Falling Skies - Epic Fail
Wednesday, 10th August 2011, 15:59

Page 1 Page 2 There is no justice in the world. But then anyone who has been watching the lowlifes go on a rampage looting London, will already know that. TV can often reflect true life, to varying degrees of success and enjoyment, and sometimes the industry that is TV does too.

This season, we saw a few SciFi series from the US, one of which was the tiresome predictable and really quite a let down that was V finally which got cancelled after it's second run. I'm not quite sure it deserved to get that far, but it did. Yes, I watched it anyway, even though it was bad, I quite like some of the cast so that compelled me to continue with it.

Also cancelled, was the fantastic series hybrid The Event, which had a rocky start but soon evolved into a really exciting combination of 24 style action and, er, some show involving aliens, perhaps Roswell? Anyway, week in week out this got stronger and stronger, and I'd even recommend a watch knowing that the cliff hanger finale will leave you hanging off the cliff.

And then we get to Falling Skies, the Steven Spielberg produced SciFi series in which the aliens have already wiped out most of the planet, and the humans are fighting back. As a scenario there is so much you could do with this, so many avenues to explore, this could have been so good, so so good.

Renewed for a second season after only a few episodes, this one lives on, completely without merit. This is truly one of the most benign, dreary, dull, predictable, stereotypical, badly acted, badly written, cheap looking shows on television. I wish I'd never started watching it, because as I may have hinted at before, once I start something, no matter how awful it might be, I can't help carrying on sometimes.

So what's wrong with this supposedly epic tale of man vs alien? Where to start, Noah Wyle, so perfect in ER, is completely mis-cast here and acts as a leader nobody would follow unless payed to. I don't care that he is playing a history teacher, perhaps he's playing one very well, which makes the script laughable that people would follow him in such a time of crisis.

Talking of crisis, things can't be that bad because everyone always looks so washed and clean, the women flawless, the men incredibly well groomed. I find it personally very re-assuring that when the poo hits the fan in the future, hairdressers and beauty therapists are going to survive, and then spend their time making sure everyone looks their best rather than shooting things. Oh and despite rarely seeing one, there must be a secret stash of baths somewhere in that school they holed themselves up in for most of the season.

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Posted by Robert John Shepherd