Well, nothing to watch on Sunday nights right now. I was a fan of V, but wasn’t blogging it, largely because it sucked. I guess that makes me not much of a fan: It had potential, it had Morena Baccarin, and it had a whole lot of stupid.
Falling Skies seems a little bit like what I wanted V to be: A real underground, really fighting back.
Falling Skies takes place shortly after “skitters;” insect-like aliens, have made short work of the Earth. All major cities, military vessels, satellites, and electric power were taken out in the first days. A resistance army, two-thirds civilian, is now trying to fight back, but mostly trying to stay alive and find food. Skitters kill adult humans but implant some kind of organic “harness” on children that controls them.
The show stars Noah Wylie as Tom, a former professor of military history who is now second in command of a resistance unit. His 17 year old son Hal is also a fighter, and his youngest son Matt is among the civilians. His middle son, Ben, is a skitter prisoner; harnessed.
The show is gritty, interesting, with excellent production values, a good cast, some cool stuff going on, and a high risk of becoming stupid down the road.
Spoilers ahoy! This is one of those two-hour pilots that is essentially the first two one-hour episodes. Episode one establishes the story, introduces the characters, and creates conflict. Episode two involves Tom’s search party getting kidnapped by an outlaw gang who want to trade them for the army’s best weapons. The “rival survivors” thing is inevitable. Making them all tough-outlaw-racist-rapist is beyond cliché. The whole thing was remarkably well done for what it was, but it was still a racist-rapist-outlaw cliché.
Weaver (Will Patton), as Tom’s commanding officer, is twelve kinds of stupid, and having a villain as the military leader is another cliché that bodes ill for the future of this series. Our sincere hope and expectation is that he’s killed off early. There is so much going on in this series, I don’t see why we need an evil commander fucking up the resistance by being a dick.
I missed the pilot and caught a rerun. I won’t be getting reviews up right after the episode, but a week late won’t continue if I stick with the show.
What did you think?
5 Responses to “Falling Skies: Pilot”
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One more episode of Treme to go. Then just a two-week wait for MM’s rival for best TV show ever, Breaking Bad, coming up on July 17. I would recommend using the time to see, or re-see, the first three season of Breaking Bad. Much better use of Sundays, and other days, in my opinion.
I keep meaning to, berk, but the truth is, I didn’t like the pilot and never looked back. I hope to get another of our writers on the case.
Breaking Bad`s first season is clearly weaker than any of Mad Men`s (but still light years ahead of The Walking Dead`s and especially The Killing). But in seasons 2 and 3, all of the elements gel together and the show becomes as good or better than Mad Men. Although BB`s female characters aren`t as richly drawn as MM`s, Bryan Cranston is definitely a more versatile lead than Jon Hamm.
These series need smarter aliens. If they could just figure a way to “harness” the Character Cliches on the ground after invading, there might be an original story in there somewhere.
And if I may add my Breaking Bad vs. Mad Men thoughts-
Due to the strike at the time, Breaking Bad‘s first season was clearly shorter than any of Mad Men‘s (but still calendar years earlier than The Walking Dead‘s and especially drier than The Killing‘s) In seasons two and three, the metallic lithium and anhydrous ammonia baked together quite nicely, and the show became more traditionally dramatically morally dubious than Mad Men, and this is certainly, obviously better. Thus because Walt White externally leads his double life while Don Draper mostly lives his internally, Bryan Cranston is a glaringly more versatile lead than Jon Hamm.
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All joking aside, I enjoy BB, as much as I enjoy MM (it IS humanly possible to avoid a false dichotomy!) Placing them side by side on a scale of good, gooder, goodest, isn’t very illustrative nor interesting imo. It is, to steal a cliche, (perhaps from the tough-outlaw-racist-rapists above) akin to comparing apples to oranges. Breaking Bad is excellent anti-hero television but as Danny might say, Mad Men is a fruit of a different color.
(Apologies to Oceanic, I went adverbally crazy, just in jest, not with malice; I detected a rhythm to play off. Unless you intended them as bait, to provoke a counterpoint, in which case, much like a bored halibut, I was snagged.)
the series need smarter stories….it is filled with stupidity and cliche….