Series Review: Falling Skies

Over the last week I’ve watched the 2011 SF series Falling Skies with my wife and youngest daughter. Two months ago I posted my impressions of the first couple episodes and now that we’ve finished the first season here’s what I’ve learned.

1) My youngest daughter likes bad boys (this does not bode well for her dating years)

2) The series is a pretty decent post-apocalyptic drama, which I’d rank slightly above Jericho (Aliens trump bombs), but slightly below Jeremiah, Survivors (2011) and my currently tied favourites The Walking Dead and the Battlestar Galactica reboot.

Throughout the ten episodes which made up the first season, the stories focused on the importance of sacrifice, family, teamwork and good communication. Also I really enjoyed the references to military history in terms of fighting an alien menace. The acting was strong, the story was engrossing, and although I wouldn’t have made all the same choices these survivors did, the fact that they focused on some pretty tough ones made for good drama.

As the series was renewed for a second ten-episode season to air next summer, I definitely look forward to it.

First Impressions: Falling Skies

Over the weekend I watched the first two episodes of the new SF series Falling Skies and so far I'm really liking it. The series stars Noah Wyle (from er and The Librarian series) as Tom Mason, a former history professor who is caught up in the aftermath of an alien invasion.

Unlike The Event, Falling Skies gives us aliens and an invasion directly from the beginning - instead of building up a mystery, we are given an action-drama set in the aftermath of an alien invasion.

The core of the show comes down to Tom and his three sons, an older teen, a middle teen and a little kid. The second son has been taken away by the aliens and put in a harness - a device the creatures use to control children and use them as manual labour. Tom and his other two children are part of a smaller group of rebels called the Second Massasuchetts, a group of 300 survivors looking to go to survive.

So far the series is pretty cool, and as a huge fan of post-apocalyptic stories, I've got to say it's right up my alley.