New Summer Sci-Fi Series Preview: Falling Skies

Two Hour Premiere Sunday June 19th a 9pm, regular time-slot Sunday at 10pm

Falling Skies, TNT’s new sci-fi series, starring Noah Wyle is going to draw comparisons to previous efforts to depict the apocalypse. Just to throw out a few examples: Cylon occupied Caprica, the Epitaph episodes of Dollhouse, and the recently cancelled V. So the question then becomes, what separates Falling Skies from these others? Much like Cylon occupied Caprica, there are multiple scenes in the two hour premier where humans are hiding from their mechanical overlords; who happen to be out for a march. Now this may be a bit confusing to some, as Falling Skies has been advertised as an alien invasion series in the vein of V. What really separates Falling Skies from other recent apocalypse efforts, is that it tries to do a little of everything.

The series opens just after Earth’s “We Are Not Alone” moment. And the human response in Falling Skies is quite similar to the human response in The Walking Dead. The few remaining survivors have banded together to begin the process of fighting back against the occupying alien force. The way this is handled reminded me of Battlestar Galactica, the resistance are using military training and military tactics. Except there’s a bit of a historical twist, and that’s where our star comes in.

Noah Wyle plays Tom Mason, a Boston (presumably BU since Harvard didn’t come up 1,000 times, more on that in a moment) history professor dealing with a deceased wife and a son who has been taken captive. Now Tom has been tasked to put his knowledge of military history to the test, helping to lead the historically named 2nd Massachusetts regiment. I know TV is written for people with short attention spans and cell phones in their hand, but Mason repeats the fact that he’s a history professor, and that his son is captured, at least 1,328 times. This is why I’m sure he didn’t teach at Harvard, cause have you ever known someone associated with a top tier school to not mention it every other sentence. So I would have expected at least 2,640 references to Harvard.

Moon Bloodgood,  from Terminator Salvation, is also in this little project. What a great sci-fi name. Bloodgood, believe it or not is a family name from her Dutch-Irish father. Moon I have to assume is inspired from her Korean mother. Man what a great sci-fi name.

She plays Anne Glass and gets second billing in the series, so let that speculation commence (I’ve seen nothing, that’s not a spoiler, that’s just captain obvious talking). Glass is a pediatrician tasked with being the general medic of the 2nd Mass. Will Patton of Remember the Titans fame (apparently he was also in some small budget movie called Armageddon) plays Weaver, who’s all military smarts and Tom’s commanding officer.

I honestly think Falling Skies is worth a summer viewing. It makes several beginning writter mistakes, and seeing as how Executive Producer Steven Spielberg is plastered on everything, but not one mention of the head writer, makes me think it’s not the most experienced team. However, the premise is quite interesting, and there are enough mysteries to carry this show through baseball season.