Falling Skies returns with an action packed start to the third season.
After what seemed like an extra long hiatus, Falling Skies comes back with the proverbial bang, opening with a huge battle setting the stage of what we can expect for the new season. With Dan Weaver’s resistance fighting an insurmountable ambush while liberating a work camp, we see the calvary arrive in the form of Ben Mason and his rebel skitters and Tom Mason with his new alien allies the Volm, the aliens who combat dropped into Charleston at the end of last season.
It’s been seven months now with this new movement. The Espheni Overlords have taken a lot of setbacks thanks to Tom, and the war is starting to turn towards the human’s favor, even though it’s a war of skirmishes and insurrection. Like the seasons prior, Falling Skies likes to parallel themes in the show with actual historical events in Earth history.
In this case, we see the arrival of the Volm similar to the arrival of the French during the Revolutionary War, a where where the colonials fought the British with the aid of French weaponry and supplies. But like back in those days, there is a lot of distrust amongst the city towards their new alien allies. No one knows the true motive of the Volm, and most feel as if once the Overlords leave, the Volm will stick around and the humans will be no better off.
In the mean time, we also get a look into what’s happened in the last seven months. The city has grown a lot with the help of the Volm’s assistance, helping to repel the once superior technology of the Overlords. With newly secured perimeters, the citizens have flourished and moved back above ground while starting to rebuild the city. It’s much livelier than it was under the bunker like conditions underground. There are markets and of course a tavern now in the city.
The whole setup reminds me a lot of the SyFy show Defiance actually. We have humans and aliens working together in a post apocalyptic western style civilization, though in this case the aliens stay off in their own camps outside of the city. I like to think of this show as what Defiance would be without the overbearing idealism.
Overall, the new season sets a tone of a lot of combat and the overall stories of hunting down the spy in the city while taking the fight even more to the enemy. I worry that it will delve into just another action series though, as some of the great strengths of the series in the past was the tight knit interaction between the rag-tag survivors. So far, we’ve seen a lot of “red shirts” die in the opening episodes, and I hope that’s not a forbearer to what we can expect in the future.
Other Observations
- Hal can’t be the spy, as that’s just too stupidly obvious. I personally think Karen just wants kiss-face time with Hal, despite being the new Overlord for the region. It was interesting to see that his meet ups with Karen were real, though. Her red spine while getting it on with Hal was very BSG.
- Dr. Manchester died pretty quick.
- Matt’s becoming the little delinquent. Maybe he’s been hanging around Pope too long.
- Seven months is a convenient forward jump for Ann to have the new baby. A baby that’s super creepy by the way.
- Why couldn’t they try to capture that nuclear reactor? It would have been supremely useful to the city and the future of humanity.
- “Human logic should be discarded when at war with extraterrestrial beings.”
