Falling Skies: "Sanctuary, Part 1"

Season 1, Episode 6

The “children are in danger” trope finally backfires

“The longer the siege goes on, the more desperate people are going to get.”

-Weaver

Out of all the pre-air reviews of Falling Skies, the most common complaint/issue raised was that it was quite oblivious that the show was attempting to mine drama and tension from one of the most exploitative of plot devices: children. While most critics ceded that the tactic was working for now, there was the understandable doubt that such obvious pandering would grow old quickly.  Those fears resurfaced for me upon seeing the teaser for this week’s episode, which promised to focus on a possible threat to the children.

So then what is that threat, exactly? Well, for most of the hour, the threat remains vaguely defined, as a man named Clayton comes to town and suggests that the kids should go on ahead while the adults remain at the school to meet up with the 3^rd infantry/fight off Skitter attacks. Seems like an easy choice, right? Well, since this is Falling Skies, no, of course not, there needs to be a moral debate about such an issue.

To the episode’s credit, it does try to instill some nuance into this argument, by having the main characters – Tom, Weaver, those other soldiers whose names I don’t know – discuss the pros and cons of this plan, and conclude, that yes, this is the best option, but it might just cause a shit storm among the civilian parents. However the problem with this is that it was only the main characters who expressed this nuance. The other, tertiary characters – as exemplified by a character that I can only identify as Bald Dad – unfortunately only demonstrated resistance of plan in the most base of terms, that of “I’m not letting my children out of my sight.” This created an imbalance to those scenes where Tom was meant to convince the parents that they should let their kids go ahead, and it essentially sucked all of the air out of what could have been some tense scenes with a heated back-and-forth.

                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Of course, none of that really mattered in the long run, considering how the last few minutes changed things, reorienting the threat by having Clayton sell out the kids due to some agreement he has with the skitters. While this holds potential for next week, saving the reveal towards the end kind of robbed the body of this episode of a lot of momentum; seriously, nothing really seemed to happen until that final reveal. (Nor did it help matters that the parents let their kids go on ahead with an unbelievably small amount of resistance. Once Ben decided to go, the rest of the parents just kind of fell in line. Way to give into peer pressure, guys.)

Now, “Sanctuary” is ostensibly a two-parter, so I guess I should have seen something like this coming. But most two-parters (or at least the good ones) give you more to go on than just a final reveal, laying down several pieces of groundwork that will pay off in the next episode, some sort of new information that the show can play off of. Here, we just had more “military vs. civilians” discussion, and we’ve already seen enough of that in the previous five hours that this didn’t add anything. As such, Clayton’s betrayal didn’t need all that much set up, so all that talk over whether or not the kids were going to get sent ahead felt as if the show was just padding out the hour with a pile of pointless dribble.

That’s not to say that there wasn’t some groundwork laid tonight; it’s just that the groundwork that was laid was a bit more long-term in scope. (Also, without any real payoff, they didn’t really manage to land any sort of narrative punch.) The first bit of groundwork came in regards to Ann’s characterization, which got off to a rocky start last week, and didn’t really improve here. After being assaulted by a renegade family, Ann decides that she needs to take more control or something, and decided to learn how to use the gun that Maggie provides her. While I like the idea of Ann evolving into a more badass female character, it feels as if the show is perfunctorily following through with the weird bit of aggressiveness they gave her last week, and add on top of that that Ann is only doing this as a reaction to being robbed at gunpoint, and it takes some of the drive out of this development. I’m still holding out hope that this could be good, but it hasn’t been handled all that well so far, and with only four episodes left, I’m sure it will be just as rushed for the rest of the season.

The other bit of development was also a direct continuation of a question raised last week – what happens to the de-Harnessed kids – only here it’s handled far more overtly, to the point where it feels like the show is finally acknowledging this. (This is actually more a criticism of last week’s episode, where it seemed as if the show has unceremoniously done away with something that was a big issue in the previous episode.) Sure, having so Futuristic Xenophobe call Ben a ‘Razorback’ felt a bit hacky, but at least it means that the show is pointing towards a future conflict. The main problem here was that, much like Hal said, we didn’t see Ben before he was Harnessed, so it’s kind of difficult to see how’s he’s changed. The only contrast we have is the still zombie-like Ricky, and compared to that kid, Ben seems perfectly all right. (For the record, I also think the show is trying to blow out of proportion the fact that Ben misses the hive-mind state. He was in that state for months; of course it would be weird for him to be out of that.)

A lot of these criticisms of course might change in the weeks to come, as both the short- and long-term stories play themselves out. But for now, it’s all just a muddled mess of unrealized potential, and that doesn’t bode well for the show’s overall momentum.

Next Week: Okay, now the kids are in danger.

Spillover Thoughts:

Anybody else who watches this show on a standard def TV: Did your version of the show broadcast the “previously on” segment in 4:3 ratio, but the episode proper in 16:9? Because mine did, and it was weird.

Speaking of overly-simplistic, that shot of the Skitter crushing the globe was just an eye-rollingly obvious bit of symbolism.

So hey, Pope’s back. That didn’t take long.

Please don’t tell me that Tom holding Ann’s hand is meant to be the start of something already. Their platonic relationship was the one thing the show was consistently doing right.

“Don’t worry. Tongue depressors are the first thing they teach you in medical school.”

“She’s a good kid, she just picked a hell of a time to be 9 months pregnant.”

“And if it conflicts with some Hippocratic Oath, why don’t you just stitch the guy up after you shoot him?”

“Shouldn’t I, ya know, take a stance?” “You’re not the Terminator, honey, you’re just looking to defend yourself.”

“Am I in shock? I feel like I’m in shock.” “If you were older, we’d be giving you whiskey.”

“I remember you threw up on me. Then Matt threw up on me. It was one of the most memorable days of my life.” “At least Dad didn’t throw up on you.”

“’It’s gonna get better’? That’s the best advice a college professor give?”