Noah Hawley, who got his start on Bones before going on to create and show-run the much-admired series Legion and Fargo is next tackling Alien by way of a prequel series. I would be skeptical, except Hawley has turned Fargo into a dependable series that ranges from serviceable to delightful, season-to-season (the new season with Jon Hamm and Juno Temple is pretty delightful). Olyphant previously worked with Hawley on Fargo season four, in which he played a, you guessed it, laconic lawman, this time called Dick “Deafy” Wickware. Fargo has some great character names.
Hawley’s Alien series, also titled Alien because that won’t be in the least bit confusing, got through a few weeks of production post-strike over the summer by working only with Equity actors from Britain, but they eventually had to shut down because they needed their SAG cast members. They’re supposed to resume in the new year.
On this trip to space, Olyphant will play a “synth”, a robot in the world of Alien (think Michael Fassbender in the prequel movies). His character is a “mentor” to series star Sydney Chandler’s character. But will he play a space daddy this time? Not a Space Dad, that’s Pedro Pascal’s job on The Mandalorian. Timothy Olyphant plays Cobb Vanth in that series, a laconic lawman who is also a silver fox and pure space daddy. Michael Fassbender played his synth character as a weird, murderous perv. Can’t wait to see what choices Timothy Olyphant makes to play his space robot.
