So far, while I think it’s alright as its own thing, it’s not really what I expected or wanted from an Alien series. The Peter Pan stuff is sooo heavy handed, and a lot of the tension gets lost when so many of the characters are synth-adjacent, imo. I’ll watch the whole season, but I’d be surprised if my opinion drastically changes. Morrow (the cyborg) is cool, at least.

I am interested the criteria Weyland-Yutani had for selecting specimens to bring back, and what kind of worlds those specimens lived on. Like, the eyeball is cool (kinda generic, but cool), but it implies an ecosystem that includes a sufficient number of species with Earth-like eyeballs for it to survive. So why not bring back some of those other (presumably less dangerous) species, too?

Watched E02; it’s largely more of the same; if anything there are now even more lame elements to the concept compared to E01.

They put in too much effort into making it edgy, quirky and YA-compatible with the Peter Pan stuff.

In principle, I think the main concept (alien infested ship crash landing on earth) is solid and even the Peter Pan stuff could be fine.

The problem is the execution. The kids act like generic types in a high production sci-fi action streaming show. It would be far more interesting and unique if there was an element disorientation and introspection (as a prelude to their rebellion).

I couldn’t take the Kirsh character seriously. I can’t be the only one who thought he was (unintentionally) funny.

The boy trillionaire character is pretty unconvincing and reeks of lazy attempts at edginess. Caricatures are fine, but you need to set the tone of the story to make it work.

I will probably keep watching, but I am going to change how I approach the series. Treating the series as an unintentional parody with sci-fi Peter Pan in a Disney executive’s lobotomization of a dystopian cyberpunk that just happens to infested by Alien seems the right way forward.

I just hope there will be (unintentional) comedy.

P.S. I will happily admit that I was wrong and that I am a overly picky snob (not true, I like the Maze Runner series) if it gets better in the subsequent episodes. It’s not happening!

I didn’t care about the characters.

The synth “kids” only act like kids when it’s funny, otherwise they are like disciplined employees/soldiers.

The MC being able to control machines with psychic powers is lazy story telling.

The e02, some characters clearly have plot armour. That doesn’t make for a good entry in the Alien franchise.

It’s weak.

Ironically Romulus was made for streaming before being given a few extra dollars to go theatrical

I enjoyed the first two episodes, but I feel like it could down the same holes as covenant, focusing too much of the synthetic people, which writers keep feeling they need to expand upon, but I will give it a chance. I have loved the retrofutrism matching the original alien tech - which is something I loved about Romulus and Isolation

Pretty solid start. Felt like the original movie in tone and there was just the right amount of the xenomorph in each episode. That eye thing is fucking awesome.

The xenomorphs look good.

Just kinda bored with the cast outside of Oliphant. I don’t care what happens to any of them. At all.

I feel like i am going to watch the whole series, though I may wait for a few more episodes to release. It is a fun take on the world that somehow has managed to maintain the claustrophobia of the original films while being set on earth. I assume the scope will expand as the series progresses.

The heavy Disney influence (direct clips from Peter Pan and Ice Age) is a bit off-putting, and makes the series feel a bit confused. We are in a futuristic world that is owned by 6 major companies, we have space flight, synthetic humans, and now consciousness transplants, yet our biggest cultural touchstones are a 1953 animated film, and the fourth ice age movie? Do kids today watch either of those films?

My other concern is that the series is going to have to keep explaining how our cast aren’t being slaughtered by the xenomorph. In a film, Ripley only has to survive for 2 hours. An 8 ep series is a bigger ask. Hermit has already run into the xeno three times in two episodes, and each time the killing machine who was all blades and teeth just second before switches to ‘throw the protagonist gently across the room’. Even the conclusion of E02 sees him pushed off a ledge where any lesser character would have a bladed tail through their chest.

I am giving the series the benefit of the doubt that these two eps are just set-up, and will give the rest of the series a chance. Despite my concerns, I did enjoy the characters and their relationships, and the story being set up seems like classic Alien storytelling.

I’m getting into it, I said somewhere else that it’s always a good idea to give Noah Hawley some time to cook.

I watched the first episode of Legion and thought it wasn’t for me, left it until a few days before the season 1 finale and then got curious about what I was seeing online and gave it another try and binged the whole first season before waiting impatiently for each new season after that.

They have done a pretty good job of capturing the 70’s vibe and incorporating a bunch of the 80’s touches that came with Aliens. Ties it in quite nicely with Romulous.

By the end of E02 I was chuffed. I’m interested in seeing more about this take on the Alien universe. And I’m actually glad it isn’t all-and-only about running from and fighting the Xeno. That’d make for maybe 3-4 episodes of material before it got painfully boring.