The Man Who Fell To Earth

The new Showtime series The Man Who Fell to Earth isn’t a remake — it continues the story of the cult classic Nicholas Roeg film, which starred David Bowie as Thomas Jerome Newton, a mysterious alien whose arrival on our planet ends in tragedy. So while the show starts decades after the film, with the arrival of a new titular man who’s fallen to Earth (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the original man is still there, albeit with a new face in veteran stage and screen actor Bill Nighy, beloved from roles in Love Actually, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Shaun of the Dead. Despite Bowie no longer being alive, there was never a question of continuing the story without the presence of Thomas Jerome Newton, according to co-creator Jenny Lumet. “He’s important — the first alien and the second alien that was alw...