MANILA, Philippines - Steven Spielberg sure does love his aliens. Beyond classic films like E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, he also had aliens in War of the Worlds and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. He produced the Men in Black and Transformers trilogies. Just this summer alone, his name’s attached to three (!) blockbusters with aliens: the latest instalment of Transformers, Super 8 (itself a love letter to E.T. and Close Encounters) and Cowboys & Aliens. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that his new TV show, TNT’s Falling Skies, is about a world that’s not just been invaded by aliens, but one where humanity failed to repel them.
Noah Wyle plays lead character Tom Mason, a teacher turned erstwhile leader of a group of civilians and resistance fighters currently escaping the flattened city of Boston. Wyle is no stranger to Spielberg; he was a regular cast member for many of ER’s 15 seasons, a show Spielberg produced with creator Michael Crichton. Mason uses his background as a history professor to aid with military strategies that the remaining resistance fighters can use against the aliens, while trying to find his missing son Ben. His two other sons are with him, their mother having died shortly after the invasion.
Moon Bloodgood is also a member of the cast; she plays the medic to the ragtag group. Bloodgood has some experience with post-apocalyptic scenarios, having been in Terminator Salvation. Will Patton plays the main commandant of the resistance, a retired military officer. He’s also got some dystopia work under his belt, having played the antagonist in the unfortunate The Postman.
The first three episodes of the premiere season’s 10 have shown the kinds of missions the group embark on: securing enough food so that they don’t starve, scouting an armory for weapons and ammo (and to make sure it isn’t a trap), and freeing human slaves captured by the aliens (called Skitters). They aren’t epic firefights; rather, the show tries to emphasize the human scale, the survivors on the edge of madness or starvation or desperation. There’s infighting and terse faceoffs. The show does a better job with these moments than the recent The Walking Dead, another post-apocalyptic show unfortunately plagued by cookie-cutter characters.
Don’t get me wrong, though: there’s a good ratio of action per episode, and while episodes are mission-oriented and relatively self-contained, they’ve also begun seeding clues to larger mysteries, like the fate of the missing Ben, or the motivations of the Skitters, and possible ways that they can get a leg up on the aggressors’ superior technology and weaponry. It isn’t perfect, either: some characters have yet to be fleshed out, but the core cast’s roles are established well enough in the beginning.
Thus far the writers and producers have been having fun with playing with the clichès and tropes of alien invasion stories and post-apocalypse scenarios. Sometimes they are reinforced to show why they are effective, but refreshingly, more often than not they are subverted, raise an expectation only for a twist to make an appearance and throw a monkey wrench into the works. Things not going according to plan, after all, is the catalyst for drama. Here’s hoping they can sustain that feeling of suspension, of not know what comes next, for the remainder of the first season.
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Ramon De Veyra blogs at thesecuriousdays.com but is more active on Twitter.