'Falling Skies' on TNT HD - Page 28

Even little kids who play paintball know how to turn off auto to conserve ammo.


I watched the first few episodes, gave up, then watched the finale just to see where they were headed. The writing is still just...just awful. And that's an understatement. I'd say it's definitely not worth your time.

I think I agree. After having watched the entire season already, in retrospect, it really was very weak. I could have been sorting my music collection or reading my backlog of books instead.

I dare suggest that you could take nearly any 4-5 of the posters on this thread, have them collaborate over the web and they could put together a tighter plot line for this season with a better overall script than what we saw on-screen these past 10 hours. And probably using no more FX budget as well.

It's a real shame that the ratings were so good - they have no incentive to improve this show for season 2 and forward (c'mon - you don't think it will do well enough next summer to get greenlit for future seasons?).

I don't understand the big ratings jump for the season finale...did people really watch the 2 hour premiere, skip all the middle episodes and come back to watch the 2 hour finale?

Well, technically, none of them were using automatic weapons - or at least not in automatic mode. It only sounded that way when they all fired at once. Even civil war rifles will sound like that when a bunch fire all at once.

Think about it, they had 30 rounds between them. Even if it were only 6 people, that's only 5 rounds.

Any automatic weapon would expend that in about a half a second.

However, they still were dumb about it. They should have made rounds for something you can use a scope with and give 10 rounds each to 3 guys, each aiming for the "head" one at a time, counting off their shots in turn until they kill it.

Everyone else would get things like pipe bombs and molotov cocktails to at least hold it back and keep the fire off the snipers.


Paintball guns are semi-automatic - at least as they come from the store, anyway. You pull the trigger, it shoots a paintball. Repeat until you run out of rounds.

Now, something like TL Spyder with a two finger trigger can be fired very quickly and seem to be automatic, but it's really just the player pulling the trigger really fast. I can shoot up to 5 rounds a second with mine, meaning I could empty a 150 ball hopper in about 30 seconds. That, of course, is provided they feed that fast. The problem is, it's a gravity feed and the shells of the balls are made from gelatin - which makes them sometimes stick together in humid weather.

So, some of those 5 shots per second are just air.

Plenty of them come "from the store" full auto. My Spyder MR3 has no modifications, and a nice little 3 way switch. Semi auto, semi auto with IR, and hold the trigger down full auto. Full auto chops balls like crazy because I never bought a fast enough hopper to keep up, but it is there.

This is no different than other shows on TV. Many Season finales will have higher ratings than the weekly average.

For instance a coworker just started watching it last week and watched the finale, half on Sunday and half on Monday. He plans on watching the first 7 episodes from Comcast VOD if they are available.

strange way to watch a show...watch the final episode first and then all the others...seems like they don't care about any potential spoilers in the finale ruining their enjoyment of the early episodes...I could never watch a show like that...I won't even watch a (highly serialized drama) show unless I've watched all the previous seasons/episodes first...just jumping in the middle would ruin the storytelling for me

As you've read, renewed. Read novels by Carl Hiaasen or Michael Connelly instead. The writing was excrementally bad. Peeyuu bad. And the acting was worse. I say this after quitting at episode four and scanning the final two episodes.

They watched the 8th episode last week and then episodes 9 and 10 between Sunday and Monday. I've watched shows myself like this in the past. Where I start watching near the end, and realize I like it. So I go back and watch earlier in the Season. I remember watching CSI this way. I watched the last few episodes of the first season in 2001 when they originally aired and then caught the earlier part of the season later.
I also did it with the show Lie to Me. We watched the end of the first Season and then caught the earlier episodes over the Summer. Over the years I've done this many times with shows. When I find I like them I will continue watching them even though they are at the end of the season. And catch up with the earlier episodes later.

There are plenty of shows with far worse acting. While the acting is not great on Falling Skies, it is very far from the worst acting on TV.

shows like CSI or Lie to Me are not highly serialized so watching out of order is probably not a big deal as each episode's story is self contained and doesn't overlap over the entire season...yes they do have some sort of 'main' story that is spread out over the course of a season or several seasons but doesn't require as much dedication to follow...I was referring to shows like Fringe, LOST, Breaking Bad etc which is almost required to watch in order from the beginning otherwise you are missing out on a lot

I did that with Big Love and Curb your Enthusiam as well. Big love was highly serialized.
Stargate SG1 was another. I started watching halfway through season 5, and continued to watch the new ones while I caught up on the earlier seasons. MacGyver was another I started watching very late as well and continued to watch the new shows while I caught up on earlier seasons. I guess I've been doing it more than I was thinking. I only pick an handful of shows to watch from the beginning at the start of each season, but if I get recommendations for another show, or happen to catch one at some point and like it, I will keep watching it, whether there are spoilers or not.

