Main cast: Sydney Chandler (Wendy), Alex Lawther (Joe Hermit), Essie Davis (Dame Sylvia), Samuel Blenkin (Boy Kavalier), Babou Ceesay (Morrow), Adarsh Gourav (Slightly), Erana James (Curly), Lily Newmark (Nibs), Jonathan Ajayi (Smee), David Rysdahl (Arthur Sylvia), Diêm Camille (Siberian), Moe Bar-El (Rashidi), Adrian Edmondson (Atom Eins), and Timothy Olyphant (Kirsh)
Director: Dana Gonzales

In Mr. October, we learn that Boy Kavalier created the hybrids to compete with artificial intelligence, and I can’t stop laughing. Is Noah Hawtley, the screenwriter, occasional director, and creator of this show, telling me with a straight face that the human brain can compute at the same rate and precision as artificial intelligence? 

The joke here is that the human brain in this show keeps proving that it is powered by stupidity, that I doubt they can even catch up with present day ChatGPT.

Anyway, our heroine Wendy and the hybrid gang are now in USCSS Maginot to see what is up with that ship and also, in our heroine’s case, to help her brother Joe, who is with the team sent earlier to investigate the ship. Everyone’s else is expendable, it’s the heroine’s brother that matters the most, because girl bosses are the centers of the universe, you know.

I’m still not sure how a young jittery fellow like Boy can be a CEO of a corporation whose territory spans almost a continent, but I suppose it makes sense that a twit like him will think it’s a good idea to send children-robot hybrids into a ship that turns out to be full of xenomorphs. 

Hence, these people trip, accidentally trigger alarms when they need to be quiet, blink and do that goo-goo eyes thing at clearly infected creatures instead of running the other way – jeebus, what are these hybrids trained to do again? — and generally are as useful as a little finger in a hand that has all its other appendages broken.

Oh, and shocker, Joe keeps surviving no matter what, and the show isn’t even trying to hide the obvious plot armor.

This episode is more Prometheus but with dumb kids than a return to old-school Alien like the marketing hype touted the show to be, with far more scenes of humans and human-tin cans being dumb and dumber than actual scary scenes. Occasionally there is a CGI infected cat or some ovomorphs thrown in for memberberries, but on the whole, this could have been any generic by-the-numbers morons in space show. 

This episode ends with Joe being captured by a xenomorph. Please, as if this show has the testicular fortitude to kill him off. 

I came into this show blind, so out of curiosity, I finally looked up who paid for this show. It’s Disney. Of course. No wonder this show feels so made by committee, hmmph!