So, which one is it? I'm not really sure. Falling Skies premieres Sunday night on TNT and as you can tell by the timing of my post (on premiere day) I'm not a huge fan. I don't hate it, either.
I'm just kinda ... sorta ... what was it we're talking about?
Here's the premise, which is related to us in the opening credits by the Noah Wyle's characters young son while we look at pictures he's drawn in crayon of the attack on the Earth by aliens ... big spaceships come from ... somewhere ... and chaos ensues. 90% of humanity is wiped out, kids are taken live and fitted with devices (called "harnesses") that attach to their spinal columns and turn them into zombie-like creatures.
But we don't get to see any of that. Maybe later on?
There is a resistance to the alien occupation. Structured as 100 fighters to each 200 civilians, this one group we follow is headed by a grizzled Vietnam vet played by Will Patton. Wyle plays Tom Mason, a former history prof at Boston University who is Patton's second in command. He has three boys, two of them (Matt & Hal, played by Maxim Knight and Drew Roy) are with him and a third (Ben, played by Connor Jessup) is one of those kids wearing a harness.
The wife apparently died in the initial attacks. Moon Bloodgood plays a pediatrician that travels with our group of 300 (I'm sure history guy Tom will reference the Battle of Thermopylae, eventually). I imagine at some point she'll be Tom's love interest.
I like science fiction shows that are big on details and the heightened excitement that comes from reveals during the show. The problem with Falling Skies for me is that it's really cheap when it comes to handing over details. We don't get to see the initial alien attack. There's no talk at all about why the aliens are there at all, just resignation that they are. The only thing that intrigues is this harness thing that the aliens strap connect to the spinal columns the kids they catch.
Kids. Being used by aliens for nefarious means that aren't immediately apparent. Sounds like a great sci-fi miniseries from two summers ago that we called Torchwood: Children of Earth. They did a much better job feeding the details of its story. Then again, it was just a five episode series.
Still, at the end of the first hour of tonight's two-hour premiere event (actually two episodes just running one after another) it felt like an episode of CBS' failed Jericho from a few seasons back seen through the filter of a Syfy Channel movie.
Oh, and the CGI is not great. You might think something with Spielberg's name on it would have great effects. You would be wrong. You'll see.
The second hour's story concerns itself with a post-apocalyptic biker gang who our group come up against at a weapons depot. The leader of said gang is played by a guy named Colin Cunningham and you'll be happy to see him, he really livens things up. His scenes with Wyle in this second hour are totally responsible for my even posting about the show and by the end of the episode it seems as if we'll see more of him, which is a good thing for those of us who slogged through all the family drama of hour one.
Is this the alien attack show you've been waiting for? I don't quite know. The Event was not, V stands for very campy and that's gone, FlashForward did not go forward. That doesn't really spell well for yet another post-apocalyptic sci-fi drama.
Of course Falling Skies is not just that, it's the story of the Mason family, too, making this a cocktail of two different genres. Should be interesting to see if they can feed both stories to the satisfaction of the various audiences they hope will tune in.
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