Hallway 100 Comics

I hate this.  I love Falling Skies.  And I still do.  But c’mon guys, you have to give me something!  I just gave you an hour of my life, and we got nowhere.  Nothing happened.

Yeah, sure, the old President of the U.S. is still alive, but that could have been revealed in the intro.  But no, they extended it into a pretty anti-climatic reveal and then, you know, forgot about it.

The closest thing we had to an A-story was the death of one of our minor characters.  Crazy Lee dying was heartbreaking.  We didn’t know her super well, but she was the only woman on the Berserkers, and provided some great comic relief.  I’m going to miss her wisecracks and tomboy attitude.  She really added personality to the group of crazy mercenaries.  Honestly though, the poor episode didn’t do her justice.  I feel like her death was wasted.  Not only our we robbed of seeing more Crazy Lee, but her exit is overshadowed by a botched storyline.

Crazy Lee’s death would have been a well-received B-story, if attached to the right host.  Ideas?  String out the battle (action is the only thing this season has not been beating to death).  You could go so many ways with this.  They run after this group of military people.  Have a tense ceasefire but the trust breaks down and fighting resumes.  Pope wants revenge and causes more trouble by killing their leader–they have to track down the group to explain themselves.  There were so many opportunities for a decent story.  Instead it’s relegated to the back–we had an entire commercial break before we came back to who these people were.  What if this took away from the other storylines they had going?  Well, nothing progressed at all, so taking it out really wouldn’t have changed anything.  Anne is still crazy or has an alien baby, Hal is upset (who didn’t see that one coming), Maggie is worried (ditto), and… oh, they built a Giving Tree.  Seriously, these stories got like 2 minutes each and advanced nowhere.  What’s the point?

The problem is, Falling Skies is juggling too many storylines.  I’m not opposed to keeping it interesting and supporting multiple mysteries, but you can’t give each storyline 5 minutes, patch it up and call it an episode.  Choose one (even if it’s out of a hat), and then focus on it.  Relegate everything else to the background.  I’m not in this to watch a soap opera, I’m here to see a high-stakes show with some character driven plot.  They still have it character focused, but there’s no drive in the plot.

I love me some Falling Skies, so I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt.  Things will ramp up soon and we’ll be at the edge of our seats again.  But I’m telling you, if someone doesn’t light that ignition soon, I’m worried that my favorite show won’t survive the end of the summer.  What say you?  Leave your comments below!

Other Observations:

What did Ben put up on that tree?  Did it have something to do with Jimmy?  If so, I’ll give the show another pass.

Did anyone else get confused when Pope called Crazy Lee “Grace”?  Took me a while to realize that was her real name.  A nice little easter egg.

If anything’s improved this season, it’s Matt’s character.  He was never bad, it’s just nice to see him adjusting well to the field.

Anne doesn’t seem herself this season.  I don’t know if it’s the fact that Moon Bloodgood’s was still pregnant during shooting, but something just seems off about her.  I’ll give her a pass though, b/c her baby be crazy!