Falling Skies (New TNT Sci-Fi Series)

This is a new sci-fi series that starts tonight and looks like it could be interesting.

Steven Spielberg is the executive producer and Noah Wylie stars.

It's about resistance fighters fighting against an alien invasion.

Tonight is the 2-hour pilot (I will have to record since I don't want to miss the season finale of Game Of Thrones.)

 

Giving it a shot tonight.

 

I don't have to record it, since they are showing it twice tonight. I'll be watching the second showing. The previews definitely got my interest.

 

I'll watch it tonight also.

 

I liked it and will be tuning in for the rest.

 

I liked it, but oh my god . . ten minutes of show, the "here's what's coming up", then commercials, then ten more minutes (including what we just saw "coming up" . . what an aggravating way to start a show.

 

Very irritating. They also seemed a bit 'cash strapped' in the special effects department - especially for a series premere.

 

That's how you turn an hour show into a 2 hour "spectacular".

Any day now, I expect to see pop-ups promoting the very show I'm watching.

The commercial for The Protector on Lifetime was odd, as that show airs during the second half of FS.

 

The promos for this I saw at the movie theater two weeks ago looked pretty exciting.

 

How soon until we find out that the Skitters are harnessed aliens?

Chad

 

Utter crap - the clichéd philosophical differences in approach between Wylie's character and the leader of "Massachusetts 2," the constant ridiculous attempts to create an analogy between the fight against the alien invasion and the Revolutionary War, the older son whose desire to "act" is not yet balanced by the wisdom his father possesses, the "subclass" of criminal types who band together not to fight the aliens but to profit from chaos, the (obvious) burgeoning love interest between the humanist leads (in this case, an historian and a doctor), the innocent young son of the historian who reminds us of what we've lost by wishing for birthday cake and skateboards - but who's pure of heart enough to simply wish for things to be like they were before, the tough criminal chick who ends up having a heart of gold, blah blah blah.

Not one thing original in the whole series. Wylie's a likeable actor / character, but this series has not one unique moment or idea.

 

The whole series? Do you mean to write "in the premiere"?

I agree, this was a waste of time. I look for new ideas, or at least a little innovation, in science fiction, but I found nothing but an unimaginative "re-imagining" of boring clichés.

 

Not a big fan of series starting after the fact because I bet they will use plenty of flashbacks on how it was before and how it started to fill in the hour.

 

That was a weak pilot. I may watch some additional episodes, but there was little originality.

 

Looks like Jericho with an alien angle. So far underwhelming.

 

I thought the second part was much better than the first. I'm less interested in watching them fight aliens (I can watch Battle Los Angeles if I want that) and more interested in the descent to "Lord Of The Flies" style living that would occur in a situation like that.

Yeah, it reminded me of Jericho too.

 

The whole series? Do you mean to write "in the premiere"?

No, i've seen the first (and likely only) ten hour-series via a friend who's "involved." (Let me put it that way.) I won't offer spoilers, and so I've kept the cliché mentions to what's been aired, but it doesn't - for the most part - get any better or offer any new takes on what's a very overdone sort of tale. I like these sorts of things, in theory, but in practice they play far too strongly to stereotypes and too far from how the psychology would work out in a real life situation. FWIW, expectations were pretty low once production had been going a while.

 

Thanks. You just saved me several hours I could never get back.

 

It looks like The Walking Dead, take zombies out, put aliens in, but boring.

 

The Walking Dead is definitely better.

 

A perfect summation of the show. If Spielberg's name had not been attached to the teaser, I doubt anyone would have ever given the show a chance. Nothing about the pilot told me it was anything else but formulaic TNT fodder.

 

I agree with all that posted on this rehash of all those surviving humans against the invaders series and movies that have gone before. Absolutlely nothing new here. And don't get me started on TNT's commercial breaks. I'm done w/this series.

-Steve D.

 

When I got to see the entire series, it was without commercial breaks. But out of curiosity, I watched about 40 minutes of the broadcast version, and I was astonished at the frequency of commercials.

What was oddest about it was that a pretty hefty percentage of the commercials were simply ads for the series I was watching! What's the point of that, except to alienate people already viewing the show?

 

I suspect it is to confuse people fast forwarding through commercials and get them to stop, so they can cause you to see one commercial strategically placed right after the "commercial" that looks like show content.

I was also very annoyed with the giant TNT logo and the giant "FALLING SKIES - SERIES PREMIERE" spashed across the bottom of the screen. I know nearly all the networks to this now, but it drives me crazy. There's no need to constantly display a logo or the title or the fact that this is a new episode on the damn screen!

 

I'll say this: they at least covered in the dialog some of the weird dichotomies of the aliens, like their spider-like 6-legged physical appearance, but that they had 2-legged robots. They're stringing us along before answering the most important question: why are the aliens here? Why are they killing adults, while turning the kids into pod people? (I have other questions, like how could a spider-alien breathe air and function under Earth gravity and air pressure, but I'll save those for later.)

Some recent movie references in this TV show:

District 9
Independence Day
War of the Worlds (both of them)
Battle: Los Angeles
Skyline
Walking Dead
Jericho
and maybe even a little The Happening

plus about fifty more I can't think of at the moment. There's a whole lotta genre-stealing going on here. The effects were decent for TV, and I think the actors' performances were sincere, but the whole thing is a retread (also shot in Vancouver, filling in for Massachusetts).

I also agree with all the complaints about the incessant promos and the vile lower-third graphics. I don't mind a tiny channel-identifier bug placed off to one side, but bright, animated graphics that dance across the screen and demand your attention are just grotesque. I should patent a device that automatically inserts a black border along the bottom to cover up this crap whenever it happens. A piece of black cardboard and a string would work.