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Season 3 Production Begins

9/6/2012 3:09 PM

It's only been a few weeks since the season 2 finale of Falling Skies but production has already begun on season 3. The new season is currently scheduled to launch summer 2013. For some photos and potential spoilers about the first few episodes, check out the TNT press release.

Season 2 Episode 9 Ratings: Finale Brings Ratings Bump

8/21/2012 1:44 PM

Looks like the season 2 finale of Falling Skies was able to bring a slight bump in ratings as the 18-49 demographic was 1.4 (up from 1.3) and the total viewers was at 3.84 million (up from 3.46).

It's good to see the season ended with not only a great final episode but also with an uptick in the ratings. This season's ratings were actually quite steady all season long and with TNT renewing the season early on I think it's safe to say that Falling Skies is on track for a long and health life on television.

To see how the finale did up against other cable shows, click here.

Season 2 Episode 9: A More Perfect Union

8/20/2012 8:06 AM

Military Rule
The season finale kicks off right where the last episode ended - with the 2nd Mass right in the middle of a military takeover of Charleston. It's not long before they realize general Bressler is a much worse proposition than Manchester was. Luckily, the rebel skitters show up to mix things up, as they bring information about an extra special Overlord that is in the process of building some sort of super weapon. Sadly, instead of using this new information to build an alliance with the rebel skitters, he take the opportunity to betray them and massacre as many of them as he can in secret.

Insubordination
With Ben's encouragement, the 2nd Mass decides to go against Bressler's wishes and takes a small force to attack the Overlord and his weapon. It was quite nice to see Weaver stand up to Bressler, which obviously goes against everything he has ever known since he was disobeying a direct order from a superior officer. Unfortunately, their mission quickly turns on it's head as they are ambushed by Karen and the Overlord. After some torture, the rebel skitters show up just in time to save the day. Sadly, Dai and the red-eyed rebel leader are both killed during the scuffle. The Overlord was beaten to death by Tom but Karen was able to escape.

A Heroes Welcome
The 2nd Mass returns home to Charleston to yet another heroes welcome. Manchester offers Tom the job of majority leader, but Tom reveals that the 2nd Mass will likely be leaving to keep up the fight. Meanwhile, Hal wakes up from his coma with one of those weird eyeball bug things and seems to have a mischievious look on his face. It's not long until a huge commotion causes everybody to rush outside where they discover many vessels falling to the ground all over the area. The season ends with a new alien coming out of the ship/transport/thing.

Great End to a Great Season
The finale was a great way to end the season. Sure, it's easy to focus on the very end with the big cliffhanger, but the rest of the episode should not be so easily overlooked. Not only did we get a great confrontation between the 2nd Mass and Karen and the Overlord, but we get some pretty huge changes with our main characters as well. Sure, while Dai wasn't that big of a character, his death was pretty significant since he was indead a recurring character. The red-eyed rebel leader being killed was obviously incredibly huge since this whole season seemed to revolve around him. With the leader dead, what becomes of the rebels? Ben seems to no longer have plans to be with them as he mentions staying with the 2nd Mass now. Of course, the episode wasn't all good surprises as Dr. Glass reveals that she's pregnant. Seriously? Does every show have to work in an unsuspected pregnancy?

Friend or Foe?
The promo at the end of the episode asks whether the new aliens are allies or foes. I'll quickly give me own thoughts on that as it's obviously the question left on everybody's minds. My guess is the new aliens are friendly. The main reason is that we learn in the episode that the big bad weapon that the Overlord was building was not meant for humans. I think it's safe to say that it must have been meant for these new aliens. If that's the case, then there's really just two explanations. First, that while the current aliens are bad, these new aliens are even worse. So we'd basically have Overlords that are a bad enemy but these new aliens that are a worse enemy? I don't think so. Unless they then have the Overlords come to the humans basically asking for help against this much worse new threat, I don't see the value in adding yet another enemy.

The second, and more logical explanation in my opinion, is that these new aliens are friendly aliens that have been at war with the Overlords. Maybe the new aliens are like the rebel skitters and find humans to be a great ally to work with against the Overlord oppression? Maybe it's just me, but when the new alien took off his mask he seemed to reveal a kind looking face inside. Sure, looks can be deceiving, and there's always got to be a twist, but I'd put my money on them being friendly.

