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Falling Skies


Gerard Daver
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I'm still working on learning any of the characters' names beyond Weaver (the gruff commander) and that charming young Dr. Carter from ER, but we're otherwise getting to know Our Heroes in ample enough doses for my tastes. It's a mishmash of The Walking Dead with a brisker pace, V with likeable characters, and District 9 minus the likeable aliens and F-bombs...but it's a surprisingly competent, frequently surprising mishmash. Besides the fabled (if likely honorary) name of Executive Producer Steven Spielberg in the credits, I was heartened to recognize the names of all the writers and directors of the first two hours, too. (I get edgy sometimes if I don't recognize the names.) The effects were well above Syfy level, to boot.

 

I'm in. It sure helped me forget about last night's TV disaster in our household. I'm grateful to it for that alone.

 

Favorite line, even if it came off belabored: "Being the leader of a post-apocalyptic gang of outlaws has been exhausting." Definitely wanna see more of that guy.

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  • 3 weeks later...

It seemed like a different take on the Walking Dead. Instead of zombies, you have aliens. Same problems, same outlook on life, same type of group.

 

This was my thought as well. I've only seen the first episode (it only started this week over here), and I thought it was okay, but I'm not sold on it just yet.

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I'm still with it, I like it.

 

I like how they aren't spelling out all the details for us. Most other shows I think would spend some significant time talking about when and exactly how they first invaded, and I haven't seen much reference to any of that here, other than the first scene of the series.

 

And while I want to know more about it, I think it's better that you keep it in the background.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest bodega

Only caught one episode. It's done good so far to keep it interesting, mysterious and pretty character driven. I would like to know more about the harnessed children. It also takes place in the area that I live so the endless references to roads, highways and small towns outside the city get me all giddy.

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"You barely know me from Adam, but all the top Army guys said you should totally do what I say no matter how outlandish it sounds." Yeah, kind of an easy call. This was another one of those times where my wife had her back to the TV the whole time, has never watched a single episode, and even she knew where it was going.

 

I did appreciate that there was some vigorous debate over the situation first before the telegraphed "twist" finally came to pass. In other shows that debate would last all of 90 seconds before everyone agrees to be suckered.

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To be fair, in real life people would fall for this ****, especially if the dude was known by a couple people in the company. Just from a TV standpoint, though, it was totally ****ing obvious.

 

Put another way, your best friend is going to be cheating with your girlfriend 50-75% of the time on TV, but in the real world it's probably only about 10%. So if you wildly accuse them in real life just because it's a cliche, you're going to ruin your life for nothing.

 

So I give TV a little pass, but if I was writing it I'd have gone a different way. Like introducing that dude in the pilot, giving him some solid scenes and lines, then have him go off with his own group until this episode when he returns. That'd have been a much better setup, especially if he was brave and likeable in the pilot.

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Probably one of the most boring pilots I've ever watched and TNT lied about the limited commercial interruptions. I'll give the rest of the episodes a shot because there is something there but I just didn't connect on the first try.

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The unlimited interruptions are easily my least favorite part of the show. I don't watch any other TNT shows right now, and a sardine-packed hour's worth of the same six ads for each and every one of 'em isn't the way to get me to reverse my position.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I haven't noticed that because I DVR everything and skip commercials.

Seriously? I fast forwarded through more commercials in the two hour premiere than all the episodes I've watched thus far! There was a four minute commercial break in between every two or three scenes.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I like the finale of Falling Skies. It has some potential to get my full attention next year. Personally, I think this story would work better as a book or book series, though. But there are very few things I don't think wouldn't work better as a book.

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  • 3 years later...

EL BUMPO

 

I'm working on a scifi pilot so I started to check out the various scifi shows out there to see what was brewing, and Falling Skies took me by surprise. I had written it off as basic cable nonsense years ago and pilot sucked me in enough that I spent the weekend mainlining season 1. Have to say, I enjoy it.

 

What I'm trying to figure out though, is with so many similarities to Walking Dead, what exactly puts the latter in a class above? Don't get me wrong, Walking Dead has it's problems and is uneven-- but the quality of it is superior to Falling Skies.

 

but..

 

on paper, the scripts themselves aren't all that far off from each other... the tones are similar... the direction of Falling Skies is much faster paced, the cast is 3 times as large... but the cinematography feels like TV, where as Walking Dead looks like a movie. Is that all it tkes I wonder?

