Falling Skies: "Live and Learn"/"The Armory"

Season 1, Episode 1 & 2

The sci-fi romp provides good groundwork, as well as plenty of drama and thrills

Part of the reason genre shows are so often unsuccessful on a creative level is that the line between archetype and cliché for science fiction, fantasy, etc., is so thin that it is much easier to produce something that feels half-baked. A story has to reach deep into those archetypes and pull out something unique in order to avoid coming out off as hopelessly generic. Falling Skies seems aware of this trapping, as it clearly tries to rise above the base levels of cliché and give us a far richer show. The results are mixed, but it works more often than not, and they often point the way for even greater returns in the future.

For starters, let’s talk about what doesn’t work. The show, which is set in Boston, is clearly striving to set up some sort of Revolutionary War parallels within the story. (There are some over reference to such in the second hour.) But the problem with the parable is that it’s never solid enough to serve as artistic background, and every time it is overtly brought up within the character’s dialogue, it feels both unoriginal and forced. In fact, most of Tom’s (Noah Wyle) bits of historical knowledge feel wholly unnecessary to the plot; it is a character tic that that is almost quirk for the sake of quirk, and it gets old very quick. (Also, for a group of people supposedly from Boston, I didn’t hear anything that could be mistaken for a Boston accent. I’m all for avoiding stereotyping, but it just seems weird.)

But what about the characterization in general? Well, like the whole of the show, there is a good deal of effort put forth, but it never feels quite as good as one would hope. While nobody here exists as a lazy, simple cliché, they rarely rise above the status of “types”, and no one hear feels like a real person. But the positive thing about this is that these first two hours do lay out fairly clearly each person’s motivations and basic personalities, so you will automatically feel comfortable among these people going forward, and –even better – there seems plenty of room for character growth in the future.

Yet the show’s depiction of humanity is much stronger, and it is perhaps the best thing that the show has to offer to the cannon of sci-fi shows past. Much like the best zombie films, FS likes to keep its focus on the human survivors as opposed to the nasty threat that they face; the drama is derived from watching humans struggle against themselves in addition to the enemy. This tone is adroitly delivered by the opening minute of the series, which forgoes the traditional and boring route of showing the alien invasion, and instead settles for kids drawings accompanied by their voiceover explaining what happened. Not only does this move handle what could have been a mess of clunky exposition, but it also helps to convey a sense of creepy horror that the invasion itself never could have achieved. (Though much like Wyle, I do believe that the invasion could be used to a different dramatic effect sometime later in the series.)

Beyond this, the show’s focus on the human survivors leaves lots of room in the future for the show to tackle moral/philosophical issues. Ben’s capture by the aliens will and does obviously lead to a lot of “needs of the many, needs of the few” types of arguments, but there are also some other seeds placed in these two hours:

·         What place do regular citizens have in a post-apocalyptic world? Are they now less important than the soldiers?

·         What are we willing to sacrifice in order to win or world back? A dog? A 13 year old boy?

·         If humanity is destroyed by an Alien race, what does that mean for people’s faith? Where is God’s plan in such a brutal massacre?

·         And finally: If the aliens are also sentient creatures, what makes out lives so much more valuable than theirs?

Yes, many of these issues have been dealt with in other science-fiction stories – and some of them dealt with better than they were here tonight. But it says something about the show’s ethic that it would lead off with these questions early; the show clearly intends to be something more than just meat-and-potatoes sci-fi. There’s a deeper level of character the show wants to explore, and that in and of itself is respectable. But factor in the fact that most show’s only get better after their first few episodes, and it’s quite possible that FS could eventually take us to some very new and interesting places.

Yet despite all of these dividing issues, and the general dour demeanor of the show, there is still an underlying layer of hope in all that the humans do, and that’s something that’s vital if the show hopes to keep viewers locked in for the long-run of the show. It’s important to keep your show from being too somber, or else the audience becomes frustrated with how depressing everything is. And though most of these moments of sentimentality are as treacley as such Steven Spielberg productions can get, they serve an important purpose, and if the show can manage to reel these moments back a little bit, and have them fit the overall tone a bit better, than they could prove to be the most powerful moments the show can do.

But none of this expresses how fantastic this show looks. Often times on a basic cable show, it’s quite evident that the show is working with a limited budget. Falling Skies does indeed have a slightly higher budget than most cable shows (seriously, TNT sunk a lot of money into this show), but it’s still a TV budget, so it surprising how good all of CGI looks. Now most of this is due to the fact that we don’t see the aliens all that often (a la the shows focus on the human survivors), but I also get the sense that Spielberg pulled in a few favors to get this show the best production team possible. But even when the CGI isn’t on the screen, the show manages to us the lighting in such a way to express the dour nature of the survivor’s plight. And all things considered, I think that’s the greatest accomplishment when it comes to the show’s visuals.

Falling Skies isn’t perfect, but it is much better than you would think given both the network that it premiered on and its status as a summer series, and for that reason alone I recommend adding it to your weekly watching schedule. But it’s also a show that holds great promise, and it promises to boast plenty of fun along the road to self-improvement.

Next Week: The hunt for Ben begins.

Quotes, Etc:

Tonight’s premiere, as we were needlessly reminded, was brought to us by Hundai. But the really annoying thing were the inter-episode previews. How short of an attention span does TNT think we have?

While I like the idea of having the title card be interrupted by electronic interference, the quick jump to it doesn’t do the episode any favors momentum-wise. I hope it’s different in the future.

I for one would be more than happy to have the moniker “Professor Kickass”.

I too often find myself staring at a stack of Blue Books wondering how I can avoid grading them. (Though he’s a tenure professor and he doesn’t have student aides to grade those tests for him? What kind of crappy university does he work for? Cambridge? Really???)

I see a pregnant lady. Who wants to bet there’s a birth that takes place during a firefight before the season’s out?

“Wow. Thin walls. I guess everybody hears everything.”

“What have we got here? Papa Smurf. Young, sexy freedom fighter. Prince Charming. A…black guy….looks like a gang banger.”

“Should I hit you? Make it look good?” “No, no you should not hit me.”

“You know me, huh?” “Yeah, that’s why I’m leaving Maggie and Cue Ball, so you don’t do it just for laughs.” “Well that’s no fun!”