'Falling Skies' on TNT HD - Page 46

Well, they had already encountered Hal's patrol. Maybe they sent a runner to get them.

(I think it would have been a nice touch for the person carrying them to give the leader a dirty look -- as if he'd been planning to eat them himself.)

I agree the harnessed kids turn into skitters, but two legged in my opinion, the "other" skitters came from another planet, where their race had 4 legs, still waiting to see a fully transformed human, perhaps soon..

Maybe .. but since the Skitters act as "translators" for the Overlords, maybe they are all humans and the genetic transformation grew another set of legs .. ??

I noticed there was not a single skitter, or any other effect in this week's episode. I agree they must not have enough of a budget to allow that every week. That has been the downfall of many SF series. Driving beatup cars and trucks in the dark should cut down on the expenditures.

From the previews it looks like they are introducing some conflict between the 2nd Mass and the Charesltonites. That should also cut down on the FX needed.

I took this to mean her 'mother' made her feel like part of the family. I think she even said this. When she asked where her brother was, we all assumed it was a human brother. The reveal was that her 'brother' was an actual skitter.

The question then comes, Is the family bond from human to skitter, or as I see it, harnessed parasite to harnessed parasite? Based on the episode where the parasites were coming from a vat and were vicious right out of that vat, I believe the parasites are sentient beings loyal to the Overlords.

Were SG1, Atlantis, & SGU budgets that much higher than this shows budget? Don't get me wrong, the Stargate series had plenty of episodes which were dialog driven and limited in special effects, however Falling Skies seems to go from one extreme (replicators and alien encirclement) to another extreme (45min of poor night-time convoy dialog). The shift is pretty dramatic. If they're going to do a dialog episode it could at least be compelling.

-Captain Weaver's discussion with the Gunnery Seargent was ok but I really didn't care about the Sgt because it's the first time in 1.5 seasons that the guy has had more than 1 or 2 lines.

-The scenes with Lordes were terribly forced. It didn't seem authentic at all. She's hording Jamil's tools? Really? I'm not convinced that she can cry on camera. And what was with feeding water to the guy in the coma? They said earlier in the ep that he was on an IV.

- The Asian guy at the end had the worst line of the show when he shouted "Who Goes There?!" when they heard rustling in the woods caused by the approach of the Continential Army. Who talks like that? In WWII they used "thunder and lightning" as a challenge question. The problem here is that either they're human or they aren't. You see spider legs, you start shooting. The shows writers might as well have had him say "Hark! Who doth approach? Be you friend or foe?"

- I thought for sure that Pope had intentionally sabatoged the truck's radiator hose.

On the plus side I'm glad Tom and Ann are gonna get to bump uglies in the safe confines of the Palmetto State. I'm also pleased Hal realized he's not gonna do much better than Maggie. Her prior transgressions may have been unacceptable in a pre-alien invasion world but they're pretty much irrelevant at this point.

I have no idea how expensive special effects are but I really wish this show had twice the current budget. Weaver fired the only shot at the end of this episode and it was completely unnecessary. He could've just whistled as everyone in the 2nd mass was within 20yds of him anyway.

I have no idea how expensive special effects are but I really wish this show had twice the current budget. Weaver fired the only shot at the end of this episode and it was completely unnecessary. He could've just whistled as everyone in the 2nd mass was within 20yds of him anyway.

He fired the shot to awaken the viewing audience.

The shot in the air was the special effects

Djoel

OH MY, I just read this Lol, Funniest post in weeks..

Djoel

Why?

He knew they were coming. He met up with Hal, who likely told them they were on their way. He had his guy carry some strawberries to demonstrate they have it together in some hidden location. He could have offered up a bar of soap, but that wouldn't have tasted as good.

The fact that the strawberries looked fresh and appeared to be in a pristine Ziploc bag did seem like a stretch. Couldn't tell if it was a double seal bag tho.

Again, though, if they met up with Hal, took him back to the base, then met up with the group in the morning when they arrived, why couldn't they have brought along some strawberries to either a) show them what they can look forward to or b) to make them feel at ease for whatever evil plot they have in mind?

I'm not sure why this is so impossible. They're just strawberries. I'll bet they even have a refrigerator to keep them in and running water to wash them off, too.

