Stephen King Weighs In on Alien: Earth—His Take Might Surprise Fans
Horror legend Stephen King just revealed what he really thinks of Alien: Earth, and his reaction is sparking buzz across sci-fi fandom.
Stephen King watched Alien: Earth and, in true King fashion, hopped online to tell everyone exactly how he feels about it. Short version: he is very into it. And honestly, same.
Stephen King is all-in on Alien: Earth
King drops quick reviews on streaming stuff all the time, and he knows his way around extraterrestrials - The Tommyknockers, Under the Dome, Dreamcatcher - even if his flavor of alien chaos is pretty different from Ridley Scott's acid-blood nightmares.
This time, he took to Threads to weigh in on Noah Hawley's first-ever TV take on the Alien franchise, and he went full thumbs-up:
"I think ALIEN EARTH might be my favorite. 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."
That last bit is a neat piece of inside baseball about the show's worldview: yes, the xenomorph is back doing what it does, but the human power structure is the actual nightmare fuel.
Why the show is working
Alien: Earth is the franchise's first TV outing, and the cynical read early on was that Disney just wanted to put a Fox acquisition to work. Instead, the series has turned out to be one of the stronger entries in the entire saga.
Hawley's story sits roughly a decade before Ellen Ripley and the Nostromo stumble into their little bug problem in the 1979 original. It brings in new faces - potential heroes, definite villains - while keeping the franchise staples intact: corporate agendas, sabotage, slow-burn dread, and, when it counts, brutally efficient alien mayhem.
If you want a single episode that shows the show's ceiling, it is Episode 5. The season takes a beat to rewind and follow the crew of the ship that ferried a xenomorph - and some other truly nasty off-world organisms - to Earth. It plays like a self-contained mini-movie and, for a lot of fans, ranks among the franchise's best sequences, full stop.
Season 2 odds
Season 1 is heading into its home stretch, and of course the renewal question is hanging over it. Hawley has already said he knows where the story goes next and wants the runway to tell all of it. On the business side, the show has been piling up strong reviews and has been camped out at the top of the Disney+/Hulu charts since it launched. Each episode has basically one-upped the last. No official Season 2 pickup yet, but if it does not happen, we riot.
The basics
- Premiere date: August 12, 2025
- Where to watch: FX and Hulu, also on Disney+
- Rating and genres: TV-MA; Drama, Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller
- Creator: Noah Hawley
- Directors: Dana Gonzales, Ugla Hauksdottir, Noah Hawley
- Writer: Bob DeLaurentis
- Cast highlights: Sydney Chandler as Wendy; Alex Lawther as Hermit
- Franchise note: first time Alien has gone to series on TV