Alien Earth season finale ends on a cliffhanger, renewal undecided

The first season of Alien Earth, the Alien franchise’s first television series, concludes this week with its eighth and final episode airing Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern on FX and streaming on Hulu. Created by Noah Hawley, the eight-episode season began on Aug. 12 and follows the aftermath of the deep-space research vessel USCSS Maginot crashlanding on Earth and the emergence of a new class of synthetic-human hybrids led by Wendy Sydney Chandler.

Set in the year 2120, the series depicts a world governed by five corporations and explores tensions among cyborgs, synthetics and hybrids as humanity pursues forms of immortality. The plot centers on Prodigy Corporation’s first hybrid prototype, Wendy, and a group of tactical soldiers who confront extraterrestrial life forms unleashed by the collision of a Weyland-Yutani spacecraft with Prodigy City. The season ends on a cliffhanger, with Wendy declaring, "Now we rule," and Hybrids seizing control of a Prodigy installation while antagonistic Yutani forces are poised to respond.

Noah Hawley, the showrunner, said he intentionally left the season open to continuation while treating the run as a proof-of-concept to determine whether the scale...