Spoilers follow for Alien: Earth through Episode 7.
Travis? Taylor? Pfft. America has a new sweetheart, and her name is… Well, she has a couple of names, from Trypanorhyncha Ocellus, to T. Ocellus, to Species 64, to simply The Eye. Whatever you call her, though, Alien: Earth’s horrible octopus eyeball monster has captured the love of viewers everywhere thanks to a mix of fascination and revulsion. And even beyond what we all see on screen, fans are taking inspiration from The Eye to make everything from fan art to LEGO builds to even elaborate cakes.
In a show that already includes one of the most iconic monsters of all time, the Xenomorph, what is it about The Eye that has created such a subcultural captivation with the “character?” We’ve already gone in depth about this before, but in order to get into the topic even further, IGN reached out to a few of the many craftspeople who are diligently paying tribute to next year’s assured Lead Actress winner at the Emmys to find out why we’ve all gone eye-crazy. And particularly in light of the events of this week’s episode, which finds Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) becoming utterly engrossed (and us grossed out) with the currently-possessing-a-sheep Eye, it’s likely that we’ll see a severe uptick (no shade to fellow Alien: Earth creatures The Ticks) in #EyeBoy fanfic on AO3. Meaning Eye Fever is just getting started.
“The official name for the creature we used during production on the show was the Eye Midge,” Alexandra Rebeck, the lead VFX Coordinator for Alien: Earth told IGN over email, “but I love all the names that people on the internet are giving it just as much! I think one of my new favorites I’ve heard recently is Eyelene! So cute!”
@alex_rebeck After three days of baking and cake decorating my Eye Midge cake is finally complete! Just in time to celebrate the next episode of Alien Earth 👽🌏🎬💕 . . . . . #alienearth #cake #cakedecorating #eyemidge #halloween ♬ Halloween Theme - John Carpenter & Cody Carpenter & Daniel Davies
“Midge,” by the way, is likely a reference to the small, annoying flies of the same name, but if you want to start calling The Eye “Midge” that’s probably a-okay as well. In fact, we’re going to do that in the rest of this article. But more to the point, the reason we were talking to Rebeck in the first place was less about VFX and more about CFX – aka, Cake Effects, a term we just coined. While production on Alien: Earth wrapped in Thailand in July of 2024, and visual effects are done, too, Rebeck is a devoted baker and crafter. And what drew our attention was the stunning Midge cake Rebeck posted on TikTok on September 9.
As she explained, “On every show I work on I always get inspired to challenge myself to recreate props, creatures, or characters from the project as baked goodies – usually for the team for birthdays or special events! Even though our work on Alien: Earth is finished, it’s still fun to bake for friends and team members to continue to celebrate the hype for the show!”
And in fact, this cake was for a specific team member: Babou Ceesay, who plays the enigmatic cyborg Morrow on Alien: Earth. “He was visiting LA this week from Gambia, where he lives,” Rebeck explained. “Last time we had met up to celebrate the show was at San Diego Comic-Con – I had mentioned wanting to bake a cake for him next time he visited LA so I had to live up to the promise! He LOVED the cake!!”
That’s all well and good, but why Midge? Why not a cake that looks like Wendy (Sydney Chandler), or even the Xenomorph itself? As Rebeck explained, “Of all the new alien creatures revealed in Alien: Earth, it has the most character! It can come across as cute and quirky but can also quickly turn horrific and terrifying when it switches into attack mode! You never quite know what it’s thinking, but you always know it’s up to something!”
Rebeck is far from the only person who has been inspired by Midge, though most of them aren’t quite so close to the production. Travis Knight is a designer and illustrator from Tennessee who has worked for everyone from Netflix (for a Stranger Things 4 collab with Target), to Warner Bros. and DC Comics. However, he has not worked for FX or Hulu – at least not yet – but he was just inspired by his love of Alien: Earth to create a completely fan-made cross-section of what he imagines is Midge’s anatomy, which Knight posted on Instagram.
“It has a very classic creature design,” Knight explained. “It's basic and not too complicated, almost like it was designed by a child. The creature is just an octopus with a giant eye on top! Brilliant.”
