Noah Hawley's work on TV shows like Fargo and Legion has put him on the map as a master storyteller, so we're not exactly shocked to see so much hype surrounding his plans for an Alien TV series on FX.
Not much has been revealed about the project, though shooting started shortly before last year's WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes brought Hollywood to a standstill. That's since resumed, of course, and Deadline (via SFFGazette.com) reports that Foundation and The Killing star Sandra Yi Sencindiver has joined the cast as work continues in Thailand.
The trade also points out that the prequel series is likely to be set towards the end of this century, suggesting it takes place a few years before Prometheus and a few decades before Ridley Scott's classic Alien.
Hawley has, however, previously confirmed he's spoken with Scott (who serves as executive producer) and that his upcoming TV series will largely ignore the events of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant to stand on its own two feet as its own thing and a loose prequel to the original 1979 movie.
Back to Sencindiver, and it's said she'll appear in multiple episodes as a "senior member of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation." It's also said "there's scope for the character to grow in future series," meaning her character will be one to keep an eye on.
She joins a cast which includes Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Essie Davis, Adarsh Gourav, Kit Young, Timothy Olyphant, David Rysdahl, Babou Cessay, Erana James, Lily Newmark, and Adrian Edmonson.
Earlier this year, Hawley revealed he was informed by FX fairly early on that the cable network wanted multiple seasons, meaning he's been able to plan out a story with a definitive ending the show will build towards. "I think that endings are what gives a story meaning, and so you should never start a story without some sense of where it's going because then you can really build that meaning into it," he explains.
"With Legion, I had what felt like a three-act structure to it that I didn't know if that would be three seasons or five seasons, or whatever it was, but I sort of knew what a beginning, middle, and end was. And here, similarly, I knew that their desire was for a recurring series, not a limited series, and I had an idea that I was excited about, that I could see the escalation of it from one year to another."
"That's where we ended up not pitching them having a bible or pitching them blow-by-blow," Hawley continued, "but saying, 'Big picture: this is the first movement, this is the second movement, and we're ultimately going here.'"
The Alien TV series doesn't currently have a confirmed release window.