Falling Skies

When this show was first announced, I had a passing interest in it.  That is to say I immediately thought, “That would be cool” and then another more rational voice in my head said, “No, you only want it to be cool.”

I mean, what’s not to like about the concept?  If you’re me, at least.  Post-apocolyptic.  A mystery about what happened and why.  Follows the survivors and deals largely with their survival.  I know there are a lot of shows out there now that seem to be post-disaster shows.  With Walking Dead already in my queue, I figured I’d pass on this one.

Jump to a couple weeks ago when the fourth season of Breaking Bad came out on DVD (my favorite show currently running) and I headed up to Best Buy to grab a copy.  While I was there, I passed by the first season of Falling Skies and it was on sale, so I figured I’d pick it up too.  My wife and I put it on the side and watched through Breaking Bad, but then we picked up Falling Skies.

The first show started a bit differently than I expected.  I thought the show would be kinda like an extended Independence Day or V – we would see the aliens arrive, watch them launch their attack, etc.  But instead they summed all of that up in the first minute or two with a voice-over.  All that stuff didn’t matter to the show.  Or rather it mattered, but it wasn’t the focus.  Instead we were eight months later where the survivors of the attacks were trying to do something.  Fight back, or just survive.

The setting started in Boston with a bunch of soldiers in the 2nd Massachusetts.  But they weren’t all soldiers.  A lot of them were civilians that were now serving alongside the military.  And then there were just the civilians that were staying near the military for protection.  Things were going poorly in Boston, and the army had to split into smaller groups to flee the city.  So straight away we had a hundred soldiers leading two hundred civilians out of Boston trying to avoid the aliens and the like.

Characters came in fast, from the civilian doctor, to the history professor-turned-soldier.  The head of the military stuck the history professor with the captain of the 2nd Mass in order to give someone to watch over the civilians.  Evidently the captain had a more military bend of mind and sometimes saw the civilians as a detriment.

As the story grew, the focus was primarily on the characters.  The writing was surprisingly good, sometimes taking a good amount of time to focus on small conversations that really don’t do much to advance the plot, but really get into the feeling of being a survivor.  What do you talk about when the world is completely changed?

I know there are some complaints about the show.  It’s not strong on action.  The show slows down a bit at times because it focuses on the characters more than the plot.  For me, those are all strengths.  Like another show I recently reviewed, Jericho, the best part of the story isn’t the plot and mystery as much as it is watching the characters involved react to what’s happening.

The second season just started recently.  The wife and I have to rush through the first to get caught up.