Falling Skies – Season 5.
Starring Noah Wyle, Moon Bloodgood, Drew Roy, Connor Jessup, Maxim Knight, Colin Cunningham, Sarah Sanguin Carter, Mpho Koaho, Doug Jones and Will Patton.
SYNOPSIS:
As season five opens, all breed of beast and mutant are running rampant on earth. The Espheni’s power core has been destroyed, and humans are now ready to fight on their terms, even if it means resorting to hand-to-hand combat against the enemy. After four years of being tortured, imprisoned and mutated and having their loved ones stolen from them, Tom and the 2nd Mass are filled with rage, ready to destroy the enemy in an all-out battle to determine the fate of Earth.
“We’re gonna run, we’re gonna hide, and we’re gonna survive!”
An ambitious television program backed by Steven Spielberg, Falling Skies takes many of its cues from The Terminator. The Earth is invaded by aliens (who are nicknamed Skitters by humans) and in the brief war mankind fought against them, an EMP and nukes were set off, destroying major cities across the globe and setting humanity back a great deal. The Skitters (who use robotic sentries) abduct human adolescents and “harness” them, making them their slaves. Several bands of human survivors regroup and make plans to take back their children from the menacing aliens. One group of survivors who call themselves “The 2nd Mass” is led by a militant named Weaver (Will Patton), whose second-in-command Tom (Noah Wyle) keeps him in check at every turn. Ben (Connor Jessup), one of Tom’s three sons, is “harnessed” in the first season, and much of the first season is focused on Tom’s attempts to save him in the midst of the chaos going on around the post-apocalyptic world. His two other sons Hal (Drew Roy) and Matt (Maxim Knight) aid him, and he falls in love with a doctor named Anne (Moon Bloodgood), and he comes to lead (and even briefly becomes their president) an entire militia he has come to call family. Some episodes deal with surviving bands of people who have made deals with the aliens to survive. Other episodes deal with trying to figure out ways to un-harness formerly abducted children.
Through the five relatively short seasons (there are 10-13 episodes in each season), Tom and his sons remain the focus, while the fourth season focused on the child Tom and Anne have, and the child – named Lexi (played by a bleached blonde Scarlett Byrne) – grows up in an accelerated process and becomes a pseudo prophet with alien genes. The fourth season was the strangest of the whole series, but the much better and more focused fifth season ties up loose ends and delivers a satisfactory conclusion to an otherwise solid TV series.
The look of the whole series is top quality. Each episode seems to have a sizable budget, with good (practical and CGI) effects, decent scenes of action, and strong acting all around. My biggest concern is that I have a difficult time believing that a band of survivors as big as the one the show focuses on manages to live day-by day in broad daylight without constant assaults from the aliens. Frankly, the survivors should all be living underground – that I could believe. Despite that, Falling Skies is a diverting and entertaining show. I was sad to see it end.
The fifth season is now available to own on DVD and Blu-ray. For more information, please visit www.tntdrama.com
david j. moore
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