After a five-season run on TNT, the curtain fell on ‘Falling Skies’ this past Sunday. The series produced by Steven Spielberg starring Noah Wyle as a history professor turned leader of a militia fighting to survive in a post-apocalyptic Boston after an alien invasion that devastated the planet came to an end with Wyle’s Tom Mason standing tall at the Lincoln Memorial as he addressed the survivors at the end of the five-year battle. As the show has been known to do, the finale remained cheesy and a bit of a convenient mess, yet hopeful. However, the ending was originally meant to be more ambiguous.
While speaking to TV Line about the series finale, executive producer David Eick discussed a number of the twists and turns in their last episode including character deaths, resurrections, and cameos that just couldn’t come to be. He also talked about the initial ending for the series, which gave off a more menacing end to a series that has been generally optimistic since the beginning. First check out the ending in the final cut of the episode, then see what the team had intended the ending to be before a few drafts:
“In the original outline, after Tom crushed the vial to release the Dorniya critter to kill the Queen, we see the critter scurry away. Later, after Tom’s big speech, the camera soars to the heavens — ‘We are not alone’ — but then it zooms back down, all the way back to the Lincoln Memorial, now deserted, as that little Dorniya critter patters off into the night. However, we ultimately decided to end on a hopeful versus ominous note…”
‘Falling Skies’ never really dove into the darker sides of war. Instead, it focused on being a family drama with the backdrop of an alien invasion. With that in mind, the happy ending seems like it was the best fit for the ending of the show. But what did you think about it? Were you satisfied with the way they wrapped up the finale? Or would you have rather seen the cliffhanger ending that Eick described? Sound off in the comments below.
