It’s been a while since I did any sort of movie or TV review so I figured it was about time that another one hit the old blog. This time it’s Falling Skies. I really wanted to love this show and it’s not bad. It’s just not good either.
So if haven’t seen it or even heard about it. Here’s the elevator pitch. Aliens invaded the Earth. Resistance fighters, well, resist. And our main character is on a quest to find his son (more on that later).
There’s something that bugged me after watching the first few episodes and I just couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Then it hit me this morning. The lawns. Yes, I know this really nitpicky but it’s where my suspension of disbelief started to crack and and I just plain started over thinking everything else. Take the time to go back look at the day time exterior shots especially in the residential areas. It’ll take some looking it’s there. Six months after the alien invasion, the lawns are still neatly manicured. My only guess is that aliens must still abide by the rules of the home owners association or they will get some very stern letters and a hefty fine. As we all know HOA’s are one of the ultimate forces in the universe. Then I thought about the buildings, the homes and the school where the fighters are hanging out. It was all just too clean. It just didn’t fit. It was outplace and just didn’t make sense. It’s like the aliens neatly packed up all the bodies and everything else then left the structures and their contents just standing in perfect condition. I know the real reason behind most of this and that’s budget. They just didn’t the bucks to make post apocalyptic landscapes for every shot. But if you’re working in visual medium, you need to make sure the visuals work with your story.

Let’s talk about those aliens a bit. You know, the Skitters. I can almost hear the pitch meetings. “Let’s make the aliens evil.”
“OK, they enslave everybody they don’t kill.”
“Not evil enough.”
“So what if they just enslaved children!”
“Yeah, that’s the ticket.”
I’m sure that it’s going to be explained sometime but till then it just comes off as cliched. You know like, “Mars Needs Women”.
There’s two major plot points that seem to be drive the story forward. Our hero is out to free his son who has been captured by the aliens. OK, I can live with that character motivation. No problem. The other is why are the aliens even here. And that’s where my inner geek really starts to cringe. I’m sure they’ll drag out this mystery for as long as they can but I have a very bad feeling about this.
Here’s what we know so far. The aliens show up and do precision strikes that let’s them pretty roll over the entire planet without any real problem. They leave a garrison or other force behind to continue the occupation. The morphology of the Mechs and the Skitters don’t match up. They enslaved human children and so far they have used them collect scrap metal. Wait. WTF? They cross interstellar space and they’re after scrap metal? Oh, boy. I see this going a couple of ways.
The aliens just tear through natural resources and travel thru the galaxy strip mining whatever planet they happen to come across. Because we all that only evil child enslaving aliens don’t recycle. Do want to know more? Or even worse. The Earth was conquered by a roving band of junkies dumpster diving hoping to find enough stuff of value to get their next fix.
But that’s not the worst possible outcome. Remember, the Mechs and Skitters have different morphologies. And they hit, retreated and left behind a force to scavenge materials. Why that almost sounds like something resistance fighters would do. So what if the aliens are resistance fighters too and their doing what they need to do to survive? And they’re facing off against an ever greater evil that just happens to be headed toward Earth. There’s only one thing to do. Reconcile with the erstwhile invaders. You know the ones that killed billions of humans and enslaved the children. And face off against an even bigger threat. OK, that may work depending on how they write it but….
So overall, I’d say the show is pretty mediocre. All the pieces of the creative machine that make a show just don’t quite come together. It just doesn’t have “it”. Now, I’ll probably still watch it but it’ll end up lower on my priority list.