Sci-Fi Falling Skies

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Genre: Action & Adventure, Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Director: Robert Rodat

Cast: Noah Wyle, Moon Bloodgood, Will Patton, Drew Roy, Connor Jessup, Maxim Knight, Colin Cunningham, Sarah Carter, Mpho Koaho, Doug Jones

First aired:

Overview: Falling Skies opens in the chaotic aftermath of an alien attack that has left most of the world completely incapacitated. In the six months since the initial invasion, the few survivors have banded together outside major cities to begin the difficult task of fighting back. Each day is a test of survival as citizen soldiers work to protect the people in their care while also engaging in an insurgency campaign against the occupying alien force.

Trailer

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Kevin said:
A bit of unexpected news.... TNS has ordered a fifth season of Falling Skies. It will also be it's final season. No word on why the decision to end the show after 5 seasons but, with this number of season on, the production costs are likely getting pretty high and ending the show will free up both money and a time-slot for new shows.
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Interesting...I didn't even realize that we'd had that many seasons so far...
 
Watched two weeks' worth of episodes last night...quite a bit of good stuff. Trying to remember where I've seen one of the two brothers...face looked really familiar, and so did the plot twists that I saw coming from a mile away.

I was having trouble following the communication scene between the aliens...I almost thought I saw two warring factions in the same talk?

Not sure why they had to bring in a new character to join up with Poe, though...
 
astonwest said:
Watched two weeks' worth of episodes last night...quite a bit of good stuff. Trying to remember where I've seen one of the two brothers...face looked really familiar, and so did the plot twists that I saw coming from a mile away.
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Wasn't the younger brother, with the kids, on BSG?

astonwest said:
I was having trouble following the communication scene between the aliens...I almost thought I saw two warring factions in the same talk?
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That's a problem I have as well. In some scenes I'm not sure if the 'big reveal' is a good guy or a bad guy.

astonwest said:
Not sure why they had to bring in a new character to join up with Poe, though...
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Because even bad guys need love.
 
Speaking of plot twists a mile away, this weeks episode involving the youngest son had a scene that was so obvious what was going to happen it was painful a bit to watch.

I am not happy about there now being a human enemy that is well organized and well equipped versus the rebel forces. That element reminds of the direction Revolution before its demise.
 
New (final) season started off well, but it seems to me like the last couple of weeks have gone way off the rails...especially in this past week's episode. With only 3 episodes left, they'd better pick up the pace if they're going to end the war (and the show) without a planetary-nuke-from-orbit.

Also, are they resurrecting former plot lines? Didn't they go through this same type of thing with soldiers during their time in Charleston?
 
astonwest said:
New (final) season started off well, but it seems to me like the last couple of weeks have gone way off the rails...especially in this past week's episode. With only 3 episodes left, they'd better pick up the pace if they're going to end the war (and the show) without a planetary-nuke-from-orbit.
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I think the conclusion will be taking place with the build-up of going to Washington DC. There is still a lot of ground to cover so I suspect that we'll end with a quickie 'Boom, took out the leader, war is over!' type ending. Personally I was kind of hoping that they'd end it what we saw in the most recent episode with the Mason family on trial. No happy endings, no celebrations, just a stark ending to this chapter in humanity's fight against the aliens. It is, afterall, a war.

astonwest said:
Also, are they resurrecting former plot lines? Didn't they go through this same type of thing with soldiers during their time in Charleston?
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That was my thought as well. They took a few episodes from the final season for a general rehash of an earlier idea and all it did to the overall story line was to provide the background as to how/why the 2nd Mass' now has some real military power to it for the upcoming Washington conclusion. Bah! That could've been easily handled in one episode.
 
Kevin said:
Personally I was kind of hoping that they'd end it what we saw in the most recent episode with the Mason family on trial. No happy endings, no celebrations, just a stark ending to this chapter in humanity's fight against the aliens. It is, afterall, a war.
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When Tom escaped while the rest were captured, I started to think that maybe they were going that direction.

I'm still not entirely sure how Pope and his ballooning crew will fit into the ultimate ending, but I agree with your assessment of it likely being a "take out the leader" ending, now that they've announced that such an "uber-leader" exists.
 
Unless they somehow bring Pope back from that explosion, I think that was the biggest cop-out in ending a plot thread ever.

The Lexi angle seemed a bit odd to me. If they were trying to kill Tom all along, why didn't the swarm show up much earlier than the end of the episode, once they'd located him? I almost wondered if exploding the communication device brought them all in.

Also, given the previews they showed at the end of the previous episode, it looks like we're going to be treated to the "quickie 'Boom, took out the leader, war is over!' type ending" mentioned earlier.
 