 

One thing about Falling Skies that's terrible, at least in season 1, is the score. I actually find the music incredibly distracting, more so than any show I've ever watched. Over-scored, generic and typical-- worse, very leading in terms of suspense.

 

But yeah-- I'm in for mainlining another season to see how it goes...

 

And man, they sure wrote off blonde girlfriend one fast to move in blonde girlfriend two.

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Falling Skies in its early days seemed a lot more optimistic than Walking Dead, and even some positive faith-based emotions were allowed here and there. That's exceedingly rare. Noah Wyle was a decent father figure and alien-war hero, and his history-class speeches could be entertaining sometimes. Most of the rest of the cast were on point (Pope used to be MVP), with a few exceptions who (mostly) improved over time. But yeah, from a cinematography standpoint, it still had more of a TV feel than a movie feel, especially in the episodes with more humans and fewer CG Skitters. But that's not something I normally sweat if all other elements are working.

 

...

 

Speaking of which: if/when you get to it, I'm really sorry in advance about season 4. Especially the one episode where the showrunners thought the viewers at home might not know what the "Hitler Youth" was.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

Wow, I only made it through the first 2 or 3 episodes, and didn't realize this show was still on.

 

I don't even remember much of what I did see, however, what I can say is why I stopped watching, if that will help.

 

While I never thought to compare Falling Skies to Walking Dead, the idea that FS feels too much like a TV show, and not enough like a movie IS spot on. In fact, the over optimism was there, too, which also made it feel too "TV." Also, every character seemed almost like stock characters that could have been re-used in any story, and not unique to this one. And once the mythology of being a post-invasion Earth with most people killed off, and the rest of humanity just hiding in the shadows was established, it quickly (almost instantly) devolved into a typical action show. A show need not have the best FX (hello Babylon 5) to hook me, but its got to have some good, suspenseful writing. Maybe this all did get better after I stopped watching, but for me at least, a show has to hit a home run right off the bat to pull me in, and the first two shows didn't do that for me.

 

Also, I found it a bit derivative of three previous shows: V (both the original AND remake series, the Latter I stopped watching for much of the same reasons as Falling Skies), and season 2 of War of the Worlds (the old Fox show, where they completely revamped the show so much it might as well have been another one). The original V was very enjoyable, but at the same time I was a kid when it came out. So my standards were a lot lower (and when I rewatched it on DVD, it still is through rose glasses). So, when the remake rolled around well into my adulthood, even though they updated and changed quite a few things, it just, eh, wasn't believable (or at least motivated me to suspend my disbelief), and just didn't hook me. As for WOTW, even in first run it was bad. I stuck with it because quite simply, in 1989, I was in that teen phase of monsters and gore, a la Crypt Keepers and Freddy.

 

But the thing that all of those shows share is this: Aliens all but conquer Earth. The aliens have technology hundreds if not thousands of years ahead of Earth, and the aliens themselves are stronger, faster, and smarter than any human. Yet, we are to buy the fact that the humans can somehow out-think them at the end of the day, and defeat the aliens because they discovered some fatal Ex Deus Machina flaw in the aliens. One that no other race the aliens conquered has discovered, and one that can hand the humans complete and total victory. It's just up to our heroes to carry it out. Now I know a lot of shows use that in some form. Stargate certainly did, but somehow it worked for me. For V, WOTW, and Falling Skies, for me, it just doesn't.

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I totally agree that this show is somehow an extension of the original V-- I think that is partially why I like it so much. The original V miniseries and the follow miniseries were actually super influential on me as a kid.

 

But yeah-- you're right. Part of that "too TV" formula involves a level of optimism and a return to safety that makes for less tension-- even with semi-regulars getting killed off on occasion.

 

Funny enough, one of my biggest criticisms of Walking Dead is that while I don't expect them to cure zombie-ism, the occasional bit of levity or reward for the audience makes it hard to hang.

 

One thing I do like abut Falling Skies is they aren't afraid to push their story into new territory. Walking Dead 's singular goal of survival often puts them in a holding pattern which is where the show loses its power, sometimes for whole seasons. Falling Sky sets out goals for its survivors, and they actually achieve them, or at least fail at them with enough vigor as to keep moving t the next goal. The ongoing theme of survival is there, but at the same time the story feels proactive.

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