Falling Skies

Falling Skies
File:Falling.Skies.title.card.jpg
Genre	Science fiction Post-apocalyptic Drama
Created by	Robert Rodat
Starring	Noah Wyle Moon Bloodgood Drew Roy Jessy Schram Maxim Knight Seychelle Gabriel Peter Shinkoda Mpho Koaho Sarah Carter Colin Cunningham Connor Jessup Will Patton
Composer	Noah Sorota
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	4 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Steven Spielberg Darryl Frank Justin Falvey Robert Rodat Graham Yost
Producer	John Ryan
Production location	Ontario, Canada
Cinematography	Christopher Faloona
Editor	Donn Aron
Camera setup	Single camera
Running time	45 minutes
Production company	DreamWorks Television
Original release
Network	TNT
Release	June 19, 2011 (2011-06-19) – present

Falling Skies is an American science fiction dramatic television series created and produced by Robert Rodat. The series picks up six months into a world devastated by an alien invasion. Tom Mason, a former Boston University history professor, becomes the second-in-command of the 2nd Massachusetts Militia Regiment, a group of civilians and fighters fleeing post-apocalyptic Boston.

The series premiered on June 19, 2011, and is broadcast on the cable television channel TNT in the United States. It was renewed on July 7, 2011, for a second season of 10 episodes.

Series overview

Main article: List of Falling Skies episodes

Falling Skies tells the story of the aftermath of an alien invasion that not only neutralizes the world's power grid and technology, but also destroys the combined militaries of all the world's countries in a short amount of time. It is alluded that over 90% of the human population is killed within a few days. The story picks up six months after the invasion, and follows a group of survivors who must band together in order to fight back. The group, known as the Second Massachusetts (an allusion to a Boston militia in the American Revolutionary War), is now led by the retired Captain Weaver and Boston University history professor Tom Mason who, while in search of his son Ben, must put his extensive knowledge of military history into practice as one of the leaders of the resistance movement.

Cast and characters

Main cast

• Noah Wyle as Tom Mason, a former Boston University history professor who becomes the second-in-command of the 2nd Massachusetts, a roughly 300 strong group of civilians and fighters fleeing post-apocalyptic Boston. He has three sons: Hal, the oldest, Ben, the middle child who was taken by the Skitters, and Matt, the youngest. His wife died a short time after the invasion while gathering supplies. He is good friends with Anne Glass, and also shares some of her views on the rights of civilians.
• Moon Bloodgood as Anne Glass, the 2nd Mass's main doctor. She was a pediatrician before the invasion, but because of the circumstances, she has become a sort of battlefield medic. She is very inclined towards the civilians, and believes that they should do all they can to help them. Her husband and son were killed at home in the bombings during the invasion.
• Drew Roy as Hal Mason, Tom's oldest son. He is 16 years old, and a Scout in the 2nd Mass. His girlfriend is Karen. Although Hal is sometimes cold toward Matt, his younger brother, and his father, he cares about his family.
• Jessy Schram as Karen Nadler, a teenage girl who works as a Scout in the resistance army. She lost her family in the invasion. Hal is her boyfriend. She was captured by the skitters, who used Ben (The middle child of Tom Mason) who was harnessed at the time to drag her away.
• Maxim Knight as Matt, Tom's youngest son. He is having trouble adjusting to life after the invasion, particularly the death of his mother and the disappearance of his brother Ben.
• Seychelle Gabriel as Lourdes, a former college student who helps Anne with wounded people. She is very religious, and her faith in God is still strong despite the circumstances. She has a crush on Hal, which is dissuaded for the most part by Karen.
• Peter Shinkoda as Dai, Tom's right-hand-man in the field.
• Mpho Koaho as Anthony, a former Boston cop who is a fighter in the Second Mass and a part of Tom's team.
• Sarah Carter as Margaret, a woman who used to be part of Pope's gang. She helped Tom and his team escape after they were captured by Pope. Margaret was also "recruited" by Pope (and raped by Pope's brother and other gang members), and she kills Pope's brother and another member of his gang before they leave. She wants to earn a place in the 2nd Mass.
• Colin Cunningham as John Pope, the leader of a post-apocalyptic gang. He captured Tom, Hal, Karen, Anthony, and Dai and intended to trade them back to the 2nd Mass in exchange for a 50 caliber gun, food and one of their vehicles (a GTO). However, the plan backfired when Margaret helped Tom and the rest escape, and Pope was captured and the rest of his gang killed.
• Connor Jessup as Ben Mason, Tom's middle son who was captured by the Skitters. In the pilot, Hal saw Ben with one of the Skitter's harnesses on his back, which they apparently use to control children.
• Will Patton as Captain Weaver, the commander of the 2nd Mass. Weaver is a retired active and reserve military officer, who served with Porter during the Gulf War. He doesn't like that the 2nd Mass includes so many civilians, and this is a point on which he and Anne often clash. He tried to save his family when the Skitters came but he wasn't fast enough. He tells Tom that if his kids were still alive he would do anything to find them. It is revealed in the episode 'Grace' that Weaver was a religious man but that he lost faith when the Skitters came. This is shown when Lourdes is reciting a prayer: Weaver is whispering it to himself as well.

Recurring cast

• Bruce Gray as Uncle Scott, Anne's uncle who also reviews biology to the children of the 2nd Mass.
• Dale Dye as Colonel Porter, the leader of the resistance against the Skitters in Boston.
• Martin Roach as Mike, a soldier for the 2nd Mass. His son was captured by the aliens.
• Steven Weber as Dr. Michael Harris, a medical surgeon who is good friends with Tom. When the aliens attacked Harris left Tom's wife to die in order to save himself.

