I watched the first couple episodes of Falling Skies... three episodes?.. last night, back to back.
I have issues.
Those issues are likely related to the fact that I read science fiction and I've seen post invasion scenarios done before. Life as we know ends. How do humans survive? How do they organize themselves. It's been done and it's been done well. It's been done and done poorly. The idea is primal. There is a reason it's an idea picked up again and again.
So what happened to the other television efforts? The Event? V?
My nits from the beginning of this one... Child psych... They have the kids (the kid) seeming the least able to adjust to this terrifying new world. This seems unlikely and unsupported by both anecdote and History. But it does provide a chain-jerking intro to the facts of events. I found it annoying.
The hero... a History professor with an interest in military History. Nothing wrong with that. Enter the military which, naturally, disparages military History. Oh, noes! Not another "military people are autocratic and incurious" stereotype! And it's actually made somewhat worse by what seems to be efforts to show the military leadership as more or less right, which means someone is *trying* to be fair... right or not, they are still incurious and autocratic.
The military/civilian division. This I can't see, but it's obviously meant as a source of ongoing conflict. Again, the History professor is the voice of wisdom. If it were me arranging things in my post-invasion world, everyone in the community of traveling soldiers, combatants and camp-followers, would be organized into the organization itself. No division. How could there be?
The aliens... so far so good. They capture children and attach a big insect to their spinal column and walk them around like zombies. When people try to remove the organism it kills the child. This isn't a spoiler, it's part of the Child Psych intro briefing to the show. No one knows why the aliens do this inexplicable thing. There were internal hints that the "leashed" children had something to do with the bipedal war robots (the aliens being somewhat spider-like). I can see interesting places to go with that. They aren't rational, but who says aliens have to be rational?
I may watch a bit more, to see what happens. But IMO the only real thing that could save it is if the "leashed" children are programing an organism that is then put into the bipedal robots and at least some of the robots experience a sort of Robocop type reawakening and start to work with the humans. (I use Robocop as an example because I doubt as many people would get a Full Metal Alchemist reference.)
I have issues.
Those issues are likely related to the fact that I read science fiction and I've seen post invasion scenarios done before. Life as we know ends. How do humans survive? How do they organize themselves. It's been done and it's been done well. It's been done and done poorly. The idea is primal. There is a reason it's an idea picked up again and again.
So what happened to the other television efforts? The Event? V?
My nits from the beginning of this one... Child psych... They have the kids (the kid) seeming the least able to adjust to this terrifying new world. This seems unlikely and unsupported by both anecdote and History. But it does provide a chain-jerking intro to the facts of events. I found it annoying.
The hero... a History professor with an interest in military History. Nothing wrong with that. Enter the military which, naturally, disparages military History. Oh, noes! Not another "military people are autocratic and incurious" stereotype! And it's actually made somewhat worse by what seems to be efforts to show the military leadership as more or less right, which means someone is *trying* to be fair... right or not, they are still incurious and autocratic.
The military/civilian division. This I can't see, but it's obviously meant as a source of ongoing conflict. Again, the History professor is the voice of wisdom. If it were me arranging things in my post-invasion world, everyone in the community of traveling soldiers, combatants and camp-followers, would be organized into the organization itself. No division. How could there be?
The aliens... so far so good. They capture children and attach a big insect to their spinal column and walk them around like zombies. When people try to remove the organism it kills the child. This isn't a spoiler, it's part of the Child Psych intro briefing to the show. No one knows why the aliens do this inexplicable thing. There were internal hints that the "leashed" children had something to do with the bipedal war robots (the aliens being somewhat spider-like). I can see interesting places to go with that. They aren't rational, but who says aliens have to be rational?
I may watch a bit more, to see what happens. But IMO the only real thing that could save it is if the "leashed" children are programing an organism that is then put into the bipedal robots and at least some of the robots experience a sort of Robocop type reawakening and start to work with the humans. (I use Robocop as an example because I doubt as many people would get a Full Metal Alchemist reference.)
Comments
Did you ever finish it?