It’s been a while since I wrote about a TV show, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been watching any. Lately I’ve been making the rounds with reality shows like Survivor and The Bachelor. I still have to stay tuned for South Park, Psych, White Collar… pretty much a variety of cable shows that have a reasonable shot at being renewed thanks to not having to yield the mega ratings required by networks. With that in mind I thought I’d take a gander at Falling Skies, the new alien invasion drama premiering on TNT. Ok, TNT did promise to send me an official alien invasion survival kit so the least I could do is watch the pilot. How bad could it be? Somewhere between awful and unwatchable.
We start approximately 6 months after the invasion, the events of which are recounted by the world’s most trusted historians: children. Alien forces have landed and had their way with us. It appears that many human children have been captured for unknown reason and those remaining have formed their own army. Presently the aliens have no physical weakness. Another thing they don’t have is sophisticated surveillance equipment or a reason to allow humans to roam the land.
Noah Wyle plays the role of Tom Mason, a former history professor turned resistance fighter. One of his three sons was captured by the invading intergalactic bugs and “harnessed”. Turns out these 6-legged freaks travels all this way to kidnap our children and implant devices on there spinal cords under their shirts—not just into them, but by obviously being careful enough to stretch their garments enough to fit the implants. Moon Bloodgood is doctor Glass, a pediatrician turned teacher/ER doc. That’s as far into the roll call as I want to take Falling Skies as it only gets more boring. Fine, I’ll go one more. Seychelle Gabriel had a bit part as Lourdes, a girl who with about 5 lines mentioned a willingness to maintain organized religion and an interest in Mason’s eldest Hal (Drew Roy). I want you to bare in mind that Lourdes has thus far been the deepest character. TV shows are character driven, that’s what separates them from movies. They reach iconic status through getting audiences to care about characters. If no one is interesting, then there’s no point in trying to make a multi-season series.
This is an epic sci-fi event so surely the visual effects make up for some dull characters. Thus far there have been fleeting glimpses of some (by TV standards) reasonably well rendered creatures. The aliens themselves are an insect-like near scorpion design. Their robots on the other hand stand on two legs. Either way you slice it, you miss the duel perspective of a show like V where the viewer is taken into the invader’s plotting. Such a shift would take us away from the dreadful humans, maybe even give the viewer an idea as to why the aliens can wipe out the military, any major city, but can’t cross over the highway and take out these humans who parade about in broad daylight.
With all this tension it’s so kind of Hyundai to step up to the plate and back the show financially, allowing us the pleasure of a limited commercial break screening. These jiffy breaks are well timed with show, giving us a break per scene. To put the stop to channel surfing, a teaser of the next scene is presented during the commercial break, essentially ruining the scene and making this in the Entertainment Tonight of all-conquering Martian sagas.
If you’re not yet convinced about Falling Skies then how’s this for a selling point: nothing happens. A snail paced storyline takes us from “aliens have control with humans posing no threat” to “aliens still have control with humans posing no threat”. This can be thanked for yet another asinine intraspecies conflict script. If aliens have arrived and made us their playthings and that makes you want to hunt people too, you might be a redneck. Stereotyping rears its head amid our surplus of clever lines and thrilling action. Uneducated country boy: bad. Guy who has to remind everyone that he was a history teacher: good.
Falling Skies is comparable to The Walking Dead on AMC. I originally typed out the word “similar” in that last sentence but I didn’t want to damage the reputation of a show that’s actually compelling. It’s almost as if the people tried a similar formula but forgot that an intelligent antagonist should be smarter than a zombie. Even taking that away, the grit of The Walking Dead puts actual suspense into every turn. The aliens are far more capable of striking at any minute, but their failure to attack leaves them to be forgotten by the audience. The Walking Dead also starts with our hero doing his everyday job, that way he doesn’t have to remind everyone that he was a sheriff and quote penal code.
Falling Skies credits Steven Spielberg as the executive producer. Don’t let that fool you as his name tends to get vaguely attached to a lot of subpar material. I would have been more impressed had the previews said “Written by Somebody you Know”. Maybe that would have been a more reassuring promise of quality.
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