Watching “Falling Skies” (8 p.m. Central Sundays on TNT) is like buying a greatest hits album where you already own all the songs. The opening scenes of the resistance fighters hiding in abandoned tunnels and buildings from the aliens and their mechanized drones is straight out of “Terminator.” And the “harnesses” the aliens put on the backs of children to turn them into slaves cribs from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
Normally, I don’t insist that a TV show be completely original; even my favorite shows of all time were very much inspired by what had come before. Sometimes I just ask that a show fill a niche needed on TV right now, but even there, “Falling Skies” fails to stand out.
If “The Walking Dead” didn’t exist, I’d be more likely to recommend “Falling Skies,” but this much-hyped alien-invasion saga produced by Steven Spielberg covers exactly the same ground as AMC’s zombie show: The apocalypse recently arrived on Earth, and now a ragtag group is learning how to survive and fight back.
Every single beat of the pilot episode can also be found in Season 1 of “The Walking Dead.” The group hits a food warehouse to stock up — but watch out for those aliens, six-legged bug-like creatures that we also saw in “Super 8” (called “skitters” on this show). Don’t shoot your guns, though — that attracts the attention of the aliens, who will then drop a bomb on you. Oh, and watch out for that other ragtag gang of former criminals — they might be just as dangerous as the aliens.
“Falling Skies” is visually dark and impressive, and the actors are perfectly serviceable. Among this nomadic group of 300 (100 fighters and 200 civilians) in Massachusetts, we zero in on Noah Wyle’s Tom Mason, a history teacher pre-invasion who is now the second-in-command to a seasoned, hardcore military man played by Will Patton.
Mason’s wife was killed in the invasion, and one of his three sons, Ben, was harnessed by the aliens; young Matt and teenage Drew are still OK, as is Drew’s girlfriend Karen (played by Jessy Schram, who you might recognize as the younger version of Allison on “Medium”). Also in the mix is Moon Bloodgood as a doctor and, we can assume, a potential love interest for Tom. And young Lourdes has eyes for Drew, much to Karen’s annoyance.
“Falling Skies'” character moments come in short little bites; the show is more interested in the fighting and survival game in the two-hour premiere. Like “Walking Dead,” it will likely find more time for character arcs in episodes to come. And like “Walking Dead,” it looks like it’ll be a perfectly valid exploration of what post-apocalyptic humanity might look like, examining how a return to tribal culture is rife with challenges even as it cleans the slate for a race that had gotten out-of-control with its population and other excesses.
So while there’s nothing wrong with “Falling Skies” in concept or execution, I feel no pressing need to follow this tale. Every plot point, every character and every thematic angle calls to mind a sci-fi franchise that already exists, and it doesn’t mix these elements together in a new way.
The sky is falling yet again, and it looks way too familiar for me to keep tuning in.
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