The Men Who Fell to Earth

The Man Who Fell to Earth has always been more than a cult science-fiction story. Walter Tevis first imagined Thomas Jerome Newton in his 1963 novel as an alien who comes to Earth to save his dying world, only to become trapped and broken by ours. Nicolas Roeg’s haunting 1976 film, starring David Bowie, transformed that idea into one of the great screen portraits of alienation — a visitor with superior knowledge who still cannot survive capitalism, addiction, surveillance, loneliness, and human appetite. In this episode of Sound, Light & Frequency, Bryce and Brent follow the entire strange afterlife of the concept: the book, the Bowie film, the failed 1987 television pilot, Bowie’s late-stage theatrical work Lazarus, and the 2022 Showtime series that continues the story with Bill Nighy as an older Newton and Chiwetel Ejiofor as a new alien visitor named Faraday. Along the way, they ask why this one image keeps returning across generations: the brilliant but stranded being who walks among us, hiding in plain sight, desperate to get home. This is not just a fan conversation about a beloved science-fiction classic. Bryce and Brent connect The Man Who Fell to Earth to David Bowie’s own reported UFO experiences, to the changing way audiences think about aliens living among us, and to the larger Sound, Light & Frequency question: has Hollywood simply reflected our fascination with alien contact, or has it helped prepare us to imagine that the impossible may already be here? To learn more: www.SoundLightFrequency.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.