'Falling Skies' on TNT HD - Page 37

Um.... you're thinking too much here! We'll have none of that at Falling Skies

But in real life many people do have weird nicknames like that between the parent and the child. It didn't seem unusual to me.

I thought she said she was continuing to head north and eventually head to Europe?

She did.

Why go to Europe. History tells us the French generally put up very little resistance...

The British, on the other hand, often resist invasions quite well.

so do the italians with german soldiers defending their territory.

Excellent episode except for the ending music montage bit, that was a little bit to much. Like the assembly line bit. However, where were the mechs they showed earlier, they seemed able to get in, fire a lot, and no mechs came. Oh well, all in all, a great episode and I like where this season is going.

Is the current season of FS slated to run only 10 episodes like the first season of have they expanded the number of episodes for season two?

just ten

The Wikipedia article includes the titles of all of the season 1 and season 2 episodes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falling_Skies_episodes

I kind of liked this one.  And I thought the guitar version of Claire de Lune was very well done and integrated into the ending.  

So, the interesting development for me this week was that they have now made it perfectly clear that the back harnesses aren't just bio-tech control devices attached to the kids as I previously thought, they are live parasitic creatures. So basically they are goa'uld without the funky voices. This brings up for me the bigger question of how then, does the master alien race control these parasites and speak through them? And what makes the spikes glow? It made much more sense (to me, at least) when it was just technology attached to the kids.

"You're overthinking it"

The lights are to make it look cool and so you know when the invaders are talking to Ben.

It'd be really nice if they'd publish the "bible" for the series (assuming there is one) so we could find out their rationales for the various things they show us. However, my guess is that they want us to learn what's going on only from the viewpoint of members of the 2nd Mass, so much of the alien biotech is going to continue to be a mysterious combination of biological and what we'd consider to be electronic hardware. For example, we already know that the harness bugs and the walkers communicate using the same radio frequencies: in the first season, Ben seemed to be in pain when the transmitter was set to various frequencies.

This show reminds me (not in tone) of Burn Notice. Not great, not realistic but still fun to watch. Yes its not very realistic (for a alien invasion show). The Skitter take over a factory, rebuild it to harness children, put mechs out in front and leave huge holes in the defense (you can just wait for them the mechs to walk away and walk in the front door). You have an alien race that somehow developed the technology to travel great distances through space, yet can't track vehicles with a little fiberglass insulation on them. Yet I find the show fun to watch.

I pretty much agree with the "fun to watch". It also can be fun to try to come up with reasons why the invaders would have such horrible security. (Other than not enough thought having been given to the scripts, of course. They had to rewrite the harnessing room scenes at essentially the last minute, for example, because implementing the original script would have been way too expensive. See http://gregbeeman.blogspot.ca/ )

1. It was a decoy. While they wouldn't have minded actually managing to harness some more servants, the invaders were really trying to accomplish something else. (e.g. the eye-worm left behind a video camera in Mason's eye. It put a corresponding video receiver in the skitter's eye. Next they needed to calibrate the images with known scenery.)

2. Most of the mechs were off somewhere else: maybe shooting up another group of humans, maybe refueling and having their equivalent of a picnic.

3. In reality, the fiberglass insulation doesn't do anything useful. All the people on open-bed trucks or walking are just as visible. So maybe the invaders have had other things on their minds, though, and haven't felt like harassing the 2nd Mass recently. Maybe the mechs needed a break and insisted on a picnic. Remember, they're aliens. They don't have the same priorities and motivations that humans have.

Actually, of all the plot-holes... ineptitude of the aliens in some areas isn't a plot-hole to me.

Consider either of the following:

1. Arguably the US is the greatest military force on the planet right now... but that doesn't mean every solider in every platoon stationed at every location is the absolute best. Some are better or more attentive than others. I'm not taking a shot at our military here, just pointing out the reality that IF you spread your forces thin enough then you're only as strong as the weakest link in each location. The aliens on Falling Skies might be much better when their focus isn't divided, they concentrate their forces, and they send their best soldiers out for the job.