I like some alien invasion series, especially liked 'Dark Skies' {cut short with only one season}, 'First Wave' {three seasons with an acceptable ending}, and 'Threshold' {cut short after only a half a seasnn}, but I'm wondering if I could really stand a five season alien invasion? - So tell me, is it really worth watching {would be watching it one episode after another}, does it have five seasons worth of exciting sci-fi to offer or does it tend to meander into too much drama and even soap opera? - Please reply
 
AlienView said:
I like some alien invasion series, especially liked 'Dark Skies' {cut short with only one season}, 'First Wave' {three seasons with an acceptable ending}, and 'Threshold' {cut short after only a half a seasnn}, but I'm wondering if I could really stand a five season alien invasion? - So tell me, is it really worth watching {would be watching it one episode after another}, does it have five seasons worth of exciting sci-fi to offer or does it tend to meander into too much drama and even soap opera? - Please reply
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I managed to get through three seasons of this one but gave up during season four. Simply terrible writing and characters, par for the course with television of course. Have no real interest in finding out how it all resolves itself at the end.
 
Jethro said:
I managed to get through three seasons of this one but gave up during season four. Simply terrible writing and characters, par for the course with television of course. Have no real interest in finding out how it all resolves itself at the end.
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Thanks for the heads-up; Many IMDb viewers said the same thing.

The best alien invasion series I've seen is 'First Wave' {1998-2001} starring Sebastian Spence, Rob LaBelle, and in later episodes the former porn star Traci Lords {made the transition to mainstream acting well, turned out to be an excellent actress in the series}. Intelligent, exciting, good acting, directing and very acceptable ending - Highly recommended.

From IMDb:

"Framed for murder and on the run, a former thief struggles to expose the vanguard of an alien invasion with the help of a conspiracy theorist and newly discovered prophecies of Nostradamus."

First Wave (TV Series 1998–2001) - IMDb

Currently rated on IMDb as 7.2 out of 10, I would rate it 9 out of 10.
 
War of the Worlds wasn't too bad
Alien Nation was okay but broke after they started making the movies
"V" was good
 
Tom said:
War of the Worlds wasn't too bad
Alien Nation was okay but broke after they started making the movies
"V" was good
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Hello Tom,

I started watching Alien Nation - First saw the original movie staring James Caan - Then started watching the series. It was a little dated for my taste but may go back to watching it as I'm running out of good sci-fi to
watch.

Which version of V are you talking about? Was watching the newer version from a few years ago, liked it at first and then it seemed to stall {too much drama and soap opera}. I would go back to watching that one but supposedly it was cancelled and ended with no ending - is that true?

And how about the older versions of V - both the series {and I think there might have been a movie}? Are they any good?
 
I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment. I stuck it out for all five seasons. There were plenty of episodes (and series of episodes) which I didn't care for, but overall, I enjoyed the series.

Series finale was on tonight, and I enjoyed it for the most part, up until the ending, which seemed to have some rather bizarre religious undertones while trying to jump the shark multiple times in the course of about 10-15 minutes. Rather ominous start to the episode with the youngest Mason penning what I imagine was post-war memoirs. Plenty of horror-film feel to the walk through the Overlord egg farm. The death of Ann was a bit of a shocker, but not too much of one, since main character deaths are sort of expected in a series finale. But then, Pope comes back...and who really thought that Tom would kill him there? An extra few minutes, it looked like...to wrap it all up with a neat red bow (complete with an Ann resurrection).
 
Well, nuts, with that ending they should've ended it a few episodes earlier with most of the Mason's lined up at the execution squad so that the series ended on a somber note. The execution squad raises their rifles then fade to black with silence. After a few seconds of silence, still in black, gunshots fire out. Credits roll.

The biker leader asks a pretty good question actually about carpet bombing the area.

Queen alien is a "Predator" combined with a spider combined with a 'brain bug' from Starship Troopers.

1,500 year grudge? And it's the same queen?! :cautious:

Was the Queen thinking "I'm going to kill you... but first we have a little chat while I ignore the fact that you are likely not alone and there may be danger looming. I'm also going to ignore that strange glowing thing that you are desperately trying to reach. For you see, Mr. Mason, not only are we taking over your planet but also your movie villain tropes!"

Kill's the queen... well, that was a bit anti-climatic. :coffee:

Wait, how come we didn't see the bikers attacking the wall as the diversion. Looked like a diversion wasn't even needed. And all the talk about "Mason Militias" results in nothing but a handful of bikers showing up for the final showdown?! :wtf:

Seriously, take out the queen and the rest explode like fireworks? :banghead::banghead::banghead:

Wait, so from the Lincoln Memorial you're within quick walking distance to the shoreline that was in a different state?!

