Noooooooooooooooooooooooo – not Jimmy! Why!?!?!?!?
Not little orphan Jimmy. Anybody, but Jimmy. Who is Captain Weaver going to love now??? Tell me it’s not true… Oh, but it is true. This week, we kick off the episode with the death of Captain Weaver’s beloved Orphan Jimmy. How did Jimmy get himself offed you might be asking? Well, he decided to make a poor life choice. He decided to tag along with the alien-boy Ben on Skidder hunting trips of instead of patrolling the perimeter as ordered. We see the two have a successful hunting trip in the opening of the episode, but guess who pressed his luck one too many times. RIP little soldier, RIP.
Oh man alien invader fans, 2 hour season finale!!!! Whose excited?!?! THIS GUY!!! So let’s get started with Part 1, hour 1: MUTINY.
We open with the good Dr. Anne breaking the bad news to Tom about what she found examining the skidder, and I must say he takes it better than I would have thought for someone who just heard his middle child might sprout six legs. We next join or rededicated Captain Weaver who is planning the upcoming attack with new comer Lieutenant Danner. I mention this because this planning session is taking place WITHOUT the second in command, Tom. Uh oh, trouble is a brewing and we have our premise for this episode. We finally see the battle between the two that the writers have been tip-toeing around all season. No sooner than Weaver mentions awaiting Dai to return with orders from Porter, does he coming riding up on his motorcycle, and the dude is f-ed up.
People have to be on alien overload right now! Falling Skies on TNT, Cowboys and Aliens, Attack the Block, Skyline and Battle: LA are the most recent alien invasion movies to hit the screens. Out of all of those movies I truly only enjoyed Battle: LA. Attack the Block I have yet to see, but I’ve heard it is most excellent. I would say that the Darkest Hour was just another alien invasion flick but it does look to have it’s own identity in the form of the alien’s appearance.
Check out the trailer starring Emile Hirsch whom I haven’t since in a movie since the puke-fest that was Speed Racer:
Sure it’s another alien invasion flick, but the part that intrigues me is that the aliens are energy based lifeforms. How the hell do you fight something like that? It looked a little ridiculous with them having some sort of alien zapper guns, but I’m interested in seeing how humans could fight aliens that you can only see when they are around electronics.
Alien-Vision!
They actually reminded me of the phantoms in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in terms of detecting their presence. We’ll see if the movie is at least decent come December, but I’m not holding out much hope. I think it will still be better than the oft delayed Apollo 18.
Ok so sorry about missing last weeks episode recap and review, but I got super tied up at work…. and I’m lazy. In all honesty Sanctuary Part 2 was, at best, 2 out of 5 grizzlies. In short, the 2nd Mass gets their kids back from Clayton, Clayton dies, Pope has a heart, and the previously harnessed kid, Rik, thinks of himself as an alien now. That’s it… One sentence. BOOM. Efficiency.
We open up this weeks episode with the good doctor getting rolled for medical supplies by a family wishing to leave the protection of the 2nd Mass. They fear things are not safe after the death of Dr. Coward and the arrival of the harnessed kids last week. What a bunch of ungrateful bitches. Needless to say, they are able to leave, but a soldier stops them and confiscates the stolen medicine. Who was this mystery man you ask??? Well he turns out to be the Lieutenant Clayton, one of the few survivors of the 7th Mass, and he comes bearing bad news. Not only was a majority of the 7th Mass killed and their children taken, but a skidder attack is soon approaching. Don don dooooooon.
Let me start this out by first saying Congratulations. Congrats to the show for proving me wrong and earning a 10 episode second season, which is slated to air summer of 2012, and was ordered only 3 episodes in to the first season. The show has managed to retain 3.8 million of the 5.9 million premiere viewers. Way to go Falling Skies, way to say “IN YOUR FACE” to an opinionated idiot that writes for a certain website. Anyways on to tonight’s episode…
So for anyone who looooooooooves character development, this episode was for you. While the episode is centered around the rescue of Tom’s son Ben, we delve a little bit deeper into what makes Anne, Margaret, and a little bit of Captain Weaver tick. The episode kicks off with Tom and Hal once again coming up with a plan to rescue their missing family member Ben, and getting the ok from Captain Weaver. In short, the plan is to sneak in the hospital at night while the guarding skidder is sleeping, kill him without making a noise, and avoid alerting the patrolling mech. Hence the title SILENT KILL!
