The Monstrefact: Alien Earth Roundup

In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses the various non-xenomorphic creatures of the 2025 series “Alien: Earth.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hi, my name is Robert Lamman. This is the Monster Fact,
a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time. The
FX series Alien Earth just wrapped up what is presumably
its first season, though at the time of this recording,

(00:30):
no official renewal has been announced for this Noah Hawley
filmed Ridley Scott produced series. First, I want to stress
that I really enjoyed Alien Earth. My one true complaint
is that I wish it had wrapped its story up
in a single season, and it felt like all the
pieces were on the table to do just that going
into the eighth episode. But all of this being said,

(00:52):
I love the performances. Timothy Oliphant as a synthetic person
wasn't something I knew I needed. He's terrific. Adrian Edmondson
of The Young Ones and Bottom Fame was a fun
bit of casting, and Babu Sisey's Cybord character was terrific.
The rest of the cast excelled as well. If you
were hesitant about watching the whole series, I'd at least

(01:13):
urge you to watch episode five, which can be viewed
as a standalone or a key piece of the series.
But this is the monster fact, so I want to
discuss the creatures of Alien Earth. I won't say much
about the Xenomorphs. We certainly get them. Sometimes they're absolutely terrifying.
Sometimes they're a little lost in the shuffle, but that's
kind of par for the course. With the Alien franchise.

(01:36):
On top of the title Aliens, however, we also get
a number of other extraterrestrial specimens. The existence of other
non xenomorph and non engineer extraterrestrial life forms is of
course alluded to in nineteen eighty six's Aliens. The Alien
RPG from Freely throws in some additional supporting bugs for
players to hunt, and of course the various Alien books,

(01:58):
comics and crossovers over the years have introduced others, including
the famous Kryptonian himself. In the mid nineties Superman Aliens
limited series. Noah Holly does not give us DC Superman,
or even Marvel's Legion for that matter. We don't get
the Fargo Alien crossover that I think a lot of
us were pining for, but he does introduce no fewer

(02:20):
than four new extraterrestrial organisms. Let's run through them. There
will be spoilers from here on out. First up, we
have the parasitic species nineteen, a leech like organism that
drains a fatal amount of blood from its host, filling
up like a balloon in the process. We also observe
that it reproduces by spewing its larval young in whatever

(02:42):
fresh water is available. On the reproduction front, various organisms
of the natural world do seek out water for reproduction,
including some notable parasites. Mosquitoes famously lay their eggs on
the surface of the water, and their larvae and pupe
are fully aquatic. The horsehair worm also has a rizzly
reputation for hacking the brain of its host grasshopper or cricket,

(03:04):
and then forcing that organism to drown itself in a puddle,
so the noumautomorph might burst forth and wiggle free into
the water to complete the life cycle. As for the
blood ballooning, certain parasites, such as ticks and leeches, do
expand as they feast on the host blood, filling up
like a balloon in the process, though these organisms are
generally incapable of individually draining a lethal amount of blood

(03:26):
from the host. We might presume then, that Species nineteen
hails from a world where they depend on some form
of suitable megafauna that can sustain them without succumbing to
blood loss with each feeding. Up next, we have the
species referred to informally as the fly, a fairly large
winged insect creature that feeds on minerals and of course,

(03:49):
synthetic flesh. Obviously, the creature exists as a nasty foil
for the show's many synthetic characters, but it also plays
on a very real zenobiological consideration. Chemo lithothrops actually exist
on Earth in the form of certain bacteria and microbes
that feed on inorganic compounds and minerals. We don't have

(04:10):
anything as big as the fly, but it's proof that
such forms of life are possible, all right. Up next,
we have the specimen d plum the kyrie, which presents
itself essentially as a kind of carnivorous plant, but also
proves itself capable of fairly speedy movement when necessary, and
ultimately conducts itself more as an ambush predator than a

(04:32):
passive trap. We might think of this one as a
cross between a venus fly trap, which is capable of
rapid plant movement, a walking palm tree which carries out
a slow repositioning that I should flag may seem to
be exaggerated at times in reporting, and the barnacle enemies
from the Half Live video games. You remember these. They

(04:52):
dangle down, you walk into the dangling bits, and then
you get sucked up. Finally, we have the show's most
fascinating non zenom or alien life form, and that is
tripanohica ocellus or t ocellus, a crawling, tentacled eyeball creature
that affixes itself to the face of another organism, gouges
out one of the eye sockets, and then takes that

(05:14):
eye's place, taking over the organism in the process. Living
or dead, the creature is all the more fascinating because
it seems quite intelligent and may have an agenda all
its own that goes well beyond reproduction and acquiring food.
It's an inventive creature design which calls back to various
crawling eye monsters, especially nineteen fifty eight's The Crawling Eye,

(05:36):
and also perhaps plays with accounts of the isopod Simonthoa exagua,
which has been observed to seemingly replace a fish's tongue.
And then, of course we're also playing on general brain
hacking parasitic abilities that we see in multiple instances throughout
the natural world. I suppose we'll just have to find
out more in a possible second season of Alien Earth,

(05:58):
or perhaps in supplemental alien Fiction. Tune in for additional
episodes of The Monster, Fact, The Artifact or Animalist at
Pendium each week. As always, you can email us at
contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
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