‘Falling Skies’ Silent Kill – Recap

Posted Monday, July 11th, 2011 01:10 pm GMT -4 by 0

Wow! Hal Mason is a bad ass. First, to lay there all calm and steady, not wetting his pants as the Skitter laid its hand on his forehead during his undercover mission to save his brother Ben.

Second, because he took down a Skitter with little more than a pocket knife and his wits. It was one of the more intense scenes in an episode filled with intense scenes.

It seems most of the main players get their moment in tonight’s episode. Whether it is Captain Weaver listening to the record to Lourdes being all melodramatic at the baby shower; everyone gets at least a little bit of playing time in tonight’s episode. Everyone, except for poor captured Karen – an update would be nice for sure.

When it comes to character screen time, we finally get more of Maggie’s back-story, and it’s a doozy. We know she is one tough chick, but tonight we learned she is a cancer survivor with a knowledge of greater Boston drug stash houses. There were also some sparks starting to fly between her and Hal near the end of the episode; Karen is going to be very jealous when she returns to camp.

In a show of too many characters, Falling Skies introduced a new character, Sarah the pregnant one. Rather than giving us new characters, perhaps Falling Skies should consider culling the herd a bit. This seems to be a trap genre shows fall into; they need to cover every demographic so they continue to add character, after character. It can get confusing, but it also keeps the audience from the characters they really care about.

We get to learn a bit more about doctor Anne in ‘Silent Kill’. It is revealed she doesn’t have anyone left. That’s right, as far as she knows, none of her family survived. Anne is a busy girl this episode, from teaching Tom and Hal Mason “Skitter Take Down 101″ to de-harnessing a whole handful of kids; including Ben Mason! The way she cares about all of the survivors is genuine and adds a lot of depth to her story.

The other big “to do” in ‘Silent Kill’… Steven Webber’s Dr. Harris is no more! That’s right, the guy that most wanted to kill the captured Skitter, ended up opening the cage and was then killed. This is a good sign for ‘Falling Skies’; it shows no one is safe. When a character like Harris can be killed off so easily it shows a willingness to take some risks, which was a bit of a concern for me with this show.

‘Silent Kill’ was an action packed episode that showed us a lot about some characters we are coming to know and love. One big thing missing though (besides Karen), no mention of Pope this week. Where everybody’s favorite prison chef was is anyone’s guess. I’m sure we will see more from the questionable Mr. Pope in the near future.

Before I leave you, I want to say congratulations to the cast and crew of Falling Skies for receiving a 2nd season pick up from TNT. Now just because we know it will be back next year, that doesn’t mean you can stop watching.

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  • Steviegee_1

    They cancelled this, are we surprised? TV networks more than ever consider sci-fi as a niche market. This leads to a cycle of failure.
    1) Firstly sc-fi shows generally cost more than regular shows due to special effects and requirement of larger set pieces to generate sufficient scale of action sequences etc.
    2) Larger cost makes studio executives set greater targets on “minimum sustainable audiences” and also demand greater revenue from advertising to pay for the show and make a profit from it.
    3) The executives then decide that as the show is a niche rather than a general market show they have to schedule it for a less than primetime slot.
    4) The show airs and due to excessive advertising interruption (disrupts audience ability to settle in and grow with the show) and less than ideal scheduling performs less well than anticipated in the ratings.
    5) Continued episodes suffer from the same issues as above and audiences switch over or off as all they clearly remember about the show is how many breaks there were in it which broke there attention for the actual programme.
    6) Network executives then decide the show expense to income ratio is too poor and cancel the show.

    The end.

    I think that the way forward is for all TV sc-fi writers to quickly realise that modern TV studios can only see as far as the next quarter. The next generation of sci-fi has to formulaicly be structured so that an entire backstory, development and adequate conclusion MUST fit neatly into a 10 or 13-week season. Present economy prevents executives investing in a new show designed to develop over multiple seasons with a conclusion anticipated to finish in 5 or 7 years (Look at LOST). Circumstances and public demands change too quickly to guarantee an audience that far ahead. If an original 13-week season then captivates an audience the premise can then be taken up for another season with another similarly definable 13-week story which will still feed off the original premise and main characters but allows writers to almost start afresh with a hopefully captivating story once more.

    • Anonymous

      Hey Steviegee_1… did you mean to comment on another story? Falling Skies wasn’t cancelled, it was actually picked up for a second season. It is doing really well in the ratings and TNT is very happy.

  • http://notimethebook.com/ NoTimeTheBook_com

    I like the look of Falling Skies, but the pace seems very slow. I feel that I am being fed by an eyedropper. For every show I get exactly 0.5 ml of science fiction and 5.0 ml of “Dirty and Desperate in Boston.” But after seeing the movie The Road, maybe just “Desperate in Boston.” Viggo Mortensen was much more dirty in that movie.

    • Anonymous

      I agree about the slow feeling when it comes to the pacing of the show. I think it is the problem of having so many characters to touch base with each week. The old guy working on the radio is a fine c-story, the baby shower is unnecessary.

      Hopefully the introduction episodes will be behind us soon.

  • Gartholomusings

    I thought it was only Ned Ryarson that used the word doozy!!!

    Any chance the twist in this tail is going to be that the aliens are NWO creations, looking to achieve that population control, AKA Watchemen, and that Alex Jones was right all along?!?!

    • Anonymous

      Alex Jones being right all along, would be the ultimate twist for Falling Skies. If you have watched Sanctuary Part 1, it definitely points towards your theory of a New World Order at least working with the Skitters. I can’t wait to see what happens this Sunday in Part 2!