After the plan is decided, we cut to the good teacher and Tom’s younger son Matt playing with radios and listening to a classic record. Captain Weaver picks up in the music while staring at a drawing from a child and calmly walks into the classroom, confiscates the record, and informs the good teacher that he can play record he wants, except that one. It appears the stoic Captain has a soft side after all. More on this later. Next, we have the best of the entire episode. The death of Dr. Harris!! While playing a little too close to the skidder cage and to study new noises the alien is making, the skidder manages to choke the life out of the cowardly doctor. Kudos to the writers for killing him off so quickly.
After Dr. Harris’s death, we then see Hal talking to the previously rescued boy about his time being harnessed with the aliens. From what he learns, Hal decides to change the original rescue plan and where a harness to disguise himself to save Ben. A plan not quickly approved by his father. Quick side note, I think they should have made this conversation a bit longer and more detailed. It would have been great to get more insight into what the aliens where doing with the captured kids. Anyways, we now join Anne, Tom, and Hal where they are discussing how best to kill a skidder without making any noise. Anne informs them of a weak spot in the aliens mouth that could provide a way to kill them. After placing a saucer of water, Anne attacks and kills the captured alien by stabbing it with a scalpel inside the creatures mouth at the soft palette location they were discussing. After killing the creature, Anne storms off to the lost child board and confesses Tom how easy it was to kill the alien by picturing her family and how she has nothing to reminding her of her lost loved ones, only the blood from the alien on her hand. We now see why she has shut down when it comes to discussing her family.
Next, we finally get the what we have been building up to for the past 2 episodes, the rescue of Ben. Hal is able to successfully break in to the hospital where his brother is being held wearing a harness as a disguise. He slips in line with his brother and the other harnessed kids being led by a skidder. This is where it gets a little weird. The skidder leads them all in to a room where they all lay down in a circle, and the skidder hovers over them, caressing their heads as they all go to sleep. This looked a lot like a mother nesting over her babies, showing that there is something more to this enslavement by the alien invaders. As skidder falls asleep, Hal attacks and thrusts a pocket knife into the skidders mouth as Anne did back at the base, but during his attack the harnessed kids pull at Hal to try to stop the attack. To make things even more weird, after the skidder dies and the rescue team starts save the harness children, we see the kids placing their hands over the dead alien showing a sign of concern and sadness. What the F is going on here?
With the kids rescued and Dr. Harris dead, it’s now up to Anne to successfully remove the harnesses from all kids on her own. After removing all the harnesses, the final child (don’t worry, not Ben) died on the make shift operating table. Despite encouraging words from Tom on the number of kids she just saved, she is focused on the one that died. Someone should really explain to her she needs to be a glass is half full kind of person. A ‘Debbie Downer’ is no good for surviving alien invasion.
While waiting for Ben to recover we see a conversation between Hal and Margaret, who was instrumental in the rescue due to her extensive knowledge of the hospital, where we get to learn that Margaret is a cancer survivor who was given a 50/50 chance to live, and its that mind-set that allowed her to survive not only the invasion but her time spent with Pope’s crew.
The show comes to an end with Captain Weaver watching Tom and his reunited family, then going off to play the record he confiscated in the beginning, and Ben waking up to recognize his dad. All in all, I would say this week the show was OK at best. While I know character development is a must for any show in order to gain sympathy and create a connection between us and the characters, I feel they went about it a little half assed for Margaret and Captain Weaver. They probably should have taken a page from Lost and spend an entire episode focusing on them mindset of each character, that’s just my opinion.
I’ll be curious to see what adventure the writers have in store for us next since we have spent the first few episodes wanting to rescue Ben. Do we go back and rescue Hal’s girlfriend, or is she just to be forgotten about and Margaret will take her place?
This episode picks up where last week’s premiere left off with Tom and a small group attempting to save his son Ben. Things get off to a rough start as Tom and company are doing some recon of what they’re up against and someone knocks a piece of masonry off the building to the ground alerting a mech who opens fire. Before they’re driven off they saw the harnessed children including Ben gathering up scrap metal.
After the return to their base, Col. Porter briefs a group on how various other resistance groups are now in touch across the country. He also explains that the skitterers are setting up shop in every major city too and he wants his soldiers gathering intelligence on them and anything that their resistance can use. Tom stays after to tell them he has found Ben and a lot of other kids and Porter tells Tom they have a scientist that thinks he can remove the harness without killing the children, but needs one to try it on… you’ve probably guessed that its gonna be Ben. Tom gets the go ahead to rescue Ben only and bring him back for the harness removal. Then it turns that Tom even knows the guy who can remove the harness! Gasp in astonishment people!
