Falling Skies: TV series

I see the new alien fighting side by side with humans and I see similar aliens fighting against them. Confuses me!

I kinda keep wondering...Overlord offered Tom a sanctuary deal in the beginning of season 2. The Charleston community...was that it? Did Manchester accept such deal, and was against any military action because of it?

The new aliens are...interesting. In its few dialogues, Overlord hinted a few things. Some of the dialogue when it was captured sounded a bit like "we're doing it for your own good", and hinted that something even worse is coming. Of course, it could all be just messing with Tom's mind to persuade him to let it go.

Originally Posted by Sar1n

I kinda keep wondering...Overlord offered Tom a sanctuary deal in the beginning of season 2. The Charleston community...was that it? Did Manchester accept such deal, and was against any military action because of it?

The new aliens are...interesting. In its few dialogues, Overlord hinted a few things. Some of the dialogue when it was captured sounded a bit like "we're doing it for your own good", and hinted that something even worse is coming. Of course, it could all be just messing with Tom's mind to persuade him to let it go.

I think those are the questions that are going to be answered this season.

Originally Posted by Sar1n

...
The new aliens are...interesting. In its few dialogues, Overlord hinted a few things. Some of the dialogue when it was captured sounded a bit like "we're doing it for your own good", and hinted that something even worse is coming. Of course, it could all be just messing with Tom's mind to persuade him to let it go.

What bits sounded like that? It's a bit impossible to argue that after nuking 95% of mankind and hunting down the rest. I took it to mean that the sanctuary deal is the only way to escape total extinction. Given they want to do that with the children they can at best argue that the only hope for mankind's survival is surrender.

Just a reminder, this will be returning this Sunday, June 9th.

It's not a great show. The first season was weak, mostly due to poor writing. The second season was better. Here's hoping it will continue to improve. A good show will show BOTH sides. That would be a huge improvement to see the alien(s) justification for the invasion of the planet. Obviously this has happened before based upon the alien rebellion by a faction of the Skitters. It seems it is a religious based uprising which is interesting.

Do you realize how little we know about the aliens after two seasons? It's mainly been guerrilla warfare and not particularly interesting examples of that. In all honesty the biker gang would have been fragged in moments in real life. They're too much of a security risk. There's way too much personal freedom given the hardships they're under. The last episodes were highly unrealistic, but at least the expected military coup happened....such as it was.

So far, honestly it looks quite simple. Overlords are in a galactic war with the new aliens, and raided Earth for workforce and raw metals. Being a primitive, backwater world, it was simpler to blow stuff up and pick up the scrap than mining asteroids etc...for raw materials, and harnessed children (and their eventual offspring) provide workforce. It was repeatedly said that after initial blow, overlords used just enough power to keep humans out of their business. The things they're building are most likely one-shot colony ships for children that will be disassembled into raw materials after arriving at destination.

I think the Fishheads are likely sterile or long lived with low numbers of offspring. They enslave races with less technology to do the work needed to support infrastructure. Given their technology, it would be impossible to have the battles on the show. What would be more likely would be guerrilla operations against any industry started by the aliens. Why not go underground into the sewers/subway systems? Largely the issue is the food supply. There's likely an inability to maintain electrical power for doing hydroponics with lamps in the proper wavelength. As such it would be almost impossible to fight the aliens.

Most of these dystopian/ post-apocalyptic shows don't discuss agriculture and raising animals from livestock, but go the easy route of killing off humanity so the survivors can liberate food inventories from food distribution warehouses and MREs. It's all nonsensical. Without raising animals, it's highly unlikely to survive in such a situation. Vegetarianism works because of organized agricultural effort and a superior transportation system that can relocate harvests/packaged food globally. That won't work here.

A good show creates their Achilles heel. My guess is this will be the religious belief of the skitters, a metaphor for Islam no doubt. Notice how that was a theme for V, the importance of Christianity to oppose the aliens. The writers are simply not doing a great job coming up with something fresh. The sheer cheesiness of the lines is cringe inducing much of the time.

The first season was so completely terrible that I still can never give this show another chance lol.

Originally Posted by DarthShizNit

The first season was so completely terrible that I still can never give this show another chance lol.

You know, I groaned during the first three episodes because they were laughably bad. That's a shame because I like three of the principal actors. Recently I watched all of the second season one by one and they didn't suck and were halfway entertaining. Network television is just abysmal these days with only Hannibal being worthy of watching. Then they don't understand either the military, hard science fiction, or post-apocalyptic drama, so they perpetually result to cliches.

What did people think?

I thought the two episodes were a great opening for the season.

I honestly think that the music is killing the show. It's too patriotic sounding and so makes their dialogue sound simplistic. You have to be willing to let the actors speak and to have silence within the drama. There's far less gravitas because they're always running that foolish soundtrack.