I don't think we're using the word impossible .. the word was "stretch" .. as in your ability to stretch a post into something else ..

It's an opinion .. get it .. ??

Just watched last night. I thought it was a good episode. I think the whole Charleston thing looks like it could be irritatingly dramatic, but we'll see . . .

I've thought the whole time that Id go underground. Basement of malls, subway stations, etc.

I'd hide out in Disneyland - lots of underground tunnels there.

The down side? It wouldn't take long for you to be found. It's a small world, after all...

Well, it's obvious you're going to take offense at everything I say, but...

These people have made a practice of blazing lights in the windows of every building they occupy, drive down the road in a giant noisy convoy with the headlights burning and seem to take everyone who comes along to offer a safe place to go at their word, yet they somehow manage to elude the aliens enough to not be decimated.

If packing a small bag of strawberries is a stretch, the stuff above is likely a fully torn ham string.

Truth be told, the biggest stretch in regards to the strawberries for me was that they didn't bring enough for the entire group. He gives one to the captain while everyone behind him is likely read to gnaw off their own feet...

Funny! It's true, though, they have quite a set-up at Disney (both parks); it's like a city underground at Disney World with miles of tunnels. I was there many moons ago with a singing group that did a pre-record of a live show we were doing in the park, and we worked in a large fully-equipped recording studio underneath the park!

I thought of that as soon as the strawberries was given to the Capt, none for the rest..It would have been cool if he looked at them and simply passed them back to the next fellow dumb look intact though

To me was a little hooky, more than anything else..What ever

DJoel

Honestly, I'm suspicious of the strawberries. Had they come with some boxes of fruit and water for the group to eat on the way to the "base", I'd be down with that.

However, the fact that they pull out a handful in a baggie makes me think it's a tease to hide any suspicions of bad doings there. We haven't had a "take our people to this place of safety where we'll trust some old friend who will offer them up to the aliens" plotline since last season. We're overdue.

At least this time, it won't be just the kids.
Edited by NetworkTV - 8/8/12 at 11:20am

And when the spiders are released...

I smell a strawberry plot twist - or - as Capt. Queeg said:  "Ahh, but the strawberries that's... that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with... geometric logic.."  

Isn't that basically what Star Trek did? The original series didn't have that many minutes of special effects. I seem to remember a lot of shots of Captain Kirk walking around finding piles of sulfur and diamonds talking to his voice recorder before he shot the guy in the big rubber Gorn suit LOL. If I put a stop watch to it, I'm sure there wouldn't be any more effects in Star Trek than there are in Falling Skies. As for your beef that the producers won't spend money...well, they have to MAKE money to spend it. They know what their ratings are from last season, they know how much money the network will pay for each episode, and they budget accordingly. It's not as if the producers are going to loose money on this as a vanity project.

Producer/director Greg Beeman's blog (gregbeeman dot blogspot dot com) often addresses the budgetary constraints. The Season 2, Episode 7 post discusses how that episode (with the spiders) was way over budget due to vfx, so it's no surprise that they would scale way back the following week to keep money in the bank for the final two episodes.

How about at deep underground secret installations like Area 51 in Nevada?

LOL...yeah, that would be the last place I'd run into an alien....

Actually, now that I think of it, a pretty good place to be - if you could get there, is somewhere like Prague, where you could go down to Old Prague, which is a city underneath the current one. A lot of resistance groups used it to keep out of sight of the Nazis during WWII.

There's also the underground tunnels under places like Edinburgh, Scotland. I think London has stuff like that too. Just duck down the nearest close and keep going down...

Exactly .. it's a plot / dialog / character driven show, folks .. if FX were the determining factor, Trek original would need to be considered a failure .. heck, the sets were made out of cardboard ..

As I've said before, many of the shows that are worshipped by the fans today would apparently be a big fail with the couch critics of today .. all things being equal ..

The sets were cardboard, but for that era what scifi set wasn't? I just haven't been pulled into the dialogues so far. I'm still tuning in and maybe it will improve.
As for the storyline, I'm still betting that the red eye skitter pulls the 2nd Mass out of a pickle in Charleston.

Like I said, .. all things being equal ..

I have made no bones about my liking the show .. no, it's not perfect, but it is solid escapism entertainment ..

Ben will come riding into battle atop a white skitter.