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On Tuesday night, US alien invasion drama Falling Skies premiered on FX. However, when it began across the pond, the first two episodes were aired back-to-back (I actually hear that the second episode is the stronger of the two) and here we just got the first episode, meaning that we haven’t really seen the full premiere. There were parts that I liked about the first hour, and others that I thought were less encouraging. Overall, Falling Skies looks like a show with a lot of potential and with some real talent behind the camera, it may yet become a great series.
The plot of Falling Skies begins months after the alien invasion, which is something that I’m thankful for. I doubt watching scenes before the invasion would’ve been interesting and I appreciate that we’re introduced to the show with the characters already in “survival mode”. As far as characters go, the lead is Tom Mason (Noah Wyle), who used to be a history professor, and is second-in-command of the division of survivors that we follow. He has three sons: Hal (Drew Roy) fights alongside his father, Matt (Maxim Knight) is his youngest and Ben (Connor Jessup) has been captured by the aliens. The show also stars Moon Bloodgood as their doctor Anne Glass, Jessy Schram as a scout named Karen and Will Patton as Captain Weaver, the commander of the group.
In the first episode, Tom and six others go on a mission to find food to bring back to the survivors. The dialogue is, as one would expect, filled with exposition for this first installment. It isn’t too overloaded though, aside from the show’s insistence on reminding us that Tom used to be a history professor and was not in the military (if him relating their current situation to similar ones throughout history continues into next week’s episode then it’s going to irritate me). The characters are mostly rather broad, and aside from Tom I didn’t really find them too gripping. That will hopefully change as the series progresses though.
One thing that I did like about the episode was the visuals; the whole thing looks very impressive. There are two types of alien that we see in the first hour, Skitters (who move about on all four legs and appear to be the brains of the operation) and Mechs (who, as their name suggests, are mechanised and good at fighting). Both types of alien are creepy in distinct ways and the fight scenes in the show are particularly effective (there’s a close-quarters one inside a warehouse that I thought worked very well).
I’ll have a much clearer idea of what I think about the show after I’ve seen the second part of the premiere next week. This first episode was certainly enough to intrigue me and it has certain elements of a decent series. As it continues, I’d like to see something more interesting from the other characters, more tense fight scenes with aliens and for the show to be less blunt about the fact that Tom used to be a history teacher. Otherwise, I found this to be an encouraging first outing and I’ll certainly be back to watch this alien invasion story progress.
Falling Skies airs on Tuesdays at 9pm on FX
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