Falling Skies – “Live and Learn” & “The Armory” – review

Alien invasion is an idea that is mined often and with varying degrees of success. With such a common theme, how does a TV show stand out among other productions like V, Independence Day or War of the Worlds? TNT’s Falling Skies makes a smart move and has the show take place after the aliens have come and destroyed 90% of the world. Humanity has lost, and what’s left struggles daily to survive, holding on to the thin hope they can somehow drive away the aliens.

Falling Skies approaches this more as a character driven story than an alien invasion story. It’s similar to The Walking Dead in the sense that, yes, the world has basically come to an end, but that’s just the setting. In the second part of the premiere, we barely see any aliens (they call them skitters), instead focusing on a group of scoundrels who kidnap the main characters. It shows how strong the show can be by not leaning on the aliens every minute of an episode.

In terms of acting, everyone does a sound job, while Noah Wyle, playing a professor forced into combat named Tom Mason, anchors the show, carrying a lot of the scenes emotionally. He has three kids to look after; the oldest, Hal (Drew Roy), is part of Tom’s squad as a scout alongside his girlfriend Karen (Jessy Schram); his youngest son Matt (Maxim Knight) is still adjusting to life on the run, expecting things like birthday parties; and Ben, the middle child, was brainwashed in to doing slave labor for the skitters. Tom wants to free Ben more than anything, but he has an obligation to keep his camp and remaining sons safe, and he wrestles with that constantly. Tom is also one of the few who believe they can still win against the skitters. Being a professor of historical war he knows that “History is full of inferior forces causing so much trouble the invading force leaves.”

The action is spread out so it doesn’t overpower the more character driven scenes, and they’re easy to follow. You could always tell what was happening thanks to the camera not being so tight on the action you can’t make anything out. Surprisingly, the aliens don’t look half bad for a TV budget. Of course, this is a Spielberg production, so there are little touches you’d expect from something with his name on it. Specifically, there’s a scene where Tom and his small force of six (including a 13-year-old boy named Jimmy who’s apparently good with a rifle) stand over an injured skitter and wonder what it’s thinking as it dies. Gotta love humanizing the enemy.

It’s not the most ground breaking show you’ll ever watch, but the first two episodes were solid, doing a great job of introducing the characters and familiarizing us with the setting. If the quality stays exactly where it is, then this should be a fun summer program.