2. Not all areas get the same focus. The aliens might have had motivation to become space-faring... and other things might have taken a back seat. If you invent a laser weapon, you can give it to an idiot... and that idiot with the laser will take out a lot of smarter people with worse weapons. Put a whole bunch of idiots out there with lasers and you can stand against superior intelligence with inferior technology because your lasers just melt them! BUT... if a few smart people get through then your laser-wielding idiots might be crap in close quarters and easy to take out.

Also, think Star Trek... where their shields are cool and all... but when the shields fail the ship itself is pretty vulnerable to even lower class weapons. If you get lucky and the shields go down... you have a shot.

Kudos to TNT for getting rid of the bright yellow bug. The new bug is more tolerable in a show with so many dark scenes, although it would be nice if they'd dim it a bit.

This season is definitely a major step up from the first season. Each episode doesn't feel as formulaic, and they've finally started to develop a larger story line that gives it a bit more depth.

Too bad they had to pop up banner ads for "The Great Escape" to make up for the normal logo.

As far as the rest, I don't think they've stepped up so much as stepped sideways...to other silliness:

1) Like the Walking Dead, the young 'uns are still brats who can't do anything they're supposed to. At least the youngest one settled down a bit this episode, but now the middle child is up to shenanigans. I'm pretty sure that not confiding in dear old dad not only eliminates his credibility, put puts Tom in a bad spot with everyone else.

2) Let's bring the alien back to the main camp for questioning when pretty much no one believes he's on the level.

3) When the alien tells you a death squad is tracking him down and coming your way, the appropriate response is "Hold that thought, I'm going to warn everyone so they can start breaking camp. Then we'll get back to our chat..."

4) When you arrive at a location you wish to enter and search (such as a hospital that might have supplies), parking your vehicles out in the open directly in front of the door is probably a bad idea. When you ride a motorcycle, you can hid it anywhere - including inside.

5) I'm once again shocked to see that, yet again, when someone says "leave me - save yourself" one of the main characters has to risk his butt to save them. Bonus points if the person is already dieing of either their wounds or a fatal disease.

6) Why use one lantern to light a small hospital room when you can use two or more. It's always important to leave them burning when leaving the room after people fall asleep and when you get the generator running and the lights come on.

7) When you do actually turn every last light on in a hospital that is apparently right near your last camp that the enemy found you at, it's vital you don't cover the windows to avoid giving away your presence there. Then again, apparently they learned nothing in school - you know, where they burned candles in the uncovered windows.


Bonus:

8) Apparently, girls like it when you talk about your exploits in the back seat of a car with your old girlfriend. It makes hiding from a Mech death squad all that much hotter...

Gotta admit, I was saying the same thing during the show - "Tell them you're going to bug out so they will all be ready to take off. You can always change your mind."

But the first season cured me of being too critical. I'm resigned to just hoping for a decent scifi story to follow and praying it doesn't turn into another Terra Nova teen-angst soap. I don't over-think it (or in many cases just think it at all), because the writers clearly do not want us to. I'm just happy there's something deeper to the story than killing an alien or two each week and starting over the following week.

Ben's actions seemed realistic to me. When have teenagers ever been rational or trusted their parents? It's clear he's being "seduced by the Sktter side", though, as shown by his sunrise worship. Well, it was the last of three hospitals that they'd checked. I assumed it might be quite a ways away. But yeah, they should have turned off the circuit breakers before powering up the generators, then turned on only the ones they needed, both for safety and to conserve fuel. But where's the drama in that?

As I recall, a later external shot showed the hospital's outside signs all lit up, also.

I think I noticed a set-dressing problem, too. In one of the hallway scenes there was a bright, out of focus, red light at the far end of the hallway -- not a color you'd expect to see from a kerosene or gasoline lantern. Maybe they forgot to cover an emergency exit sign?

I'm liking this show, even with the bad reviews and disbelief from many posters here (yeah I've been reading the thread from page 1)..

Just one quick question, was most of humanity vaporized on the initial attack? I haven't seena pile of bodies anywhere unless you had crews working 24/7 burying them... (as a The Walking Dead reference there are piles of bodies everywhere)..

Hitch me up with Sarah Carter please!

