Alien: Earth – The Official Podcast

Episode 5: In Space, No One…

Release Date: September 3, 2025
Host: Adam Rogers
Guests: Noah Hawley (Series Creator), Regis Kimble (Editor), Babu Sise (Moro), Richa Moorjani (Zaveri)

Episode Overview

This episode explores a dramatic departure from the familiar ground of FX's Alien: Earth series, as the story shifts to a tense, self-contained space-horror narrative aboard the USCSS Maginot. Through insightful conversations with the show's creator, editor, and cast, host Adam Rogers uncovers how Episode 5 both honors and reinvents classic "Alien" tropes, dives into character backstories (especially Morrow), and sets the stage for deeper conspiracies tied to corporate villainy and personal trauma.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. A Purposeful Shift to Space-Horror

• Noah Hawley reveals that this episode wasn’t initially part of the season's conception but was irresistible as a homage to the Alien films and a necessity for a show titled "Alien."

  "If we were offering people a series called Alien, we needed an Alien movie. In the middle of it, we needed a spaceship journey." (Noah Hawley, 01:23)

• The episode serves as a "mid-season interlude," diving onto the Maginot to answer lingering questions about the catastrophe that incites the terrestrial plot.

2. Crafting a Standalone Alien Movie Within a Series

• Noah on writing and directing: He chose to direct both the series premiere and this episode to ensure the "Alien movie of his dreams" was faithfully realized, blending familiar motifs (sabotage, monsters loose, Who will survive?) with fresh narrative beats:

  "If you’re going to play in these waters, you have to have a very clear vision for what you want to pull off and why you’re doing it at all when it’s been done before." (Noah Hawley, 01:51)

• New Creature Designs: Hawley highlights the excitement—and the only rule: it must be disturbing—of introducing creatures like the image, ticks, the octopus-like "eye-pop" monster, and more.

  “We don’t know how the ticks reproduce. We don’t know any of these elements…which makes it very exciting for me as a storyteller.” (Noah Hawley, 03:32)

3. Alien Canon: Inspiration and Reinvention

• Hawley’s approach respects the core canon of the first two Alien films while considering other lore as creative interpretations rather than gospel:

  "For me, the real canon is the first film and…to a major degree, the second film also… forty years later, it was introduced…this idea of the black goo and the engineers…in my mind it exists…as a kind of alternate fiction." (Noah Hawley, 04:36–05:21)

• The episode builds its “mini-canon,” allowing new mythos to emerge from the established backbone.

4. Directing Tension: Timing and Feel

• Hawley focuses on manipulating tension through pacing, not homage:

  “Film as a medium has the power to control time...what things should feel fast and what things should be slow…if you’re in the middle of an action sequence...that should feel like it’s all happening too fast.” (Noah, 06:25–07:11)

5. Building & Dooming the Ensemble

• The narrative challenge: quickly investing viewers in a brand-new group of doomed characters while spotlighting Morrow’s arc.
• Despite knowing who survives, audiences get swept up emotionally:

  "Even though it’s in our brain, we’re so focused on the narrative of the story that we forget...because you’re invested in them, you’re rooting for their survival." (Noah, 08:25)

6. Editing for Dread: Interview with Regis Kimble ([12:03])

• Maintaining Anticipation: Kimble explains the importance of "breathing moments" and long suspense, echoing Ridley Scott’s original, where you wait almost 45 minutes to see the monster (12:03–12:29).
• Ensemble Driving the Cut: The dynamic between characters and their environment determines the pace and rhythm of editing.

  "For the most part, we try to tell the story in the least amount of cuts because [Noah] doesn’t want to force-feed the audience...you can see their body language...it’s a nice way to allow the audience to take from the frame what they want." (Regis Kimble, 13:05)

7. Solving Production Puzzles

• The modular nature of scenes allows emotions and narrative beats to be rearranged for maximal impact:

  “When you start butting these two scenes up with one another, a whole third kind of emotion is generated…” (Regis Kimble, 14:28)

8. Practical Effects vs. CGI Creatures

• The presence of an on-set animatronic xenomorph aids editing, but the unique new monsters—ticks, image, orchid, fly—are rationed carefully for horror’s sake (15:45–16:32).

In-Depth Character Studies

Moro: The Load-Bearing Cyborg

With Actor Babu Sise ([17:02])

• First Alien Encounter:

  “My first encounter with the Xenomorph was watching it pop out of John Hurt’s chest as a young person living in Africa…It just scared me so much.” (Babu Sise, 17:02)

• Performance Inspiration:
  Sise drew on iconic antiheroes and villains: Daniel Day Lewis (There Will Be Blood), Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men), Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)—studying their movement and emotional control to shape Moro’s unnerving poise.