The kid ( what is he 9-10?) acts as a unit member with grenades? Come on! Then he blows things up and Dad doesn't take him to task, especially the President's son? Come on! "It's OK, Son. I'll be around more to help you with your homework..." I guess so you don't blow crap up...Right!

A physician who sees abnormally advanced behavior like a baby speaking who is a newborn???? Talk about totally freaking out. The stuff they pull on the show makes no sense.

Heck mix it up and let us see the aliens, especially the enemy aliens and how they're coping.

The awful acting, wooden dialogue and lashings of cheese are all back with extra cliches! a genetically advanced baby! really, as if that's never been done in sci-fi before. FS is a kids show, it's probably a little scary for pre/early teens and all the terrible elements are perhaps forgivable taking that into account. The only thing this show really has going for it is the dates it's shown. It airs just as all the big shows come to the end of their seasons, leaving the door open for the sky to fall in...

Originally Posted by Halie Satanus

The awful acting, wooden dialogue and lashings of cheese are all back with extra cliches! a genetically advanced baby! really, as if that's never been done in sci-fi before. FS is a kids show, it's probably a little scary for pre/early teens and all the terrible elements are perhaps forgivable taking that into account. The only thing this show really has going for it is the dates it's shown. It airs just as all the big shows come to the end of their seasons, leaving the door open for the sky to fall in...

I'm re-watching Band of Brothers, because I wanted to watch a great war drama that reflected the inner turmoil of the soldiers, showing all the nuances of being in the military, the difficult training, the loss of comrades, the accidental deaths, the valor and self-sacrifice. The main reason I put in the first video was to listen to the soundtrack and compare it to Falling Skies. The music helps convey the dialogue and makes the acting seem so much more authentic than Falling Skies.

The show has a potential to be great if they simply will stop using cliches and tune the music more appropriately. Soldiers, especially civilians turned guerrillas turned soldiers would have more issues with fighting. By now they should be acting in extremely disciplined focused attacks, not brute force on brute force. There's no way to win using the latter techniques.

'Might as well keep watching it since the other shows shows are winding down. It was good to see Gloria Reuben. She's still very pretty, but they didn't give her anything to do in the first episode. I really like Maggie (Sarah Carter). If not for her participation, I probably would wait until all of the episodes were out and then watch them back to back. I'm glad they filled in her character a little more.

Can you believe a President leading an attack? That's so comic book.

What has everyone been thinking of the third season so far?

Originally Posted by Gen. Chris

What has everyone been thinking of the third season so far?

They've ran out of originality...perhaps somewhere in the first season, now it's just predictable. And often stupid. Did they really think that Espheni, especially now that they have a human (or former human) among their ranks, won't be listening to their radio transmissions? And then, taking a plane, the most easily tracked means of transport. Nobody sane would do anything like that.

I'm still not sure what to make of Volm. Everyone is expecting some kind of backstab or big secret from them, are the authors trying to surprise the audience by giving them nothing like that?

Originally Posted by Sar1n

now it's just predictable.

Originally Posted by Sar1n

I'm still not sure what to make of Volm.

Strange... How about you tell us what's gonna happen in the next weeks?

Originally Posted by TheSutekh

Strange... How about you tell us what's gonna happen in the next weeks?

Let's see...the way things have been going:

Cochise and president whatshisname will be found dead. The weapon Volm are building is made to kill every skitter and Espheni on Earth, with rebels and humans becoming a collateral damage, and new leader of Volm forces on Earth will be more than trigger-happy with it, regarding humans as inferior race.

I've seen the last episode only after writing the previous post...so things became a bit clearer regarding Volm.

Originally Posted by Sar1n

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I'm still not sure what to make of Volm. Everyone is expecting some kind of backstab or big secret from them, are the authors trying to surprise the audience by giving them nothing like that?

The Volm should really be more dickish about this pathetic whining by the humans. They are essentially the USA intervening in a hot war to save a bunch of goat herders from the Soviets or Nazis (take your pick). Imho they should point out that them not blowing up Earth is already proof of them being considerate because they are nice enough not to kill hapless species that got owned and that this little party mankind has going on actually has no meaning in their bigger picture of waging an interstellar war. They are the guys with the super weapons, with the space armada and medical equipment.

They are going way out of their way just to blow up Earth. There should be easier ways to do this without fraternizing with some primitives. Giving the mediocre writing I don't say that'd be the reveal, but it would be pretty sucky because essentially the only plausible way the entire story works would involve the aliens or some aliens helping because for all intents and purpose mankind is in the crapper and it's just the death throes that are somewhat annoying to the Overlords since they are on a clock and want to save resources,



And since when is a nuclear scientist good at biochemistry? is that the old "He is a scientist so he can do anything that needs a PHD" fallacy?

Originally Posted by Mangalore

And since when is a nuclear scientist good at biochemistry? is that the old "He is a scientist so he can do anything that needs a PHD" fallacy?

If he's good at physics and chemistry, I don't see why he can't set up a DNA test.