Moon is also nice

The "leave me save yourself" bit... you don't just leave someone because they say to... there's the "no man left behind" thing to keep in mind... she had been a useful soldier, so if she was only a little injured and just missing a bike, a small risk to pick her up pays off on a future mission when you have the extra soldier still.

Then you factor in that he cared for her... people will take additional risks for people they care about. In this case he just risked himself to save her. A group of people was risked to find Ben... a couple of times if you include last season... so one man risking himself to save one woman isn't an unreasonable risk really.

The unrealistic part to me? In a normal non-alien-war world, a girl like her with terminal cancer would probably disconnect and not want to form bonds because she knew she didn't have much time. Right or wrong, that's natural... but now she's at the end of the world, literally watching people get killed all around her. EVERYONE is potentially terminal now... heck, she has already outlived 100s of people since joining up with the 2nd Mass... so I would tend to think that would swing her back towards living for the moment rather than shutting down.

It might make her take risks in battle, that would make sense... but it should also make her want to let go of burdens too. At this point she is WAY more likely of dying from alien attack than from her cancer.

"no man left behind" is for US Army Rangers, for National Guard units, I think it's OK.

So now it's been confirmed that the skitters (or at least a goodly number of them) are supposedly in rebellion against the "overlords" and want to join forces with the humans, but can't convince the humans of their sincerity. what better way than to use their superior tech to cure cancer girl?

Cancer is not an issue for her any more is it?. It was either in remission or had been removed. Besides people act completely differently depending on the circumstances and the person. Different people can react a wide variety of ways to the same circumstances.

Except you can't compare normal teenage behavior in our world to the way teenagers would act when the world as been decimated by aliens or zombies. Essentially, they are at war.

All you have to do is look at the way kids act in war torn 3rd world countries where not following orders can get them killed. They practically become zombies themselves. They learn quickly that fun and games are over and you have to do what it takes to survive.

It was actually refreshing to see the youngest son acting sensible for once.
They left after dark and got to the hospital while it was still dark. The convoy was moving pretty slowly because of the medical bus, so it couldn't have been far away.

In addition, they had been out riding on motorcycles (including dirt bikes) and ATVs that would likely top out at 200 miles or so of range. I doubt they were mixing 2-cycle oil on the road, so they likely didn't refuel. Assuming a somewhat out of the way route that took them between several facilities as opposed to the direct route the convoy took, they were likely no more than 60 miles or so away since it was their last stop on the way back to base. They could likely make the distance in 2-3 hours at the slower speeds they were traveling at.

Finally, have you ever traveled with young kids? After a long day of activity, a car ride in the dark tends to knock them right out. Instead, the youngest kid was wide awake and ready for more.

Of course he was going to go back for her. We all knew he was going to do it no matter how much she told him not to.

It's the cliche I had a problem with. Artificial peril solved by one our main character heroes. That left only two options: he gets her to safety or the mechs shoot her first and, in his rage, he has to pull a Rambo on them and take them out with miracle shots.

It's right up there with war films where soldiers leave perfectly good cover to run out shooting at the enemy that is smart enough to stay under cover.
Edited by NetworkTV - 7/9/12 at 12:35pm

I mostly agree, in that we're probably overanalyzing poor scripting. But one could argue that most of it is because Ben's been contaminated (as we know) by the skitters and is being torn between two loyalties. He's been given a pass on his overt symptoms (spikes, skin changes, increased stamina, etc) so maybe wouldn't think of how his actions are going to be taken.
Well, he was given a gun and told to guard the hospital bus. Both having that responsibility and the scare of almost having been harnessed would justify scripting it that way, I think.
I think we have different definitions of "far away" They're still in the same city, so more than 10-20 miles does seem unlikely. Maybe close to the other side of town, even if the center is occupied by invaders.

still, the absurdity of the plot and the characters actions are hard to digest.

The nits we pick here usually can be ignored while watching the antics of our favorite characters. Still, it's quite annoying when we know so much better is possible. From reading Beeman's blog at http://gregbeeman.blogspot.ca/, I get the impression that the producers are constantly patting themselves on the back at how well they've been doing. With so short a season, though, there's no way for them to get any feedback from viewers while the episodes are still in production.