Falling Skies Season Finale Review

Annnnnnnd........ANOTHER CLIFFHANGER!!!!!

So, after only an eight-week run (two hour premiere, six one-offs, two hour finale), the first of at least two seasons of Falling Skies has now come to an end, with a finale that was........not quite brilliant. Great moments, for sure, but not quite up to par with the last few preceding episodes. It had some rather glaring weaknesses, such as the continued mental instability of Weaver. At the end of "What Hides Beneath", I felt like they had wrapped up his story for the time being, yet they inexplicably brought it back in this episode, and let it take up a good portion of "Mutiny", the first hour of the finale. Couple that with too much focus on "Lt. Danner", a previously unseen character thrust into the spotlight as an overly loyal soldier to the clearly destabilizing Weaver, and the first hour of the finale was uneven and spotty at best, possibly the worst episode of the season. Also, hearing Porter was killed off but not seeing it onscreen was a little bit of a shortchange for the character, and most of the episode was spent retreading previously covered ground. Thankfully, the second half of the finale, "Eight Hours", was a far superior effort, if also a little inconsistent. It started off with a bang, with Scott being attacked by Rick on skitter-steroids, followed by Rick fleeing in an attempt to rejoin the skitters, with Tom in pursuit. Rick finally learned the hard truth about the skitters after revealing the secrets of the 2nd Mass, which led to mechs attacking the school. Thankfully, Scott and Ben had managed to discover a signal that set off pain in Ben, as well as completely bamboozling the mechs, allowing the 2nd Mass to win the day. We also saw the long-hinted romance between Tom and Anne come to fruition, and kudos to the writers for making it happen at a realistic pace. However, the finest moments of the finale came toward the end, after Pope gives Tom a rocket launcher and he finds Weaver in the crashed truck. The rocket damaging the alien ship was a surprisingly good bit of CG for a TV show, and was immensely satisfying to watch after seeing that tower hover over the series for the entire season. Then came the final minutes of the season, where a harnessed Karen spoke for the alien leaders, apparently willing to negotiate after being impressed by the level of resistance from the humans. The moment where Tom enters the ship, despite Weaver's protests, to save Ben was also a surprisingly poignant moment for this series, which has been more like B-movie sci-fi, a la Independence Day or War of the Worlds, to this point. The cliffhanger felt less like those and more like exec Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, only with a darker edge. I wasn't entirely pleased with the lack of closure, as it will now be almost be an entire year until the next episode airs, but it definitely was an intriguing way to go. Falling Skies returns Summer 2012, and despite my reservations with this show, it still feels like there is great potential under its surface.

"Mutiny" - 3/5 stars
"Eight Hours" - 4/5 stars