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This week’s picks include the prequel to the iconic Alien film franchise, the return of Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen’s besties comedy and Carrie Coon’s The Gilded Age.
Alien: Earth ★★★½ (Disney+)
What’s hungrier? An apex predator such as the Xenomorph, the nightmarish creature that populates the Alien movies, or the franchise itself, which is almost 50 years old and now launching a television series after a slew of movies. Whichever way you lean, the unnerving Alien: Earth manages to mostly satisfy creative and corporate pangs. Slotting into the Alien universe while bringing new elements to bear, the show’s first season is rich in science-fiction horror: unchecked creation, terrifying destruction, and unnerving responses.
Sydney Chandler as Wendy in Alien: Earth, which is a prequel to the Alien film franchise.
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Alien: Earth’s creator, Noah Hawley, has some experience with this, having built the Fargo series out of the Coen Brothers film. But that was an anthology inspired by the movie, whereas this is entrenched in the terrifying mythology established by original director Ridley Scott. We know the Xenomorph cycle, from face hugger to gleaming beast. Thankfully, Hawley doesn’t just tinker with Alien lore, he adds to it, while devising new creatures your subconscious will adore.
The most crucial addition is a new kind of human. Alien: Earth is set in 2120, two years before the original film, and while it teases with a doomed spaceship and its escaped cargo, it’s just as focused on humanity’s progress. In a world run by corporations, the spaceship crash-lands in a city owned by Prodigy, the firm of reckless young genius Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin). Boy sees the crash as a chance to field-test his secret new invention: hybrids. A human child’s mind allowed to grow in a powerful machine body.
The first synthetic ever, as opposed Alien’s more common cyborgs (humans with an augmented body) and synthetics (androids), is Wendy, a transformative evolutionary leap tellingly played by Sydney Chandler with adolescent openness and otherworldly agency. Hawley, who wrote or co-wrote each episode and directs several, layers scientific exploitation with children’s book imagery – at night, Boy reads Peter Pan to his newly created hybrids, which he has named for the story’s characters. It’s a very different Neverland, full of body horror and flawed practices.
Timothy Olyphant as the inscrutable synthetic Kirsh in Alien: Earth.
Alien: Earth has a show’s worth of interwoven threads, from the rival corporation Weyland-Yutani, which wants their invaluable “specimens” back, to the inscrutable synthetic Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant, perfectly cast against his laconic gunslinger roles), who is supervising Wendy and the other hybrids. But do Aliens fans want creator hubris and existential conundrums? Or are they just after bloody scares? Hawley cannily delivers both, albeit in an unconventional order. The show’s approach might occupy an uncomfortable middle ground for some, but the creative energy is undeniably inquisitive and genuine. Keep feeding the Alien franchise. From August 13.
Besties Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen are back in season two of Platonic.
Platonic (season 2) ★★★★ (Apple TV+)
Never ludicrous for the mere sake of it, this best friends comedy featuring Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen as former besties reconnecting in their forties, has an outrageous wit and a plausible dynamic. As they caught up on lost time in the first season, Byrne’s Sylvia and Rogen’s Will always maintained a lived-in complexity. He was self-sabotaging, she had a sudden temper, and when they got on a roll, they would make hilariously ill-judged decisions that had actual ramifications.
Platonic’s creators, the husband-and-wife team of Nicholas Stoller and Francesca Delbanco, very much build on that in the sophomore season. “I’ll just keep it cool,” Sylvia insists to her husband, Charlie (Luke Macfarlane), after an early irritation, before proceeding to take some wildly rash actions. It helps immeasurably that the show is forward-looking: Sylvia and Will are now trying to maintain their bond even as Will prepares for his second marriage, instead of repeating the previous season’s rediscovery.
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As with Byrne and Rogen’s Bad Neighbours movies, which Stoller directed, the key part of their chemistry is that it’s Sylvia, not Will, who’s the incendiary device. My favourite scenes in this show are anytime that Byrne’s mother-of-three loses it – it’s deliriously eruptive, yet rooted in decades of compromise and self-doubt. Platonic has become one of television’s best half-hour comedies.
Dr Lala Asim in Critical: Between Life and Death.
Critical ★★★ (Netflix)
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Netflix’s voracious appetite for documentaries has led it to the medical first-response genre: fly-on-the-wall coverage from ambulances and emergency rooms. These shows have long been a staple of free-to-air broadcasting, including Paramedics and Emergency locally.
What has Netflix added? Blood and battered bodies abound, with six episodes shot over three weeks in London’s Major Trauma System. It’s gory and authentic. There’s a major failing in how the events that created these crises are retrospectively depicted, but it’s compelling when the patients connect with the unflappable professionals, such as Dr Lala Asim.
Carrie Coon in The Gilded Age.
The Gilded Age ★★★½ (Paramount+)
This historical drama, which saw Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes bring his grand house storytelling to 1880s New York high society, has been enjoying a breakout third season. Audience numbers in America, where the series airs on HBO, have been growing weekly. One possible reason? Star Carrie Coon, who plays wealthy Fifth Avenue interloper Bertha Russell, recently had a high-profile White Lotus season. My theory? The show has become better since Fellowes empowered US co-writer Sonja Warfield. The storylines for Black characters are now complementary, and the show has a melodramatic pleasure.
Elodie Yung in The Cleaning Lady.
The Cleaning Lady (seasons 1-4) ★★★ (HBO Max)
While it has some flaws, the four seasons of this 2022 US crime drama, newly added to HBO Max, offer a comprehensive binge for fans of underworld intrigue.
Miranda Kwok’s show is marked by risk and inequality: Filipino surgeon Thony De La Rosa (Elodie Yung, who grounds the show) is living in Las Vegas with an expired visa, working as an undocumented cleaner while trying to get treatment for her ailing son. When her skills are revealed to a narcotics syndicate, she’s forcibly hired as a crime scene cleaner and off-the-books doctor.
Tiana Okoye as Dollface in Twisted Metal.
Twisted Metal (season 2) ★★½ (Stan)
I’m still not sold on this video game adaptation, which unleashes automotive warfare on the highways of a post-apocalyptic America, but credit to the creative team for doubling down on the cartoonish carnage. John (Anthony Mackie) and Quiet (Stephanie Beatriz) return, but the first season’s cross-country plotting is supplanted by a demolition derby tournament run by Calypso (Barry’s Anthony Carrigan) that brings all the road warriors, including the psycho killer clown Sweet Tooth (Joe Seanoa, with Will Arnett’s voice), into one combustible locale. A lot of explosions and some genuine sentiment ensue.
Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.