Falling skies

Year of release : 2011

 

Run time : 42 min, 10 episodes

 

Genre : Sci-fi / Action

 

Cast : Noah Wyle, Connor Jessup, Moon Bloodgood, Will Patton

 

 

Season1

 

An alien invasion wipes out most of the world's population. The last remaining survivors team up, living in camps, to fight back and get their children back from the invaders.

 

The aliens kill the adults but keep the kids,putting harnesses on them and controlling them mentally. As the movie progresses we see the aliens speak telepathically with the kids.

 

So far,the aliens are these spider looking things,but surprises may arise in the future as I don't see such creatures able to work with technology.

 

The series centers around a colony, The 2nd Mass, mostly a father with his two children who tries to get his third son, who was harnessed, out of the alien's base. The father is friends with the pediatrician who is now the doctor of the colony, who lost her whole family to the invasion.

 

Tom manages to get his son, Ben,out of the alien's lair, as his eldest son, Hal,goes in, pretending to be one of the harnessed kids.

 

Back among the people, Ben, realizes he has special abilities, due to his harness, and he can hear certain frequencies which connect him to the aliens.

Another kid was rescued before him, and that kid is still connected to the aliens, wanting to be with the aliens, telling them the humans' plans. Needless to say, the aliens come for them, and almost kill them all.

 

Karen, Hal's girlfriend, is taken by the aliens and I don't remember Hal ever trying to get her back the way he did with his brother, instead we see him crushing on the new girl, Maggie, who was a part of a misfits gang with Pope.

 

At the end of season 1, Tom is asked by the aliens to enter their ship for a talk, while The 2nd Mass fights the aliens.

 

I liked how the movie made the transition at the beginning, in the first episode, with the kid drawings and the kids telling the story of what happened, moving to the kids in the new form of school talking to the teacher, then to the kid's family, as the kid was talking about them.

 

The actors are all great, the visual effects are bad. In tv series there's always an actor who stands out,like Robert Knepper in Prison Break. In this one is Colin Cunningham who plays Pope.

 

 

 

Season 2

 

 

In the first episode of the season, The 2nd Mass fights the aliens, as Ben is one of the soldiers now,helping them against the aliens.

 

Tom finds his way back from where the aliens left him, after they kept him locked up, tortured him and killed the other human leaders upon release.

Karen was there, as the overlords keep her by their side and use her to talk to him.

 

Back to The 2nd Mass, he fears the aliens put something inside him to make him kill everyone. He was right, he had something, but turns out the thing flew to one of the aliens who ask the humans for help as they rebelled against their overlords, trying to take them down.

 

As the plot unravels we see the kids who were taken by aliens and harnessed, although with the harness they seemed to have been drugged, now without it they develop amazing abilities, they can climb walls, they are very strong and are connected to the other de-harnessed kids,being able to sense them or the aliens.

 

They find a hospital and there,they face an alien plot, as they find Karen without her harness, bring her to their camp but she's manipulating Hal, who is now with Maggie, and then Ben, trying to find out where the resistance hides and kill them all.

 

The 2nd Mass manages to capture one of the overlords, a humanoid alien with a fish head who turns out later, was the one in charge with the weapons and war strategy. Apparently these aliens don't need storage, as they store everything in their head. Take one down,their plan crumbles.

 

Ben joins the alien skitter ( they look like a sort of insect,like spiders) resistance as he is still connected to the aliens and his spikes from the removed harness light up whenever they talk to him or through him to humans.

 

On their way to a safe haven they heard about, they find this girl who's harness doesn't work properly, who tells them what they call harnessed they call  'joined' and she sees the kids she was 'joined' with her siblings like brothers and sisters,and the skitter taking care of them, their guardian,whom they actually love! Talking about brainwashing!

 

The safe haven seems to be a dystopia in which a historian seems hungry for power, as he wants to be the president of the country and shape it into what he wants, not allowing The 2nd Mass to fight, as he doesn't want to fight against the aliens, just hide underground until they are found! Great plan!

 

He imprisons The 2nd Mass, not allowing them to leave, for some reason.

 

In the end they manage to leave and join the alien resistance fighting the overlord. Karen, evil now, tortures the humans who fight what she calls 'her master' and plants something inside Hal.

 

The army in this safe haven was a joke, hiding underground, letting civilians fight their war. So was their leader, who would rather hid his head underground like the ostrich, than fight for his land and freedom, despite what he wrote in his book.

 

There's this back and forth in this season with Hal and Maggie which I didn't care about. I personally dislike Hal ever since his girlfriend was taken and he didn't go after her. Now he wants Maggie but she doesn't but then she does because reasons..I hate people who string you along, who don't know what they want, and that's how Maggie is.

 

The visual effects are still crappy. The acting is good, Moon Bloodgood has a beautiful smile.

 

That's about as much as I can take from these series, so I won't be watching the rest .

 

Rating : Could have been a contender !