New FX series intrigues, but takes too long to get to the interesting parts

It doesn’t take long for the monsters to appear in the new series “Alien: Earth.” In fact, they’re the same ones that first started terrorizing Sigourney Weaver when the “Alien” franchise began in 1979. Not the pitch-black, nigh-invincible, gorily lethal aliens known as xenomorphs, with their parasitic breeding and nightmarish visage — though they do play their role in “Earth.” No, these monsters are much closer to home: hubris, avarice, cruelty — all those very human traits that always make a dire situation all the more disastrous each time we return to the “Alien” universe. 

“Earth,” which premieres Aug. 12 on FX and streams on FX on Hulu, has many of those same elements, and adds a few new ones to the mix: an Earth-based setting and a story in which the aliens — more than just one species this time! — are rarely the most monstrous thing on screen (though they are pretty horrifying). 

Unfortunately, “Alien: Earth” gets the balance wrong. The prequel series, set two years before the events of the first “Alien,” spends too long setting up a story that only barely gets going by the time the eight-episode season comes to an end. Its examination of identity — something the “Alien” movies started tackling in “Resurrection” and the prequel films “Prometheus” and “Covenant” — is less insightful than it wants to be, buckling under the weight of its own unanswered questions. And far too often it feels like two separate plots stitched together, a Frankenstein’s monster of existentialism and aliens ripping people apart.

Read the full review at The Seattle Times.

Three “Peter Pan is now ruined for me” stars out of five.

Photo credit: Sydney Chandler as Wendy in “Alien: Earth.” (Patrick Brown / FX)