Alien Earth 1×4 Review: “Observation”

Alien Earth season one episode 4, titled ‘Observation’, indeed had a whole lot of observing as the stakes continued to escalate. All hell is going to break loose on that research island soon enough.

Even though I haven’t been the biggest Alien fan, I have to admit that Alien Earth has me hooked. One of the things I’m greatly enjoying about this series is the pacing. A whole lot occurs in a single episode, and that helps prevent the storytelling from feeling like a drag, along with giving enough content for some nice weekly discussions in the fandom.

‘Observation’ opened with Wendy being analyzed. Her hearing had been shut down after the mysterious sounds she had heard in the previous episode had led to her falling unconscious. The writers shared a lot during a single scene. Everyone’s on the same page about Wendy being able to hear the Xenomorphs communicating on a frequency untapped by humans and the other hybrids. The difference, however, was in how certain individuals wanted to proceed with utilizing Wendy’s newfound ability.

Hermit didn’t want Wendy anywhere near the aliens. He also wasn’t a fan of Boy Kavalier bringing those creatures to the island. Married couple, Arthur and Dame, wanted to monitor Wendy, and they were okay with doing so while keeping her hearing ability restricted to human-levels. Boy Kavalier, on the other hand, wanted Wendy to continue listening to the chirping sounds and possibly find a way to communicate with the Xenomorphs.

An interesting moment occurred when Wendy, being a child and having been told she’s special, thought the Xenomorphs had “chosen” her to hear them, while Boy Kavalier was of the opinion that Wendy was simply eavesdropping. Regardless of the truth, both Boy Kavalier and Wendy were interested in learning more about the aliens.

Hermit’s presence on the island was handled well. Even though Boy Kavalier didn’t want him around, Hermit had unwillingly positioned himself as a kind of necessity. Boy Kavalier used Hermit as a bargaining chip to keep Wendy under his control and motivate her to decipher the alien language ASAP. And he used Hermit’s interest in looking out for Wendy as a test to determine if the hybrids were indeed a successful way to offer humans the gift of immortality.

‘Observation’ had a lot of talk about what the hybrids were meant to be. In a way, the show was asking the audience the same questions about what made a human being. Were the kids’ souls actually transferred into synthetic bodies, or had the computer brains been merely taught to mimic the neural networks of the kids while their souls had passed on to the afterlife?

The conversation reminded me of the fan discussions that arose during the Krakoan Era in the X-Men comic books. The mutants had created a Resurrection Protocol. However, there was debate about whether the actual “soul” of the deceased had been transferred into a new body or if the resurrected being was merely a copy of the dead person. Especially if more than a single “copy” of the dead person could be made if one wanted to use the Resurrection Protocol in such a manner.

As far as Hermit’s concerned, Wendy was his sister. I think the guilt of not being able to visit her at the hospital because he was fighting a war on the other side of the planet might be playing a role in Hermit accepting a hybrid as his sister and wanting to mend things between them. Hermit essentially had no family left. So, if (allegedly) playing make-believe with a hybrid was a way to reconnect to a familial bond, I think Hermit’s willing to go along with it.

Also, to be fair, Boy Kavalier didn’t leave Hermit with much of a choice in the matter. If he had refused the deal to stay on the island and keep an eye on Wendy, Hermit would have been escorted off the island, fired from Prodigy, and fallen into lifelong medical debt because of the new lung that Prodigy gave him. Sigh!

Hermit’s presence, understandably, annoyed some of the other hybrids. They weren’t appreciative of Wendy being treated differently and having her brother around. I liked how Hermit handled the tense moment with Slightly. Hermit was on the side of the hybrids. He wanted their families to be contacted and be told the truth instead of being told a lie and mourning the loss of their children.

Talking about Slightly, his secret conversations with Morrow continued to be unsettling. It was sad to see Slightly being manipulated and later blackmailed by Morrow to retrieve a Xenomorph egg from the lab. Morrow’s not playing games. He was all in on threatening Slightly’s human family to make the young hybrid do Morrow’s bidding because Morrow correctly determined that Slightly could be pushed to take drastic measures to protect his friends and family.

Those specific interactions continue to remind me of how certain adults have exploited vulnerable children around the globe.

With Morrow telling Slightly to use a human as a way to smuggle the baby Xenomorph out of the island, I’m quite curious to find out who Slightly will use, not knowing that the infected human would die when it’s time for the Xenomorph baby to burst out of the chest.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the human bait ends up being Dame, as she’s quite close to the hybrids and would be willing to help Slightly even if he’s leading her to a trap. My other option would be the head of security on the island. There’s some online speculation about Slightly using Hermit, but I don’t see that happening.

As for the observation part of things, I don’t know what Kirsh’s up to. He knew about Morrow communicating with Slightly and their plan. And yet he didn’t do anything to nip the entire thing in the bud. Kirsch was also quite observant of the octopus-like alien who was forced to possess a sheep as a host. The tentacled alien’s supposed to be quite smart. It looked like it’s biding its time to break out from the glass prison. You just know it’s going to find a human host soon, which will allow it to talk. It’s such a creepy parasite. I love it!

Aware that he’s in no immediate danger from the aliens, I think Kirsh is enjoying observing what will happen as the protective measures between the humans and aliens slowly break down. Krish, after all, thinks that synthetic beings are superior to humankind. The arrival of the aliens has put the humans back on the food chain as prey, and Kirsh, as a character, is curious about how the survival of the fittest will play out. Also, Kirsh knows the most about the aliens (other than Morrow) after having extracted the data from the crashed ship.

Another troubled hybrid was Nibs. She’s clearly not well, and I don’t understand why Dame and Arthur didn’t shove her in a machine to analyze her body the moment she brought up that she was pregnant. Even though Dame tried to reason with Nibs over how hybrid bodies were different from human bodies, Nibs wasn’t willing to listen to any of that. She even mentioned how Mary gave birth to Jesus via divine intervention.

I’m not saying that Nibs is pregnant in a traditional sense of the word, but I do think the octopus-like alien might have left a piece of itself in Nibs during the recent attack. Certain creatures can reform body parts. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nibs got an octopus-like alien growing inside of her. She mentioned how her “baby” seemed to be telling her what to do, and with how we know certain alien species take on aspects of the host, the new octopus-like alien might have adapted to Nibs’s hybrid body and found a way to mess with her internal network. An alien parasite capable of controlling hybrids or synthetics sounds quite dangerous.

‘Observation’ concluded with a baby Xenomorph bursting out of Hermit’s extracted lung after Wendy had been trying to communicate with it. There’s clearly a connection between the two. So, it will be interesting to see if the baby Xenomorph (a species known for a rapid growth cycle) thinks of Wendy as its Mother/Queen or a peer.

What did you think of Alien Earth season one episode 4 ‘Observation’? What do you think Kirsh wants?

Let us know.

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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