Falling Skies Episode 1x03 Review

Overall Season Rating: B
Episode 1x01/02: B+
Episode 1x03: B

Ok, two things before this review starts. You'll notice there is a new rating system with TV shows. Up until now I have thought that rating the shows on a per episode basis was not a good idea. That was until I got a very nice e-mail with a great suggestion. That suggestion is what you see above. Two sets of ratings. The Overall Season Rating will be a sliding scale based on the average of scores I give each episode. For those like me that were not great at math, that means if there are two episodes and one gets an A, and the other gets a C, the Overall rating is B. The second thing is to admit that I'm an idiot. But it's not all my fault. Last week I said I didn't know the name of the actor who plays their leader, but he looked familiar. That's because he's been in a ton of movies, and his name is WILL PATTON! His name in the show also is NOT Clayton, but Weaver. I blame IMDb totally for this since as I said he wasn't listed. I apologize to you, to Mr. Patton, and anyone else who likes facts.

Spoilers Below

This episode was called "Prisoner of War" and with good reason . Sad to say while watching the cable skipped a couple times and I missed some important bits, but I think I understand what I missed. The first of these moments was right at the beginning. We see Tom and his crew doing recon on the Skidders and try to see Ben. This is where it skipped and I missed a bit cause next thing I saw they were running away. I don't think I missed anything huge, but we learn he saw a lot of the kids, and plans to go back to get Ben, again. We then get a very BSG style moment of people asking if he saw their kids, and they start putting pictures up on the wall. On the same wall we saw very brief newspaper clippings of the alien arrival. I would like to go back and see if there is a better image of that. Last week I talked about flashbacks, but maybe we won't get that. We'll get very brief looks at newspapers to give us the info we need. That would be bold, and a wonderful usage of the realism of the world to give us that info.




We then get the return of Dale Dye as Commander Porter. I like this guy, he's very old school. He explains that there are resistance groups all over the nation, and this means they have hope. They also found out that the aliens are building the same giant structure over every city, and it's now their prime mission to figure out what the hell those things are. My current theory is that it's a massive relay system, and the aliens are turning the Earth into something else, perhaps a huge energy producer. There is a LOT of energy inside the Earth and it's nothing more than a planet sized oil derrick.

Tom learns from Porter that when they tried removing the harnesses in the past it kill the kids, but now there is a new doctor who thinks he can remove them and keep the kid alive. Of course Tom is eager to meet this new miracle worker, and Porter orders Tom to bring back only Ben on the mission, and no one else. Everyone's favorite outlaw has a smaller role this week, but it brought me the most joy. Pope is a scary, renegade, outlaw, scoundrel...who is in fact a gifted chef. He complains about the food, and then talks like he has guest hosted The Rachel Ray Show. I loved that so much and I normally would hate it. The way it was done was so much fun, but also believable. Shows again that people in this world are not what they seem.

Tom's goes to see Anne(Moon Bloodgood) so he can meet the new doctor, but of course they need to go through some shipper scenes which are done horribly in this show so far. We then find out that the doctor is...Michael Harris!! OH NO, not Michael Harris! Wait, oh okay we don't know who that is yet. We don't but they do. As it turns out Michael knew Tom and his wife before everything went to hell. This sadly is where my cable decided to freeze again. I missed if Michael says he actually saw what happened to her, but all I know is they were together for a moment, and then Michael ran away and hid under a collapsed building. We get more information on this later. I like Tom's restraint in this scene, and we can clearly see he doesn't trust him at all. I'm going to go ahead and assume Tom's wife and Michael had a thing. I'll come back to this later.

On the mission to find Ben, things do not go well. Anthony sees his son and rushes to get him. This forces Tom to cause a distraction, and leads to them leaving the scene without Hal or Carrie. Tom had been knocked out, and when he comes too, he rushes back to get Hal and Carrie. I liked a lot that he didn't flip out at the dude for leaving. Yes, he put the other two in danger but they all may have died if they didn't leave. Tom however runs into more trouble. He runs right into a Skidder in a pretty scary scene. He battles it, but then shoots off two if its legs. Last week Pope told him that was a good way to defeat them. Good to see Tom listens. He then doesn't kill the alien, but knocks it out. I knew where this was going, and I started to get a little worried about the Independence Day scenes in the operating room. We'll see, maybe they'll surprise me.

Hal and Carrie are still alive and wake up. Ben and another kid take Carrie away, and a Mecha alien arrives. This must have been quite horrifying for Hal, is brother is alive yes, but basically a mindless slave. A Skidder looks right at Hal, points to a few kids and they are then all shot on the spot by the Mecha. I'm thinking this was retribution for the Humans taking a POW. This is their way of saying "don't frak with us". Something tells me they will keep frakking with them. When Tom finds him, he's shocked the Skidders didn't kill him, and tells him the Nazis used to gun down people and leave one alive as a messenger. It's not until later when Tom says he's going to go back for all the kids, but I think this is where he decided he was going to do that no matter what his orders are.

Back at base, Michael begins to remove the harness from the kid. He explains that the harness injects the kids with some kind of drug, and when removed they go into shock because they're cut off from the drug. His plan is to give the kid morphine, and then remove the harness hoping this will counteract the effects. It appears he's right as the kid does not die once the Harness is removed. There's a little problem when it looks like he has a seizure, but Michael explains he expected this, and stops it almost immediately. It's also revealed that Porter wants Michael to look at the Skidder Tom captured. Weaver disagrees, but he's no longer the head honcho, so he's overruled.

Tom and Michael have another discussion about his wife. It turns out that Michael bolted like a coward when the attack started and left the wife to die. However, it also is revealed that Tom was the one who was supposed to be looking for supplies, but she did it because he had been so busy. While running away like that was a bad thing to do, he was scared out of his mind. This is why I think there was more going on then that they simply knew each other. Tom seems to be a very understanding guy, and clearly has knowledge of human nature in a disaster. Michael could have handled it differently, but survival skills took over, and he ran. Makes him a coward maybe, but not an evil man, Tom clearly still does not trust him, and I think Michael is still hiding some major pieces of info, maybe even stuff about the Skidders.

The ending of the episode had a nice scare. As we watch the alien struggling, it opens its eyes, and at the same moment the kid in the medical bay opens his eyes as well. He's still being controlled by the aliens. The reason is unclear, and I'm thinking he'll be used as a way to communicate(just like in Independence Day).

Overall a good episode, and the pacing was very well done. I enjoyed the BSG aspects that I mentioned, and like that they are indeed going for a dark telling of the story. I still think the show has a lot of promise. What did you think?