So, I haven't seen Alien: Earth. I've heard very good things, and I've been watching reviews on YouTube, but I want to offer an opinion about the program.
First, I have nothing against Noah Hawley. He's clearly a competent writer and director. I do, however, have some issue with a creative choice that he made with this series. Specifically, his decision to set the show in an alternate timeline from the rest of the franchise. I get that creators gotta create and certain things work better for what he wants to do than others, but the world of Alien isn't as vast and elaborate as the worlds of, say, Star Trek or Star Wars, and it feels like there was plenty of room for a program like this to connect to the films. I'm a little concerned that people will look at this show and think "Okay, this show's telling me everything I need to know, I don't need to see anything else, especially if the other stuff is only tangentially connected to this show."
I'm not saying that Hawley has to incorporate everything from the wider franchise. Dude doesn't want to have Engineers? That's cool, most of the movies don't have them and they're a divisive retcon anyway. Dude doesn't want to have Predators? That's cool too, and probably cheaper. I just think there's a difference between "I'm not including them in this story because they don't serve any use in this story" and "I'm not including them because they don't exist in this story".
I'm not gonna say that this show is a bad one, however. Many of the themes it explores are very much in the spirit of the franchise. I just feel like acknowledging what came before, especially if you're building upon that foundation, is better than ignoring it.
