FALLING SKIES Season 4
TNT
Sundays 10 PM EST
~Matt Reed
After three seasons of TNT’s hit sci-fi drama FALLING SKIES, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have a love/hate relationship with it. Well, not exactly “love” and not really “hate”. It’s more a feeling of less indifference some weeks, more indifference other weeks. Like 100% whole wheat bread, I’m not really excited about eating it but I hear that it’s good for you.
If you haven’t been watching the series, here’s the skinny. Be warned, however, that there be spoilers ahead.
At its heart, Falling Skies is all about family. That’s to be expected from executive producer Steven Spielberg, who’s E.T. is the thematic foundation upon which much of his work is based. The hero of the series is Tom Mason played by ER’s Noah Wyle. He’s an American history professor that lives an idyllic if not terribly exciting life with his wife and three children; eldest son Hal (Drew Roy), middle child Ben (Connor Jessup) and their youngest, Matt (Maxim Knight). Life as they know it is shattered when Earth is invaded by an alien race called the Espheni, relentless enemies that travel the universe enslaving worlds and bending them to their will. The invasion claims the life of Tom’s wife leaving the family to do anything they can to survive.
Over the course of the next three seasons, The Mason clan joins a group called the 2nd Mass, one of many historical nods in the series. They meet series regulars Colonel Daniel Weaver (veteran actor Will Patton), pediatrician Anne Glass (Terminator Salvation’s Moon Bloodgood) and articulate felon (and chef!) John Pope (Colin Cunningham). We are introduced to an Espheni-enslaved race affectionately called Skitters, insect-like creatures that are the foot soldiers in the occupation.
Many battles ensue, skirmishes both with the enemy as well as among themselves. Infighting, backstabbing and control for leadership become the impetus for Tom to deliver heartfelt speeches about Man’s indomitable will seemingly every episode. Our ragtag band of humans eventually settles down and starts to build a community in the city of Charleston, SC. Tom falls in love with Anne and they have a child, Lexi, who not only has special powers but inexplicably ages at an incredible rate. The mysterious Volm, a race of aliens at war with the Espheni for hundreds of years, enter the picture and become humanities allies. Season 3 ends with the Espheni on the run, the 2nd Mass on its way back to Charleston and the end of the occupation finally within reach.
Season 4 debuted this past Sunday with the episode “Ghost in the Machine” and it acts as a perfect example of my frustration with the series as a whole. It begins with a prologue set 22 days after the end of Season 3. I know it’s exactly “twenty-two and a half days” because that’s actually a line of expository dialogue. Just as they crest a hill with a view of Charleston and after a weirdly prescient warning from 6 year-old Lexi, the 2nd Mass comes under attack. With new technology never before seen, the Espheni separate our group of ragtag fighters using electronic fences that are deadly to the touch. Many are killed, Tom is knocked unconscious and the credits roll.
I won’t detail everything that happened in the episode but suffice it to say the next scene takes another leap in time, now four months after the prologue. The 2nd Mass is spread far and wide. Some, like Anne, were able to escape the attack and are now in guerrilla fighting mode. Others are imprisoned in Charleston, one of many ghetto camps around the world. At yet another location, Tom’s son Matt along with hundreds of children are being “retrained”(read: brainwashed) by the Espheni to see the occupation as a good thing for mankind, while Ben and a now fully grown Lexi appear to be living in an commune. There are pockets of resistance here and there of course with the thrust of the season apparently focused on getting the family (both the Mason’s and the 2nd Mass) back together.
Let me first speak to the positive. First and foremost, the actors are all very earnest. There’s never a feeling that anyone is phoning it in for a paycheck. Noah Wyle made a bajillion dollars working on 254 episodes of ER. He’s not strapped for cash. Will Patton, who is best remembered for roles in No Way Out and Armageddon, has been a working actor in film and television for 35 years. Both make the most out of their roles. It’s not by accident that they also get the working share of the rousing speeches delivered nearly every episode like clockwork. Whether it’s about sticking together, the importance of family, or the more encompassing narrative that humanity will triumph, both deliver what is often corny dialogue with great conviction.