Dr. Michael Harris tells Tom how he came to be in the resistance and apologizes about the death of his wife. Something tells me there’s more behind what happened to Tom’s wife, but it’s plainly obvious to all viewers. Afterwards its off to get Ben. Of course shit goes all awry as one of Tom’s buddies, Mike, sees his own son and blows their cover in his stupidity to save him. A mech is all over their ass at this point and they have to leave, Hal and Karen(?) getting left behind in the process at the mercy of another Mech.
Tom plans on going back after they get away, running headlong into a Skitter in the process and having to throw down with the ugly sum-bitch. Tom shockingly gets the upper hand by blowing off a couple of the skitter’s limbs with a shottie and then bludgeoning his face a little bit. He then returns to base with a prisoner of war – a live skitter. I can’t wait to see what they learn from the ugly turd in the next episode. Very exciting indeed!
Hal wakes up in the night, watching the harnessed kid carry off Karen as a mech shines a light in his face. As several harnessed kids march in front of the mech, a skitter points at the children while looking at Hal and saying something in its own language. Then I’m front of Hal the Mech proceeds to completely annihilate the kids with its cannon. Wow.
Doc Harris manages to get the harness of Mikes son by welding it off and leaving the needles from the harness in the kid’s back, the reasoning being that they withdrawal from whatever is in the harness and that is why they die. This way they wean off slowly and use morphine as a bridge between.
Tom finds Hal and he tells him the skitters let him go. Tom explains it’s what the Nazis sometimes did that with Allied prisoners to send a message: take one and we kill the rest. Tom then has a confrontation with Doc Harris who admits he ran and left Toms wife to die. His reward? Pow! Right in the kissa from Tom! At the end as the captive Skitter opens its eyes, the harness free child does too. It would seem the skitters still have a level of control even with the harness off.
I give this episode 4 out of 5 bears as we learned more about the aliens and it looks like we’ll learn a lot more in the next episode. The action was great and the acting was decent. Sure some of the scenes were cheesy as mice turds but it still good. I’m loving the above average effects in the show and animatronics they use with skitters along with cg. I’ll still be a watcher next week for sure!
TNT’s new original series Falling Skies kicked off last night with a two-hour premiere. The new sci-fi drama is executive produced by none other than Mr. Steven Spielberg, and stars Noah Wyle of ER fame. The show picks up 6 months in to a hostile alien invasion in Boston, and everything has already gone to hell in a hand basket. We learn from the opening children’s drawings that the invaders are killing off all adults, and capturing and enslaving the children they come across, referred to as ‘harnessing’. To underscore how bad things are truly going the show opens with the destruction of Boston and the retreating of all Massachusetts Resistance Forces and survivors.
Porter, the leader of the resistance fighters, decides to break up the remaining fighters and civilians into three separate groups, and send them into retreat in 3 separate directions to rendezvous later. It is here where we learn that our main man Tom Mason, a former history professor turned resistance fighter, (Wyle) is assigned to be second in command in the 2nd Massachusetts Resistance, led by Captain Weaver (Will Patton), and that his middle child Ben has been harnessed by the aliens. We also learn from the meeting with Porter that while they are trying, there is no way to remove the harness from captured children without killing them. At the conclusion of the meeting, Tom is left with explicit instructions to do whatever it takes to protect the civilians assigned to them, which foreshadows the impending conflict he will inevitably have with Captain Weaver.
A whole lot of people have to be getting burned out on alien invasion storylines. We’ve had more than our fair share of them just in the last six months and still have Super 8 and Cowboys and Aliens coming our way.
Could it be that the movie studios are all alien operations trying to catch us off guard for an invasion? Maybe. But I still think if an interesting new piece of alien entertainment comes our way it can’t hurt to check it out, because let’s face it: We’re screwed if there is an invasion coming.
So now we have Falling Skies, an alien invasion that starts off six months into the whole ordeal. It focuses on the people left fighting on against these invaders and trying to stay unified with most of the civilized world in ruins.
I suppose what sets this alien show apart from the others is that it takes place after the initial attack and invasion. Most of the recent ones and a couple older movies take place over a couple of days since they are only two-hour movies, (Independence Day, Skyline, Battle: LA) so it will be nice to see the remaining humans striving to survive and figuring out what the aliens are after besides kicking our asses over the course of ten episodes.
The effects, like the similarly Spielberg produced Terra Nova, look pretty darn decent for a T.V. show. It seems summer carrying into fall we will have a couple new Sci-Fi shows to sustain us with Falling Skies and Terra Nova since V will most likely be canceled.
So what does everyone think? Does this Spielberg produced project look any good? Is it going to be another War of The Worlds, this time dragged out over ten hours? This could be Spielberg making up for that boring piece of crud. Bore of the Worlds…. heh heh heh.
Sound off below in the comments section or be annihilated!
Grizzly Bomb 