Oh, and there's Pope, because why the heck not. :facepalm: How the heck did he even get there? OK, *maybe* Mason's travel can be explained by an unseen car ride but Pope's sudden arrival at the same spot? Did he hitch a ride on the back bumper or something? And why does he look like Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi when Vader is dying and removes his mask?

Now, quick, let's flash forward to an idyllic meeting of people from all over the world. Did transportation systems suddenly get restored to allow global travel? Ann's still pregnant so an awful heck of a lot has taken place in pretty short time. It can't have been much time that passed because Ben, the youngest son, is the same. And did the bikers really need to wear their exact same outfits? Do they ever wash them? Who came up with that new UN logo? Did they have some type of contest or something? Oh, wait, it's not a meeting, it's a speech at the Lincoln memorial and we can see DC is being rebuilt. Just how much manpower is available for massive reconstruction projects and where were they during the fighting? :unsure:

Gaaaahhh! Delete episode from DVR, delete from scheduling, ponder about all the ways it could've been handled differently.
 
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astonwest said:
Rather ominous start to the episode with the youngest Mason penning what I imagine was post-war memoirs.
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I really thought we were going to see a flash-forward of several years with the youngest son now taking up a leadership role in a post-war Earth but instead it was just a "Dear Diary" entry or a school project or something. :facepalm: And the talk about the battle not going as planned, I was expecting at least a few of the major characters to have died but, no, the only one that does die is mysteriously resurrected from a shadowy alien survivor of a race destroyed by the Esphini and apparently prefers to keep their self in a huge ship in the ocean. So what exactly didn't go right? Looks like they took out the entire Esphini race with a single casualty in the final "battle" showdown.
 
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Kevin said:
Was the Queen thinking "I'm going to kill you... but first we have a little chat while I ignore the fact that you are likely not alone and there may be danger looming. I'm also going to ignore that strange glowing thing that you are desperately trying to reach. For you see, Mr. Mason, not only are we taking over your planet but also your movie villain tropes!"
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It seems like every time they captured Tom, they keep him around just long enough that he can escape and do damage...that was the case through the whole series.

Kill's the queen... well, that was a bit anti-climatic. :coffee:
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And what I didn't get about that scene...she was taking his blood, right? I assume so, since the bio-weapon filters back up her legs. But they made a huge point of the weapon being safe for humans, so how did it attack Tom to get into his blood so that she would filter it back into herself? Also, wouldn't he have been left devoid of blood, or suffer some sort of ill effects for whatever bio-weapon matter was still in him?

Wait, how come we didn't see the bikers attacking the wall as the diversion. Looked like a diversion wasn't even needed. And all the talk about "Mason Militias" results in nothing but a handful of bikers showing up for the final showdown?! :wtf:
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To be fair, I think most of the other Mason Militias were already attacking DC directly, but held back by the wall. Honestly, when those bikers showed up, I wondered if we were being treated to another episode of "send a human in to gain the Masons' trust."

Oh, and there's Pope, because why the heck not. :facepalm: How the heck did he even get there? OK, *maybe* Mason's travel can be explained by an unseen car ride but Pope's sudden arrival at the same spot? Did he hitch a ride on the back bumper or something? And why does he look like Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi when Vader is dying and removes his mask?
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He even had Vader's ROTJ breathing down...

Supposedly, some other militia took pity on him and brought him there...but not sure a) how he would have known where to find Tom, or b) how said militia would have gotten into the compound where he was supposedly killed, past Anthony's watchful guard, to find and rescue Pope.

Now, quick, let's flash forward to an idyllic meeting of people from all over the world. Did transportation systems suddenly get restored to allow global travel? Ann's still pregnant so an awful heck of a lot has taken place in pretty short time. It can't have been much time that passed because Ben, the youngest son, is the same. And did the bikers really need to wear their exact same outfits? Do they ever wash them? Who came up with that new UN logo? Did they have some type of contest or something? Oh, wait, it's not a meeting, it's a speech at the Lincoln memorial and we can see DC is being rebuilt. Just how much manpower is available for massive reconstruction projects and where were they during the fighting? :unsure:
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Definitely plenty of holes in that scene...not sure if maybe the writers were already checked out, and just phoning in the ending or what. I couldn't figure out the global travel, either. The pregnancy could have been about 4 months, and Ben wouldn't have aged all that terribly much.

Forget manpower, who's funding reconstruction, and how?
 
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