The rest of the cast is also very game. Colin Cunningham as “Pope” can grate at times. A drinking game could be made around how many “Popeisms” he spouts every episode. Just one gem from this website: “Life hands you lemons, you blow its fricken head off.” That said, he provides a cynical viewpoint that is appreciated. Some of the performances, especially early in the series, feel like they’re being delivered by people fresh out of an acting school. Almost too earnest without very much in the way of subtlety, but there certainly have been revelations. Sarah Carter, playing Hal Mason’s on again, off again love interest “Maggie”, is a compelling watch as is Seychelle Gabriel who plays “Lourdes”. Gabriel’s turn in the Season 4 premiere as a member of the Cult of Lexi is especially unsettling.
Kudos also must be given to the production and sfx departments. Creating a world on the budget of a weekly television series, particularly one that often has very complicated special effects elements every episode can’t be an easy thing to accomplish. People may quibble about the design of certain aliens or they may be able to point out shots or scenes where the effects are obvious, but there’s no denying the work that helps bring this show to life.
OK, now to my problems. FS has some fundamental story issues. We’ve never been told what the Espheni’s true purpose on Earth is all about. All that we’ve been told is that they visit and subjugate worlds then move on. That’s it. Nothing more. Last season the Espheni suddenly wanted to blanket the Earth in a web-like dome that would ultimately kill humanity within three months and this season it’s been hinted that they’re after some unknown power source. Four seasons of alien McGuffin’s is three seasons too long.
Elements that live only to serve the mechanics of a story and not the story itself come and go. Tech that wasn’t around in a previous season all of a sudden pops up as a major component of the current season. I’m looking at you “energy fences”. The Volm, a huge part of Season 3 and the reason the Espheni are on the run, are now taken out of the picture entirely in Season 4. The explanation is a simple but not at all convincing one delivered by fan favorite Volm Cochise. They leave Earth to defend a planet where they birth the next generation of Volm. I get it. FS was renewed and they were left with a powerful race that aides mankind. Hard to move forward unless you take them out of the picture entirely. But removing them was too easy after a season spent earning the audience’s trust in them.
My biggest gripe, however, is that the ground that FS covers is well trod in the world of sci-fi. Alien invaders, resistance fighters, and the enslavement of mankind are staples of the genre. It’s nothing new. That said, if you’re going to visit familiar ground, at least make it a compelling journey. While it can be said that this mash-up of familiar tropes is occasionally interesting, I can’t help but think “been there, done that”.
Take the revelation about Lexi last season as an example. It’s almost identical to the 1980s television miniseries V. Named as only a 80s sci-fi character can be named, “The Starchild” was born of human and Visitor mating. She’s weird, she’s different, she’s otherworldly…and she also grows at an incredibly rapid rate. She’s a baby. She’s a child. She cocoons herself. She becomes a fully-grown 18-year-old woman all within the span of several months. That’s pretty much Lexi’s story without the cocoon. Although not borne of an alien father, Tom was captured and implanted with an alien creature between Seasons 1 and 2. Characters in both V and FS revere these alien hybrid kids as some sort of salvation. We will never know how it was going to play out with regard to V because the series was mercifully cancelled, but it appears that it’s going to be a major part of this season of FS.
There are other similarities to better, more thought provoking series. The recent Battlestar Galactica springs immediately to mind. Themes of family, alien control and domination coupled with rogue elements within both the human and Cylon communities dominated that series from beginning to end. What made BG so compelling was that it never once relied on convention or rested on the formulaic.
FS definitely has a formula, one that has been successful enough to earn it four seasons and counting, but I can’t help but feel it could be so much more daring, more challenging, more thought provoking in a way that only cable can. Perhaps I’m asking too much. Maybe I should be thankful we’re getting some decent sci-fi in episodic form even if it’s very safe. But after compelling work both within and outside the genre, I’m left waiting for our Breaking Bad, Justified or Mad Men. Not that I’d want to see a meth dealer in space (although that would be kinda neat!) but that sci-fi can be populated with space ships, aliens, laser guns and “Starchildren” while also saying something more than a variation on the theme of the unbreakable resolve of the human spirit.
Like I said “Been there, done that”.
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