Alien: Earth is about to make Disney+ the best sci-fi streaming service

I watch a lot of trailers, and I watch a lot of sci-fi shows – it comes with the territory when you cover as many of the best streaming services as I do on a daily basis. That means that something has to really stand out to get more than a fleeting part of my attention, and Alien: Earth just did exactly that with its first trailer.

After months of teasing, we get a proper look at the show coming to Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK, and it looks pretty staggering. There are some ferocious creatures to clap eyes on, but just as convincing is the sense that its world is full the details and tactile reality that made the early films so brilliant.

FX’s Alien: Earth | Official Trailer | Disney+ UK - YouTube

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We open with what looks like a pretty odd sequence, as what looks like a terminally ill young girl volunteers to be a trailblazer, letting herself be transplanted somehow into the body of an android. Robotic humanoids have featured in the series many times, but this is the first time we've seen one be given a truly human consciousness (as far as I'm aware).

She awakes as “Wendy” (and is played by Sydney Chandler), although we don't get to see how she gets from there to volunteering again, this time to investigate a huge crashed ship. It's found to contain at least five of the deadliest monsters in the known galaxy, and it seems entirely possible that at least some of them will have escaped.

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The show looks simply amazing from this glimpse – its CGI seems to be cinema-grade, and the sets and character designs stand out for their quality. TV shows can sometimes look like cut-price versions of the movie universes they inhabit, but the showing here seems super strong.

In fact, it might be enough to make Disney+ the best sci-fi streaming network, while it's coming out weekly. After all, it only just finished airing Andor's terrific and sometimes impressively brave second season, so following that up with another excellent sci-fi show would be brilliant work. Alien: Earth premieres on 12 August in the US and 13 August in the UK, so we'll know more then.