Steve B

Yet ANOTHER let down for the poor franchise. Where to begin? What they got RIGHT: -Fonts, sound effects, aesthetic of the ship interior, all very well done. A little forced in some places, but generally well done. Lighting, great. What they got WRONG (most of it): -God-awful transitions. Constant fades, either to next sequence or odd, jarring fades to black that mean nothing. Fades in film usually imply a time-lapse, and here, they are done CONSTANTLY, for no real reason. Noah Hawley is like a kid that found his parent's camcorder and it had a fade button, or his first attempt at editing and he thought fades 'were cool'. Very annoying and hard for the viewer to understand the flow of the episode. Also, weird overlays and heavy use of reflections on the screen for no apparent reason, other than again, to look 'cool' (maybe?), but they only confuse the viewer. -Characters are flat, and frankly, often stupid. The idea of putting "I'm scared, Mommy' type kids in adult 'super bodies' and then send them to a massive space ship crash with no training and total lack of maturity, is INSANE. Then they wonder around this bizarre ship/building mashup, doing stupid things, utterly unprepared, and kind of following random orders. -The so-called 'first response' team to a massive ship crash is a handful of pseudo marines with guns, that occasionally call out 'Search and Rescue', or 'Security Forces' at their leisure, while wondering around, half-checking stuff, but making stupid decisions and acting unprofessionally. The ONE medic in the team is a morose, kind of oddball guy that also barely seems competent. Where is everyone else? The REAL paramedics? -The alien itself is reduced to the Alien3 type, frenzied quadruped form, and lacks the fear and elegance of the first film. Did not scare or intrigue me at all. More Romulus crap basically. -Other alien lifeforms are almost comical, or recall Star Trek Wrath of Khan. Distracting and not really what we came for. -Corporate intrigue is mildly interesting, but some of the decisions they make (sending man-child type kids to a major ship crash they don't even own for instance) are odd. -Music. Occasionally OK, but sometimes really, really jarring and arch. Like amazingly so, that you are left wondering, did they just include that effect for real? Also, the God-awful heavy metal track at the end of the episode? PLEASE. Horrible, horrible. This is not Alien at all... Conclusion: don't waste your time. Again, any of the old Dark Horse comics or Alien Isolation would have been MASSIVELY better than this messy, amateur and stupid attempt at a series.