Just the fact that there is a known amount of content already produced makes it worthwhile for me to watch it.

Talking about Tom's kids, I thought the oldest one was 19 or so when the show started and then at the end it comes out he's 16??? That is a big stretch for anyone to make. The actor is 25 and looks all of it. Some 25 year old can pull it off, he can't. As for the other kid actors they could get themselves in a "Lost" situation- Walt all over again.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who hated the final episodes. I wonder what the original plot was when they had planned to kill Weaver off in the pilot. Was Tom supposed to become the de facto leader? I wonder what this show could have been with coherent writing.

Oh and BTW the car w/ the 50 cal mounted is a '66 Tempest, not a GTO.

That is not a strong recommendation .

My life has a finite number of hours. I'd rather not spend them watching something, however poorly written and acted, that is, at best, "very far from the worst" on TV. Even that far away from the worst, it is still awful.

I'm curious to see where this is going now - but they are going to make us wait a year for season 2?? Not sure I will even care about or remember the show anymore a year from now!

This is how it works with many of the Summer shows. They are shown in the Summer. So each season is Broadcast in the Summer. They only have 8 to 12 episodes per season. I like it that way. Otherwise it comes on again in the Winter when I'm mostly watching content from the larger broadcast networks and I end up with too many things to watch.

Amen. I'm getting tired of these shortened seasons and then a year break, I'll probably forget all about it as well.

I'll keep it programmed in the DVR, so I don't have to remember. Now, whether I care enough to watch it when it comes back is a different issue.

This and Alphas are shows that I've been watching as they progress this season, but likely wouldn't miss at all if they suddenly weren't renewed.

Of course, more shows every season are that way for me. It's been at least 2 seasons since I was invested enough in a show to actually look forward to it each week.

I've got maybe 4 Alphas episodes on the DVR .. worthwhile .. ?? Just finishing up a marathon watch of "Jericho" ..

Considering how long it took them to get these episodes to screen (pilot May 2009 - final shooting November 2009 - then post work) and they only just announced season two I think they are moving much faster.

It also could be that some people only watched the premiere and finale live, while they watched the other episodes later in the week at their leisure. The pilot and finale were "events."

For the conservation of bullets... a nice historical reference from Tom would have been the US Revolutionary War reference to wait to fire until you "see the whites of their eyes"...

One Mech, bullets they know will pierce the Mech... wait and each person just fire once and see what happens.

The spread fire would have made more sense IF all those Mechs had attacked at once (like the next wave was doing)... but for the single Mech, one person could have taken that out with a few shots.

That's the kind of image I had in mind too. Line formation with half of them firing a volley to see what happens then the remaining half as backup. Instead of everyone emptying their mags at once.

Considering the amount of shots fired at the first mech based on the bullet holes I think they only landed about ten shots.

It's going to be a long year. I will be looking forward to season 2.

I watched all 10 episodes in two sittings. I find the characters weak and the acting sometimes stilted. The story is okay, but there is too much unnecessary fluff. Plot holes are big enough to shoot missiles through., but it mostly kept my interest and was mildly entertaining.

This is not what I call good sci-fi though. I just got done watching the entire collection of Battlestar Galactica and I'm a watcher of Fringe. Falling Skies is laughably inferior to both of those by far.

Fringe has very interesting likable characters that you care about. Acting is, for the most part, top notch. The story is very intriguing and complex enough to think about. Falling Skies is nowhere NEAR in the same league as Fringe. If I had to choose between the two, it would be an easy choice. But Falling Skies is a summer series and there isn't much else on to watch, so I'm sure I'll be back watching season two next summer.

Yeah...I was gonna say...most electronic markers feature full-auto mode (All?). Actually, most of my friends have electronic markers with full-auto. I have a mechanical myself because I hate wasting paint and that forces me to conserve. In any case, that's one more reason shows like Falling Skies annoy me: people can't aim/take cover/conserve ammo to save their lives. It's not a hard thing to do. There is one thing playing paintball has taught me though that I always thought was bs from watching movies/tv shows, and that's hitting a running target really is pretty hard.

There was a clear shot of a rabbit-ear/loop type antenna in the lab ... dubious for xmitter use, but it was there nonetheless.

I recorded the last two eps and planned on watching them last night but when the time came I chose to delete them instead.

Based on previous eps this decision was not hard for me.

I would give the whole season a C. Some of it was pretty good, some of it was pretty bad, and some of it was just okay. I'm not sure if I'll continue to watch it next season.