like the objectively lesser entries into the franchise but this... This is bad on a whole 'nother level.

Let's start with the dialogue. Everyone has to say what they're thinking or doing all the time. There's a moment in episode 7 when Smee (or whatever he's called) literally says to the camera "I only did x because I thought y!" And I facepalmed loud enough that my neighbors could hear it.

I'm not sitting on TikTok while watching the show, but the show is treating me like I am.

The characterizations here are also ridiculous. Nobody is consistent. Wendy changes motivations and intentions like 50 times throughout the season. People flip on a dime because the script needs them to. Hermit for example has a big problem with the alien killing soldiers... until the final episode when he's standing in the same room as the alien as it's killing three soldiers and doesn't even say a word. Doesn't even acknowledge that it's happening.

Also, plot armor. Everyone has it. Nobody dies. Nobody you care about at least. Why? I don't know. No idea. I mean we don't care about these characters at all so maybe the writers know that. The worst offender of this plot armor is once again... DING-DING-DING! Hermit. He survives a xenomorph encounter like three or four times in just the first two episodes. Which becomes more ridiculous the further into the show you get because the xenomorph can wipe out a room in like 1 second flat.

This show sucks. That's all there is to it. So disappointed in Noah Hawley and the crew. Did you guys even care about this at all?