Production

Development

In May 2009, TNT announced that it had ordered to pilot an untitled alien invasion project. Robert Rodat wrote the pilot episode from an idea which was co-conceived by Rodat and Steven Spielberg. In January 2010, TNT ordered a 10-episode first season, which premiered in June 2011.

Noah Wyle (2009)

Wyle, who worked with TNT on the The Librarian films, was sent scripts for various shows on their network. Wyle said part of the reason he chose the part was to gain credibility from his children. He said "...with the birth of my kids, I started to really look at my career through their eyes more than my own, so that does dictate choice, steering me toward certain things and away from other things." Wyle also decided to do it as he could relate with his character, stating "I identified with Tom's devotion to his sons, and admired his sense of social duty."

The pilot was shot in 2009 and the rest of the season was shot from July to November of the following year in Toronto.

Crew

Rodat and Spielberg serve as executive producers on the project. Graham Yost, Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank are also executive producers. Yost had previously worked with Spielberg on the HBO miniseries The Pacific. Mark Verheiden is a co-executive producer and the series show runner. Verheiden had worked as a writer and producer on Battlestar Galactica. Greg Beeman is also a co-executive producer. Melinda Hsu Taylor is a supervising producer for the series; she previously worked on Lost. John Ryan is the on set producer.

Promotion

File:Falling-skies-poster.jpg

Promotional poster of Falling Skies.

The show's official website features an online web-comic. The comic, which is released every two weeks, follows the characters of the series just weeks after the invasion and, when it concludes, will lead directly into the pilot episode of the show. It is published by Dark Horse Comics and a 104-page comic will be released on July 13, 2011.

Character videos are also available online. The videos explore the main characters of Falling Skies.

As part of the promotional campaign, a vehicle, with the TNT logo and called "Falling Skies Technical" was released as a free gift in the social networking game Mafia Wars on June 14, 2011.

Release

Scenes from the pilot were screened on April 1, 2011, as part of WonderCon 2011. The United Kingdom received the world premiere of the pilot episode in full, at the first annual Kapow! Comic Con, on April 12, 2011. It premiered on TNT on June 19, 2011.

The series will be debuting in more than 75 countries worldwide. Falling Skies will air on TNT networks in several international markets. In other areas, the series has been licensed to networks that include Fox, Super Channel and Canal+. Warner Bros. International Television holds licensing rights for Canada.

In Germany and Latin America, the series premiered on June 24, 2011, only five days after the U.S. world premiere. Falling Skies is shown Friday nights at 8:15 pm on TNT Serie in Germany and 10:00 pm in Latin America on TNT Latin America, simultaneously on the sister channel Space Latin America. The series premiered on FX in the UK beginning July 5, 2011; on July 4, 2011, at 8:15 pm CAT for South African viewers on TopTV's Fox Entertainment channel; and on Foxtel's FOX8 channel in Australia on July 7, 2011.

Reception

Critical reception

Falling Skies received positive reviews. Review aggregator Metacritic awarded the series a score of 71%, based on 26 critic reviews, indicating generally favorable reviews. However, reviews by users were much lower at 5.5/10 based on 70 ratings. Tim Goodman of the Hollywood Reporter wrote "...the entertainment value and suspense of Falling Skies is paced just right. You get the sense that we'll get those answers eventually. And yet, you want to devour the next episode immediately." Thomas Conner of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "...a trustworthy family drama but with aliens." He continued, "It's 'Jericho' meets 'V', with the good from both and the bad discarded. It'll raise the summer-TV bar significantly." Ken Tucker from Entertainment Weekly gave the series a B+ and wrote, "A similar, gradually developed, but decisive conviction makes Falling Skies an engaging, if derivative, chunk of dystopian sci-fi." He continued, "...Falling Skies rises above any one performance; it's the spectacle of humans versus aliens that draws you in." In the Boston Herald, Mark A. Perigard gave the series a B grade, writing "Don't look now, but Falling Skies could be a summer obsession."

Not all critical reviews were favorable. In Variety, Brian Lowry stated that he enjoyed the action sequences but that "the soapier elements mostly fall flat", and called the series "painfully old-fashioned". Mike Hale, from The New York Times, called the series "average" and "good on the action, a little muddled on the ideas". He added that "the tone is placid and slightly monotonous, as if we were watching the Walton family at the end of the world". The Washington Post reviewer Hank Steuver criticized the actor portrayals, writing that "the show is slowed by so many wooden performances, Wyle's included". He also states he found himself "root[ing] for the aliens, which cannot have been the writers' intent". In The Miami Herald, Glenn Garvin also criticized the poor acting, stating, "the 'Falling Skies' cast appears unconvinced and unconvincing." Garvin singled out the performance of Sarah Sanguin Carter as the only exception, and added that Spielberg has "bottomed out" with this family drama series.

Ratings

The two-hour premiere of Falling Skies was watched by 5.9 million viewers, making it cable television's biggest series launch of the year. It also delivered more than 2.6 million adults 18–49 and 3.2 million adults 25–54. The second episode dropped to a 1.5 adults 18–49 rating, down 25% from the premiere's 2.0 rating and 4.2 million viewers.

In the UK, it premiered on pay TV channel FX, with 402,000 viewers.

External links

• Official website
• Falling Skies at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com