Critics’ reviews

Alien: Earth (2025)

7 reviews from 7 publications. Critics’ score 82: 6 positive, 1 mixed, 0 negative.

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82
Positive
6
Mixed
1
Negative
0

Most critics like Alien: Earth, and they like it for much the same reasons. The praise clusters on the creatures: the new specimens and their life-cycles are described again and again as the stuff of nightmares, and the body horror is thought to land. The second cluster is the show’s interest in synthetics and human-machine hybrids, which several reviews find richer than the franchise’s usual fare, along with its running concern with corporate power. Performances across the cast draw steady approval. Reservations are mild and of two kinds: the early episodes are loose in their storytelling, and the Xenomorph itself is sometimes pushed to the margins. The spread is fairly narrow, with six of the seven reviews landing between good and very good. The one dissent comes from Vulture, which admires the production design and the creature work but finds the series never quite settles into satisfying long-form television.

The Times
13 August 2025 · ★★★★★ · James Jackson
100

This is a nasty, queasy and frequently terrific prequel series that delivers primal horror from its creatures alongside intelligent sci-fi elements about AI and corporate power.

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Empire
5 August 2025 · James Dyer
90*

The critic calls it a triumph and 'Andor for Alien,' an Alien saga at once familiar and entirely fresh that stands on its own as an unsettling transhuman fable. They single out the concentrated nightmare fuel of the new extraterrestrial specimens and their twisted life-cycles for praise.

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The Guardian
13 August 2025 · Jack Seale
85*

The series is an incredibly confident new take on the franchise with gloriously horrific monsters that are classic nightmare fuel. It creates bone-deep dread through its setup, casting, and atmosphere despite a loose narrative in early episodes.

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The Hollywood Reporter
5 August 2025 · Angie Han
85*

The critic finds it an intriguingly ambitious, eventually thrilling journey into the semi-known, a heady epic about personhood, hubris and the pleasure of watching people get rocked by space monsters. They single out the novel gradations on the man-machine scale and strong performances across the cast for praise.

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Variety
5 August 2025 · Alison Herman
80*

The review describes the series as a terrifying prequel with a surprising set of interests, focusing more on human-synthetic hybrids than on Xenomorphs alone. It praises the richer vein mined in the synthetics' inner lives, thrilled and destabilized by their new existence.

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Vulture
12 August 2025
55*

The critic describes the series as a bold but flawed experiment that blends Alien sci-fi horror with Blade Runner themes of corporate power and humanity. They praise the superb production design and inventive new creatures while faulting the show for never fully cohering into satisfying long-form television.

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The Ringer
12 August 2025 · Miles Surrey
82*

The critic praises the FX series as a worthy companion to the Alien franchise for its inventive focus on synthetic beings, corporate greed, and Peter Pan allusions alongside gnarly body horror. It balances familiar franchise elements with fresh thematic depth, though the Xenomorph takes a backseat at times.

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Ordered by the weight we give each publication, then by score. Scores are normalised to 100; * means inferred from an unrated review. Summaries are ours, not quotations; follow the links for the reviews themselves. How we rate