Falling Skies: Review: Season 03 Eps 1-3

TNT, 9 & 16 June 2013

A new group of aliens has joined the battle on the side of humanity… but are they to be trusted?

Opening with an attention-grabbing double bill the third season of the Spielberg-produced Falling Skies has a lot to prove. The previous two seasons have been so-so stuff, with little new to add to the genre. Will it be third time lucky for the show that’s no-one’s favourite?

Seven months after the last episode (did you realise—they may have failed to mention it enough times), and new aliens the Volm (the sole representative is Doug Jones with a CGI/animatronic head) have joined humanity in their fight against the Espheni (that’s the big Grey Overlords) and the Skitters (they’re the spider-leg guys). With the new aliens comes new technology which might just allow the remnants of the human race to strike back…

However, across these three episodes they’re clearly on the back foot. Some kind of ultimate weapon is being constructed, but in the meantime the inhabitants of Charleston live under the threat of an impending Espheni assault.

Tom Mason is now president, but he stills gets his hands dirty. His new baby seems to be exhibiting strange rapid development, while his oldest son is being controlled by an alien implant. His middle son has also survived having an alien spine implant attached to him. That just leaves the youngest Mason boy as the only wholly human member of the family…

Falling Skies is often let down by the writing. What’s the point of bringing Terry O’Quinn back if you’re only going to kill him off halfway through the first episode? At least the show isn’t afraid to cull some characters with ‘berserker’ Crazy Lee suffering a particularly nasty exit in ‘Badlands’. There’s plenty of action, too, and it does have consequences, but this show has to be building to something better, otherwise it is in danger of becoming rather dull and preachy.

Verdict: Revolution with aliens, and the addition of aliens automatically improves any show.

Episode 1 ‘On Thin Ice’: 6/10

Episode 2 ‘Collateral Damage’: 5/10

Episode 3 ‘Badlands’: 6/10

Brian J. Robb