The chaotic aftermath of an alien attack has left most of the world completely incapacitated. In the six months since the initial invasion, the few survivors have banded together outside major cities to begin the difficult task of fighting back. Each day is a test of survival as citizen soldiers work to protect the people in their care while also engaging in an insurgency campaign against the occupying alien force. Survivors of an alien attack on earth gather together to fight for their lives and fight back. Spielberg's done this before with Saving Private Ryan– if a storyline makes for a good 2-hour movie, why not extend it into a series? Falling Skies is like a softer, less scary version of Spielberg's terrifying remake of War of the Worlds. It has a lot in common with other post-apocalyptic shows like Jeremiah, Jericho, and The Walking Dead, and borrows many concepts from them. Many reviewers are panning it for being too derivative or unoriginal, and I agree that it can be predictable and formulaic. It's not as creative as the much more ambitious Battlestar Galactica, Lost, or Sarah Connor. On the other hand, it is consistently well made and often eloquently written.<br/><br/>It has about three themes that it harps on repeatedly: the war against the alien occupation is akin to the American war for independence, family and tribal loyalty is important, and religion is a force that gives the survivors' struggles meaning. The last one used to be a commonplace theme in American television up until the rise of premium cable TV in the 1980s (full frontal nudity made religion seem prudish), and it's kind of refreshing to see it make a comeback.<br/><br/>On the nitpicky side, it's odd to see people behaving so normally and even sloppily considering the menacing presence of superpowerful alien overlords and their war machines. That element of terror from War of the Worlds had been lost. Characters in, say, The Walking Dead are always conscious of things like noise and light discipline, always walking on pins and needles for fear of being discovered and consumed by the enemy. Is this only because a convoy of refugees wouldn't look a cinematic if they drove without their headlights on at night? (Spoiler) I suppose could be because the aliens say they aren't necessarily bent on complete genocide, as is revealed in season 2. Still, the tone of the show always seems a bit too easy-going considering the fall of civilization and near genocide. Maybe it's so the kids in the audience won't have to hide under the bed.<br/><br/>In any case, I can still recommend the show as above average Vancouver scifi. It won't knock your socks off, but it's good enough to keep me coming back for more. I'll admit to being way behind on this series. I thought the previews looked good before season one aired, but I never got the chance to watch it. Now, having finally got around to watching it, I'm glad I didn't have high hopes going in. <br/><br/>The series begins after an alien attack has wiped out the world's militaries and sent all of humanity underground. How they did this is really hard to say, because the aliens seem pretty darn incompetent. <br/><br/>The freedom fighters in this series travel in a large caravan up an open street in broad daylight. The aliens don't see them, apparently. The freedom fighters set up camps in groups of hundreds in the middle of towns that have already been destroyed by the aliens. The aliens don't find them, even though their ships are constantly flying over.<br/><br/>At the beginning of episode two, our small group of heroes sends a dog out onto the lawn of an armory as a decoy. Immediately an alien mech comes out and targets it. The stupid humans rush in and rescue the dog. The mech somehow fails to shoot anyone. The next day the humans decide to return to the armory anyway, so of course they only send 5 or 6 people. They get inside and manage to fire guns and yell at each other, yet it now takes several minutes before the mech shows up. It still fails to kill anyone. <br/><br/>The aliens in this series are convenient. They show up only when they need to, and they rarely ever manage to kill or hurt anyone. Our plucky young band of heroes get themselves into mess after mess and almost always get out of them. It's kind of like Hogan's Heroes with aliens, except Falling Skies is unintentionally funny. <br/><br/>When you add in the fact that every episode has to meet the Spielberg- mandated heartwarming moment quota, it gets pretty old. Dad hugs son, son wishes his mom was still alive, son gets a Rip-It for his birthday and everyone gathers around and watches and smiles as he rides it. The bad acting and sappy sentimentality further damage the already shaky suspension of disbelief problems.<br/><br/>And yet, I'm still giving it a 4 out of 10 for at least being entertaining, in a bad B-movie sort of way.
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295 weeks ago