  “He isn’t rushing, he’s keeping his head...if he rushes, he’s going to ruin everything.” (Babu Sise, 18:55)

• Moro’s Trauma and Mission:
  Trauma from losing his daughter intensifies his focus; his stoicism in crisis is both drilled from military experience and rooted in personal pain.

  “Part of his lack of fear is to do with the fact that he’s lost his daughter.” (Babu, 19:57)

• Moral Choices and Ruthlessness:
  Moro sacrifices others for the mission (“I don’t need 10 more people with emotions…” 22:00), refusing rescue for Zaveri to minimize risk.
  • "He cannot let his human emotion, things like empathy, sympathy get into the way too much." (Babu, 21:47)
• Manipulation and Relationships:
  His dynamic with Slightly, the hybrid, is simultaneously manipulative and complicated by emerging emotional connections.

  "As he talks to them, he's already figured out they're synthetic...what is it that makes human beings react?" (Babu, 26:44)

• Comfort Rituals:
  Moro hums as emotional self-defense:

  "That humming is 100% a comfort blanket for him. It’s his teddy bear." (Babu Sise, 25:19)

Zaveri: The Accidental Captain

With Richa Moorjani ([28:10])

• Naming Her Character:

  "I actually got to name my character...so we named our child Zoya Zaveri." (Richa, 28:10–29:02)

• Homage to Ripley, But With Her Own Edge:
  Moorjani took inspiration from Sigourney Weaver’s “Ripley”—especially Ripley’s refusal to be cowed by sexism:

  “She just keeps doing what she has to do to do her job and to save her crew...that really helped with my own preparation.” (Richa, 29:34)

• Values Conflict:
  Zaveri prioritizes her crew's wellbeing over mission or cargo, a sharp contrast to Moro’s utilitarian focus.

  "Her priority is her people. These people have been her crew for 65 years...She just can’t seem to accept [the cargo comes first]." (Richa, 30:36)

• On Her Own Death Scene:
  Moorjani learned the details of her character’s death after being cast, and reshot the moment for new emotional resonance:

  “There was no way that there was going to be a happy ending for my character, which we knew from the get go. But he tried to bring as much heart and humanity as possible so the audience does feel...grief and despair.” (Richa, 33:34)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Canon & New Creatures:

  “We have an advantage…this story exists in the context of a larger story…It just also happens to be a mystery about who’s sabotaging a spaceship full of alien creatures and the chaos of how they escape and everything goes to hell.” (Noah Hawley, 01:51)

• On TV Horror's Challenge:

  “Film and television is an act of hypnosis...when you go to commercial, it can be so jarring for people. And why horror is so hard to do on television because you're breaking the hypnosis and you're breaking the tension and the dread.” (Noah Hawley, 09:05)

• On Practical Effects:

  “They had a xenomorph on set, so that solves a lot of timing questions. But with ticks and image and orchid...these are characters that are…paced out how much you actually see of them...” (Regis Kimble, 15:45)

• On Moro’s Manipulation:

  "He does do to Slightly, it's all the things...it's manipulative. There's no getting away from it." (Babu Sise, 26:44)

• Zaveri Naming Moment:

  “We named our child Zoya Zaveri.” (Richa Moorjani, 28:58)

• On Acting with the Xenomorph:

  “When he is in that costume and when the cameras are rolling and he’s chasing me, he really did chase me...And also both him and I are vegan, so we would just talk about eating plant-based food in between scenes. This scary xenomorph creature who’s a vegan, I just thought that was hilarious.” (Richa, 34:11)

Important Timestamps

• [01:17–04:18] – Noah Hawley on episode origins, homage, new creatures, and canon
• [06:03–08:17] – Directing the Alien episode, visual cues, building emotional investment in doomed characters
• [12:03–14:21] – Editor Regis Kimble on pacing, suspense, and ensemble scenes
• [17:02–26:17] – Babu Sise on inhabiting Moro, character prep, trauma, and mission
• [28:10–34:58] – Richa Moorjani on Zaveri’s identity, inspiration, death scene, and acting opposite the xenomorph

Episode Tone & Style

The conversation is playful, deeply nerdy, and reflective—speakers articulate both the emotional and technical facets of storytelling, performance, and genre filmmaking, all while maintaining an undercurrent of tension befitting the source material.

Summary

Episode 5 of Alien: Earth is both a love letter to the original Alien films and an ambitious narrative pivot—a "ship-in-a-bottle" episode exploring dread, betrayal, and survival in deep space. Through smart conversation, the creative team and cast illuminate not just technical achievements but also the series’ evolving ethical landscape: the costs of ruthless ambition, the toll of trauma, and humanity’s role in a world of corporate-fueled monstrosities. The episode meaningfully deepens our understanding of Morrow and Zaveri, and provides behind-the-scenes insight into the unique challenges of blending franchise homage with new mythos.

Listeners leave with a richer appreciation for how Alien: Earth balances nostalgic horror and forward-looking science fiction drama.