Falling Skies is a Humanistic Sci-Fi Drama
Although there have been numerous science fiction television shows through the years, very few have centered on the pretext of an alien invasion. The most famous was also the most successful, the classic FOX drama The X-Files. The series was a combination, however, of standalone episodes in which FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigated a wide variety of supernatural occurrences, and mythological installments involving a government conspiracy regarding a pending alien occupation. Then there was the short-lived 1996 NBC drama Dark Skies, which again focused on a secret war between the human race and an alien species intent on domination against the backdrop of actual 1960s historical events.
It took executive producer Steven Spielberg and the year 2011 until another original alien invasion show hit the airwaves, the TNT series Falling Skies. The drama is more direct with its narrative in that by the time the pilot episode begins, the aliens have already completed their takeover of planet Earth. There is also a lack of conspiratorial cover-up in Falling Skies—the aliens came, the United States and other nations believed their intentions to be peaceful and the aliens in turn launched an attack that wiped out a large portion of the world’s population. The aliens also stayed, using mechanical robots to roam cities while kidnapping children and implanting them with a spinal “harness” to control both their minds and actions.
Small groups of stragglers survived the initial attack, however, and have formed military units of “fighters” and “civilians.” In this sense, Falling Skies is more akin to the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica of the Syfy channel than either The X-Files or Dark Skies. In the hands of executive producer Ronald D. Moore, that updated version of the 1978 original is less of a cheesy response to the then raging Star Wars craze and more of a psychological analysis of survival when a species is pushed to the brink of extinction. Falling Skies inevitably has the same quality in that the series isn’t so much about a defiant battle against a superior alien race but an examination of surviving against all odds, protecting one’s family, not losing faith and finding a way to eventually fight back.
Each of those traits is personified in the character of Tom Mason (Noah Wyle). A former history professor, Mason is now the second in command of the Second Massachusetts, an obvious reference to the Revolutionary War which led to the establishment of the United States of America. In many ways, Mason’s knowledge of history keeps his hopes alive and he is not above pointing out precedent for the various situations in which his fellow survivors find themselves.
“History is full of inferior forces creating so much trouble that the invading army leaves,” he tells the group. “The Athenians at Marathon, the Scotts against the British at Stirling Bridge. Our revolution, fought right here. Red Sox, Yankees, ’04.”
While the past may keep the flames burning in regards to the possibility of emerging victorious against the alien oppressors, it is family that motivates Tom Mason on a day-to-day basis. Although his wife died shortly after the invasion and his middle son Ben (Connor Jessup) was abducted by the aliens, his oldest and youngest are both still alive and part of the same rag-tag contingent of survivors. Teenager Hal Mason (Drew Roy) has grown from a kid not allowed to ride his bike at night into a full-fledged freedom fighter, but father Tom still tries to protect his youngest son Matt (Maxim Knight) by enrolling him in a makeshift school, celebrating his birthday and sheltering the boy from the prospect of becoming a “fighter” himself.
It is Tom Mason’s middle son Ben, however, that plays a larger role in the overall narrative of Falling Skies. The father is determined to find his lost child, and when Hal spots Ben with a group of other abductees, Mason is even more determined to rescue him. Inevitable it is revealed that a majority of the cast has lost their own offsprings to the aliens, and removal of the spinal harnesses which keeps them under control is a dangerous proposition. Ben is indeed retrieved from the alien invaders, along with a batch of other children, but even with the collar’s successful eradication they are not quite the same innocent youth of pre-invasion days.
While the theme of family plays a large role within Falling Skies, the series does not skip on the action aspect of its storyline. Because the aliens of Falling Skies are spider-like at the base with a humanoid-style torso and head, they have been nicknamed “skitters” by the survivors of their attack. Along with mechanical robots that bear a slight resemblance to the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica, the skitters wait in supermarkets and army arsenals for the remaining humans to arrive in search of food and weapons, thus ensuring many firefights between the alien and human species. Despite their hostile takeover of planet Earth, however, very little is initially known about them.
“We cannot fight these things unless we know how,” the military commander of Massachusetts declares in the pilot episode of Falling Skies, and “how” is just one of the many questions within the narrative. “Where did they come from?” and “What do they want?” are also at the top of the list, as well as such nuanced queries as to the design of their robots. “Whenever we’ve dreamed up robots, we’ve always imagined them to sort of be basically like ourselves,” one of the survivors remarks. “A head, two arms, two legs. But the skitters have six legs and yet their robots, the mechs, are bipedal. Now why wouldn’t they build robots that looked like themselves?”
Thus in addition to survival, in addition to the need of eventually fighting back, in addition to the importance of family, Falling Skies likewise features a story of discovery in regards to the alien race holding the remnants of mankind as virtual prisoners. Slowly the group pieces information together as the episodes roll along —the base of the skitters’ brain stems is vulnerable, for instance, and they apparently communicate with each other via internal radio waves. As for the kidnapping and apparent enslavement of children, enough small snippets leak to the surface to suggest a deeper ulterior motive.
There is a final element within the framework of Falling Skies, meanwhile, and that is the concept of faith. This is most evident in the character of Lourdes (Seychelle Gabriel), a former college student who now assists resident medic Anne Glass (Moon Bloodgood) in the caring of the sick and wounded. She regularly prays for the missing even if she does not directly know them and even finds an abandoned church in which to worship, but is initially met with derision by her fellow survivors. In the episode “Grace,” however, Lourdes’ attempt at giving thanks before dinner leads to a different outcome. “I think we can still appreciate what we have in our life,” she tells the hard-crusted Captain Weaver (Will Patton). “Even now.” Her comment then begins an individual outpouring of thankfulness from the other survivors.
Despite its basic premise, the TNT series Falling Skies is science fiction that has its roots in the real world. While aliens with six legs and brain-controlled kidnapped children are at the center of the narrative, in the larger sense it is a human drama about survival, family and the need for faith during troubling times. It is a story that transcends science fiction—and one that emulates the genre in the process as well.
Anthony Letizia (August 1, 2011)
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