As for the piece, Knight was “inspired by the Kaiju cross-section posters done by Shoji Ohtomo from the late ’50s and ’60s. I love making up anatomy for creatures. I love science illustrations, but I'm terrible with actual facts, so fictional monsters are perfect for me.” The work itself was done in Procreate, a creative design app, with the color, shading, and labels all done in Photoshop. All in all, the piece took Knight about eight hours to complete – though he does caution that viewers should “please ignore than the brain is labeled ‘Brian.’”
David B. Cooper, an artist who takes inspiration from The Simpsons, Batman vs. Frasier (really) and more, also posted a piece of art inspired by Midge on Instagram, though it’s a little more whimsical than the analytical cross-section shared above. Also drawn in Procreate, though it took Cooper a mere 40 minutes or so, Midge is wearing a top hat and brandishing a cane because, Cooper explained, “I wanted to draw him as he's taken on this life of his own, and then I added the top hat and cane because it's funny to me to imagine him basking in his new spotlight.”
We won’t knock Cooper for potentially misgendering Midge, as there’s only been one off-hand “she” applied to the character on the show so far. But the artist has the interesting perspective that, “I'm not sure the Xenomorph could have necessarily held an eight episode series alone. The Eye stands out because he seems to be cunning and clever, planning out things, and when you have a character like that who can't make their motives known (not verbally at least), it's very compelling. He might be the final boss of the entire season, I'm not sure yet, but it's fun to wonder.”
Menapian, whose medium is LEGO, got even more specific about what’s so great about Midge: “It's like Hannibal Lecter crossed with Baby Yoda!”
Menapian has posted multiple LEGO builds on the LEGO Ideas site, including a staff pick for an Around the World in 80 Days model. But the Midge model shared on Instagram is delightfully simple: created in the LEGO Studio software, it includes only 75 pieces, and Menapian put it together in just over an hour.
“It walks an amazingly fine line between creepy and cute, tapping into a lot of phobias about eye trauma but also having something endearingly cartoonish about its design,” Menapian mused. “It's clearly very intelligent too, and some of the best parts of the show are when we see it observe and manipulate its captors… Go Team Eyeball!”
These are well and good, but you can look at Rebeck’s cake and wonder what it tastes like (sorry, it’s digesting in Babou Ceesay’s stomach right now), or try to build the LEGO model yourself (which Menapian shared on the site Rebrickable). But who among us wouldn’t want to just snuggle with Midge after a long day? Not one, but two different Etsy craftsmen are selling cuddly crocheted versions of Midge.
Jennifer Sinden of Shadow Crafted Crochet was initially “horrified” by Midge, “but seeing how much personality and intelligence they were able to give an eyeball has been amazing. After Episode 5, watching it battle a Xenomorph, I fell in love with it. I turned to my fiancé and said, ‘I think I can make that.’” And indeed, Sinden did make that, her fiancé posted it on the Alien subreddit, and due to demand, posted it on Etsy. In addition to three different crocheted takes on Midge, Sinden also offers a digital download of the pattern, so you can crochet it yourself.
Meanwhile, Michelle of Feathered Donkey called Midge “Sinister, but cute!” and added that she’s always been fascinated by horror and science fiction… And in particular has always been enamored with eye-related creatures. She even made an “eye spider” previously, so, “when I saw the T. Ocellus in Alien: Earth I couldn’t believe my eyes! (lol sorry) All I had to do was slightly tweak my design to make it more alien-like, giving me my very own version of an eye monster!” Michelle created it with acrylic yarn, and can usually get a couple done a day. “It’s such a horrendous concept, something burrowing into a skull through an eyehole,” she added.
With one episode to go in the first season of Alien: Earth, it’s likely that Midge-mania won’t die down any time soon. Rebeck notes that since she’s “currently between film projects at the moment I have plenty of time to bake so I may be attempting to create some other Alien: Earth themed treats again soon,” and adds that she’s open to cake commissions in LA… Doesn’t your kid* want a Midge cake for their next birthday? (*You. You want one.)
But Knight probably has the clearest take on why it is that we’re so obsessed with Midge. “At first glance, the creature seems somewhat harmless and kind of goofy,” Knight said. “It's a little disarming, and I think that's what makes it so terrifying and effective. It's all fun and games until it starts moving and going for your eye socket.”
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