Season 2 Episode 8 Ratings: Looks Familiar

8/14/2012 9:35 AM

The ratings for last Sunday's episode of Falling Skies are in and they sure look mighty familiar. With a 1.3 adults 18-49 rating and 3.46 million total viewers, episode 8's raitings were nearly identical with last weeks. The only difference is a slight uptick in total viewers from 3.34 million to 3.46 million.

To see how it did against all other cable shows, check out the full list here.

Season 2 Episode 8: The Price of Greatness

8/13/2012 8:08 AM

A Heroes Welcome
So the 2nd Mass finally makes it to the end of the rainbow, aka Charleston. At first, it seems to meet quite a few of their expectations, with hot food, running water, and soft beds. They even get a round of applause from the citizens. I thought the introduction to the city was very good as it presented the 2nd Mass with excitement but also a little uneasiness to being in such a different environment. And of course, it's not long though before things reveal themselves to be too good to be true.

Familiar Faces
Charleston not only has food and shelter to for the 2nd Mass, but also a couple familiar faces. Weaver's daughter is there, minus her boyfriend Diego. We didn't get too much time with Weaver's daughter previously, so I don't have strong feelings either way with her. I do think things may get a little too crowded with young people if she hangs around for too long.

Old Friends Become New Enemies
Meanwhile, Tom Mason finds Manchester, an old professor of his, running the whole city. While Manchester and Tom both share a love of history, they each have opposing views about how to write a new one. I loved the Manchester's motivation. Sure, he had the typical thirst for power, but I think it was more about his desire to be an instrumental part of creating a new government. He's spent most of his life talking about the founding fathers and now he has a chance to be one himself. Obviously, punishing anybody that disagrees with him and having the city basically just hide forever is quite a bit different from the actions of the original founding fathers.

Rebel Ambassador
Everything basically comes to a head when a deharnessed boy arrives with news of the rebel army. Manchester fears what that might mean for his city and potentially his power so he overreacts and locks down Tom. Bressler, the city's general, takes the opportunity to put the city under marshal law and lock up Manchester. Tom and the 2nd Mass get what they want, the opportunity to go meet with the rebel aliens, but have left the city with a potentially worse situation than they found it. I do think it's worth pointing out that the deharnessed boy was not Ben. There has to be a reason for that. Either the boy is a spy for the overlords or Ben has either been caught or in trouble somehow.

Season 2 Episode 7 Ratings: Up and Down

8/7/2012 1:37 PM

Looks like ratings for Falling Skies is finally a little different this week as Sunday's episode had an adult 18-49 rating of 1.3 while total viewers came in at 3.34 million. For those keeping track, the key adult 18-49 rating is up .1 from 1.2 the previous episode while total viewers is down slightly from the 3.45 million the previous episode.

It's interesting to see the adult 18-49 rating be up while the total viewers is down. For the uninitiated, the adult 18-49 rating is pretty much the only rating the networks care about because it's the only one advertisers care about for the most part. As such, fans of the show should be pleased to see the uptick in the key rating.

To see how Falling Skies faired against other Sunday cable ratings, go here.

Season 2 Episode 7: Death March

8/6/2012 7:58 PM

Separate But Equal
With the 2nd Mass getting ever so close to Charleston, this episode takes a pause to give us a whole bunch of character backstory. It was interesting to see different groups all broken up so that we could get a more focused interaction between key characters. Balancing off the suspense of whether or not the Charleston dream will come true makes the episode work all that much better.

Maggie's Dark Past
We've always known Maggie has had a relatively dark past with her bouts with cancer and her time with Pope's gang, but apparently that was just scratching the surface. I loved Pope's poking and prodding in this episode and I'm both glad and surprised that we not only learned that Maggie's has been hiding something but that she actually reveals what it was without dragging it out for a few episodes. Her criminal past didn't actually come off as that big of a deal for me. In a world where aliens are wiping out humanity, I guess being a former drug addicted thief doesn't really matter much. I'm curious if we'll find out more about her child in some sort of future twist

Tector, Stupid Name, Fun Character
First, I just have to get off my chest how stupid a name Tector is. Every time somebody has said his name in an episode, I've struggled to try and figure out what the heck they were saying. With the character getting some decent screen time, I finally had to break down and look it up. With that out of the way, I gotta say I really enjoyed the back and forth between Tector and Weaver. It was nice seeing Weaver able to have some military banter with. I'm a fan of Ryan Robbins, the actor that plays Tector, from his time on the SyFy show Sanctuary and hope he gets some more screen time because I do like his character quite a bit.

