Stephen King's Alien: Earth Review Highlights The Sci-Fi Show's Best Aspect

Although not all of us here at /Film have enjoyed the new FX series "Alien: Earth" (read Chris Evangelista's critical review here), the show has received one particularly big endorsement from a beloved voice in the horror genre. Stephen King, an author who's written quite a few scary alien stories of his own, posted some praise for the series on Threads.

"I think ALIEN EARTH might be my favorite," King wrote. "The SFX are amazing (not to mention gross), and the dialogue is sharp. The real monsters appear to be the 5 corporations that have carved up the planet."

It checks out that King loves "Alien: Earth" so much, as he does belong to the demographic that has (perhaps surprisingly) turned to be one of the show's biggest warriors: baby boomers. As the viewing data from the series' premiere has made clear, the show's viewership among "baby boomer households (ages 65-74)" reached 1.8 million, "over-indexing by 8% over other demo groups."

A big part of this seems to be nostalgia for the previous "Alien" movies, the first of which was released in theaters when King was just 32. Some younger viewers may have felt they had a lot of catching up to do before starting "Alien: Earth," whereas the older viewers have been casually keeping up with this franchise for most of their adult lives. 

It's fitting that King praised the TV show's critique of corporations, as that's where the series is really staying true to the franchise's roots. The "Alien" movies, at their best, are stories about working class people being repeatedly screwed over by greedy, short-sighted corporations. 

Indeed, Ridley Scott's original 1979 "Alien" film reveals that the corporation that the movie's true protagonist, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), is working for has fully intended to sacrifice the lives of her ship's entire crew just to get a sample of the other-worldly — and extremely dangerous — Xenomorph for scientific study. The second film, James Cameron's 1986 sequel "Aliens," then features a twist where the corporate nice-guy Burke (Paul Reiser) is actually revealed to be a vindictive, sleazy jerk who is willing to get countless more people killed to protect his company's bottom line.

"You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse," Ripley tells him, in the process stating what might be the "Alien" franchise's main thesis. "You don't see them f***ing each other over for a godd*mn percentage."

"Alien: Earth" continues the property's anti-1% bona fides with its unsettling depiction of a futuristic Earth that's been taken over by mega corporations, none of whom are treating the responsibility that comes with their immense power with the seriousness it deserves. There's still one episode left in the show's first season, but here's to hoping the duplicitous CEOs in this series suffer a fate similar to Burke's in "Aliens." What a shame it'd be if the series' worst character, Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), didn't get some sort of karmic comeuppance.

"Alien: Earth" is streaming on FX on Hulu.