Falling Skies Season 2 .... Errr Yay??

Falling Skies is back! What do you mean you don't remember it? It's the show with John Carter, from ER, except he has a beard now. Wait didn't he have a beard when he came back from Africa one season? Anyway, Falling Skies is back. Still not ringing any bells? It's the show with the Earth invasion and the characters are so self righteous that you end up rooting for the aliens. Now you remember it, well, it's back.

At the end of last season Tom Mason was taken away in the mother-ship. Having been abducted by aliens myself, I can tell you the production designer got the interior all wrong. Being inside a space craft is a lot like being lost in IKEA, but that is another, quite painful, story. If we thought Tom's parlez with the creatures was going to push the show along, season one was slow, we were mistaken after spouting some self righteous twaddle the aliens just left him in a field and didn't even give him the bus fare home.

So, if you watched the first episode, you will know, nothing much has changed in the Falling Skies universe. We still have the magnificently named Moon Bloodgood, and with a name like that she should be Potions master at Hogwarts, as the doe eyed doctor, a couple of interchangeable Mason sons, and Will Patton is still doing his spot on impression of Lloyd Bridges from the Hot Shots films; and of course we have the dialogue which lurches from pompous, corny, and toe curling, sometimes gloriously in one line. But we keep watching Falling Skies in the, increasingly, vain hope it has something up its sleeve that will make us nod our heads and think, now that's why I stuck with it. 

Yeah, I know, I'm kidding myself we will all start drifting away at various points in the season.

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Falling Skies - Drenched In Sentimentality.

Falling Skies ended its first season with the obligatory cliff hanger, as Tom Mason (Noah Wyle) entered the alien ship for some sort of negotiation. The poor creatures don't stand a chance, they will be obliterated by his self righteousness and dogged determination. I can envisage their heads exploding like something out of Mars Attacks!

That has been the problem with Falling Skies, any decent ideas and situations, and there have been one or two, have either been drenched in sentimentality or bludgeoned to death with rhetoric. So scenes that were supposed to be moving or stirring were neither. Another gripe I have is that too many of the supporting characters failed to pop. It was just herds of them, in the background, looking determinedly stoic or stoically determined. Only three have really made an impression. Noah Wyle was good, but basically just John Carter with a beard and rifle. Then there was Will Patton as Captain Weaver, I mentioned, in an earlier review, he seemed like Lloyd Bridges in the Hot Shots films. But that was in the earlier episodes. As the season wore on he became daffier and daffier until he resembled a cross between Foghorn Leghorn and Captain Bligh on speed. The real scene stealer has been John Pope (Colin Cunningham) the anti hero type, who looks like he should be fronting a 'prog rock' band. At least his character jumped out of the dull background. A few more like him and a little less self righteousness and I might actually be looking forward to the second season of Falling Skies.

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Falling Skies - Sombre and Self Righteous.

I really don't know what to make of Falling Skies, the latest, in what seems like an endless flow of shows about humanity on the brink. As you would expect, the tone is very Poe-faced, sombre and at times it makes Battlestar Gallactica look like Modern Family. But as alien invasions go, it's well done and the extra terrestials, skitters and mechs, are pretty skittery and mechanised in equal measures. But the characters leave me a little cold.

First off we have Noah Wyle as Tom Mason Minuteman and ex professor of military history, handy that. Has there ever been a more earnestly sincere actor as Noah Wyle? Here he looks upon the remnants of humanity with the same pained expression he looked at a ruptured spleen in ER. Then we have Will Patton as Captain Weaver, could somebody please tell me why Mr. Patton has decided to do a spot on impression of Lloyd Bridges from the Hot Shots films? It's crazily off putting but always raises a smile. Also I have to mention the magnificently named Moon Bloodgood, as the doctor type, not because she stands out or anything but because, with a name like that she should be teaching at Hogwarts.

Falling Skies is obviously supposed to nudge the viewer toward seeing similarities between the characters current predicament and the American war of Independence, like John Adams with spaceships or something. And just in case we're slow on the uptake, we get long conversations in front of a mural of George Washington and Benjamin Franklyn. If our heroes could harness their self righteousness as a weapon, they would send the aliens packing in an afternoon. I'm also living in fear of the fully functional laboratory turning up. Everyone of these kind of shows have them, thankfully The Walking Dead got its lab out of the way in one episode. But I think we all remember how fatally wedded Survivors was to its lab.

Despite all the gripes Falling Skies has a good pace to it and is pretty intriguing, so I'll be sticking around for the season.

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Falling Skies - Do First Impressions Count?

Tomorrow is the UK premier of Falling Skies on FX. Now I’ve put it on my planner but I can’t say I’m excited about watching it. If anything I’m nervous. I’ve seen the adverts whilst watching Dexter (which by the way is amazing) and from what I can tell it seems a little, dare I say it, cheap?

I mean I’m sure it’s not. Apparently Stephen Spielberg is involved and obviously it stars Noah Wyle from ER (always a good thing) so it’s not like we are dealing with a B list crew and cast. But from what I’ve seen from the previews (and I know it’s only previews) the CGI looks fairly poor and somehow I just can’t imagine the show being any different. Falling Skies is coming across as a poor mans Walking Dead but with aliens and everyone knows zombies are far more frightening then aliens.

Nevertheless I am going to watch it. One of my favorite shows is Medium and you can’t exactly call that high budget cutting edge stuff. Plus how bad can it be bad if Wyle and Spielberg are on board? Actually don’t answer that, let me find out on my own.

To be honest I don’t know what I’m complaining about. I sat through 3 extremely poor seasons of Heroes and was still involved. Yes I even watched the season with the carnival. If I can get into that, I can definitely get into this.