Fool Me Twice
So apparently the 2nd Mass is going to keep falling for the same alien tricks over and over again. While we don't know for sure if the harnessed girl had ulterior motives, it sure seemed obvious to me that she was searching for info. There are now three pretty blatant occasions where the aliens could have learned about Charleston; this harnessed girl, the overlord reading Ben's thoughts, and Karen using her "super-hearing" to overhear Weaver discussing South Carolina. Seems like it'll be only a matter of time before the aliens attack. Maybe they will be fooled by the destroyed city just as the 2nd Mass was? Though I highly doubt it.

Can't Be That Easy
Okay so it hasn't been easy at all for the 2nd Mass to get to Charleston, but there's no way it's going to end up being as good as they had hoped. I do hope it lasts a few episodes though before they have to leave for whatever reason. It'd be nice to change the pace back to them settling in for a bit so that we can see just how humanity is going to try and rebuild.

Season 2 Episode 6 Ratings: More of the Same... Again

7/30/2012 4:37 PM

Last Sunday's new episode brought in the same 1.2 rating for adults 18-49 that we've seen for the previous two episodes. Overall viewership did drop slightly to 3.45 million versus the 3.6 million the previous two episodes pulled in.

With the Olympics starting up, it will be interesting to see how much they impact the ratings.

If you want to see how Falling Skies stacked up against other cable shows, click here.

Season 2 Episode 6: Molon Lab

7/30/2012 9:40 AM

Well Laid Plans
As was pretty evident from last week's episode, Karen's arrival was part of a plan for the "bad" aliens to uncover information about the rebel skitters. I was hoping Ben was actually well aware of her deceipt and was merely leading her into a trap of his own, but sadly, he was instead lead into an ambush by an overlord.

Karen and the Captive Overlord
It was fun to watch just how important the overlord was to Karen and the aliens. It was reminiscent of the harnessed children on the almost motherly skitters. Karen kept repeating that she wasn't actually under the control of the aliens, but rather, that she was acting on her own free will with gained knowledge and understanding. This seems to at least be somewhat true since she didn't appear to be under direct control. If that's the case, then I wonder what exactly caused her to change so drastically? Is there some special procedure some harnessed children go through? Or is it merely prolonged harnessing that can permanently alter somebody's personality? As for the overlord him/herself, the one thing that stuck out was the mention of their "task" that needs to be completed before they leave. Hopefully more light will be shedded on this in the future.

Lourdes Survives... Unfortunately
Just when I thought I couldn't hate Lourdes any more than I already did, she goes ahead and provides a cringeworthy character change following Jameel's death. Lourdes has been so upbeat and religious this entire time, even after her entire family dies, and all the other horrible things that have happened. Yet, the second her (likely first) love dies, she decides to become a whiney little brat. I didn't think I would miss her preachy holier-than-thou attitude, but boy do I now that she has become what she's become. Hopefully she will be placed back into the background so that we can just go along pretending she doesn't exist. I would like to mention how cool it was seeing yet another type of alien. Those little spider-like creatures were pretty terrifying. They almost looked like mini-skitters so I wonder if we'll discover some sort of link in the future.

Karen and the Overlord Alive and Well?
So the episode ends with the overlord bleeding out in a building filled with explosives. I guess we just assume he and Karen survive the ordeal? If so, that poses a pretty big problem. Charleston. Even if the overlord wasn't able to peek into Ben's mind, Karen should have already overheard the plans from a couple episodes back. If you recall, she mentioned to Ben how she could overhear distant conversations and even quoted a conversation that did mention Charleston. She didn't mention hearing about Charleston herself, but she basically quoted the bookends of that same conversation, so it'd be a pretty big plot-hole if the writers want us to believe she doesn't know about it. If I were Tom or Weaver I'd have blown Karen and the Overlord to pieces just to be sure, especially when they can't know what the Overlord gleemed from Ben.

Season 2 Episode 5 Ratings: More of the Same

7/17/2012 2:01 PM

Looks like the ratings for Fallings Skies is settling in as episode 5's ratings were identical to last week's with a 1.2 rating for the key 18-49 demo and 3.6 million total viewers. While these numbers are a little down from last season, the fact that TNT already renewed Falling Skies means that the show has a bright future as long as the ratings continue to hold steady.