User reviews

Even though Falling Skies was originally on from 2011-2015 I just recently got around to watching it. I have to say that I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I actually binged all 5 seasons pretty quick. It has a solid cast that includes Noah Wyle, Will Patton, Moon Bloodgood, Sarah Carter, and a handful of other solid actors. There are plenty of alien invasion shows out there to choose from but if you're a fan of the genre then I recommend you give this a chance. There is plenty of action and drama to keep you entertained and the production value is good for a cable tv show without a big budget.

Falling Skies is a show that takes places in the wake of an alien attack the has changed the world. It follows groups of survivors as they fight back against these aliens. They're led by former Boston history professor Tom Mason (Noah Wyle) and his three sons. They join another group that called themselves the 2nd Massachusetts and their led by commander Weaver (Will Patton). Those two then lead a the resistance against the aliens as they plan a series of attacks on them. If you like sci-fi shows about aliens invading earth that has plenty of action, drama, mystery and intensity then Falling Skies is for you. Is it the best sci-fi show ever? No, but it's still pretty good and keeps you engaged throughout its entire series run.

Finished series with my kids (2023). As good or better than anything on TV / streaming now. The changes brought after the first two seasons helped advance the story and characters. Very entertaining. Special effects are good enough if not spectacular. Successfully deals with the effects of insurgence warfare on people. The villains turn out to be more complex and interesting as the show progressed though there are no characters really from that side. Starting with third season treats the female characters much better without being obvious about it. Has really aged well. You can watch with your kids/teenagers without worrying about inappropriate content. Worth watching again.

The first few seasons were great - I would rate them 8/10, but my goodness is it let down by most of season 4 and season 5.

Season 5 is just painful to watch. The plot lines they've concocted feels so disjointed from the first 3 seasons and gives the show a completely different vibe. I think the problem is they tried so hard to hold on to the original cast that they came up with these wacky subplots to keep them relevant.

It just doesn't work and make any sense. And don't get me started on Popes character development - totally thrown out the window. Ended up disliking pretty much all of the main characters in the end. A shame.

Having read so many "reviews" which consist of watching 1-5 episodes I would like to comment myself having watched the entire series. This is not one of the best sci-fi series i've ever watched. However it is much better than anything else out there now. I wasn't too sure about the series after the first couple episodes and it had a strong Stargate Universe feel to it. I'm not going to post any spoilers but I can say the story significantly improves in my opinion and so does the care factor for the characters and where its all going by the end. The finale is a blast and had my girlfriend look at me with her mouth wide open after the ending and that we need to wait until next summer for the follow up... She wants to see it right now! As do I. The season ended very well and the show has been massively underrated on here.

If you haven't seen the show or you've seen a few episodes and aren't sure. I encourage you to use your own opinion and give it a chance i'm sure you will like it much more by the end.

Aside from the Expanse this show was one of the best. It started in 2011 so the CGI isn't as great as the Expanse but the story is really good. After looking for it for quite awhile it suddenly showed up on Prime.

The story is much different from most SCI-FI. Much more involved and good character development. The videos we see on tv that have been made recently are cheaply made with unknown actors and bland story development. Most it appears are made during COVID. What a disappointment to someone who has been reading science fiction since I was 10 yrs old.

It's now 2023 and I'm enjoying again and I can binge it.

I really liked the actors especially Noah Wiley. All the rest of the actors are interesting.

I would recommend it to any science fiction video buff. Not that many are good let alone excellent.

First couple seasons were awesome would have rated them as a 9. But then drama and other weird plot developments started to take over. Later seasons are more like a 4.

It's pretty damn good, definitely recommend if you're a sci-fi fan.

Granted it's not a super high budget & all but doesn't deserve the low rating it has now, since it checks all boxes for me & I can tell you that it's a full ride. I binge watched it, didn't stop till the end. It's entertaining, tense & not repetitive. I'm a Hollywood buff but haven't watched anything like it before. Story wasn't dragged or predictable either, so, you shouldn't get bored.

All leads played great roles with top notch acting & the fact that lead actor looks a lot like Mathew McConoughey doesn't hurt. Good makeup & cgi, wasn't over or under done it.

I do not understand why so many people are being so harsh regarding this show. Yeah, its basically "The Walking Dead", except with aliens...but I think this is a good thing. Unlike "V", this is a show that focuses on the survivors. Many reviewers have said that the characters are clichés. However, I would simply call them archetypes and I thoroughly enjoy watching most of the characters when they are on screen. It seems that many reviewers have based their opinions on the first 2 episodes. However, with so many characters, it takes time to get to know them. The show definitely starts off at a slow-burn. I think many people are having the same problem with this show as they did with "48 Days Later". Many people wanted to see a zombie horror movie. However, once they realized that the movie was a human drama and the zombies where more of a situation that humanity had to deal with, the reviewers whined that the movie sucked. "Falling Skies" is the same way. The show is not about aliens. The alien invasion is just the situation. The show is about the human drama that is the result of the situation. Watch more than just 2 episodes before you form an opinion. I think that you will enjoy it.

So I'm not familiar with the source material this is based on. Never read any of that and I'm making this known from the get go. So I can't really give you an insight about any differences about any comparisons there. Having said that, the general theme and the idea behind the show is quite nice.

Human survival and struggle is something we can identify with. Aliens on the other hand may be a stretch for some - though let's keep it real, with such a big universe out there ... who is to say if there isn't any other lifeform out there. But if there is, would that be how things played out? Probably not. From a very engaging and quite draining (in a good sense) beginning ... well this takes some directions that I would not always agree with.

Too many coincindences, too convenient at times and quite a lot of cliches storylines combined. But it is still possible to get you, to make you care to quite an interesting degree. You get accustomed to the characters after a while and even the wildest ups and downs - you just get with them. Having a very bad apple becoming a part of the group, as backup to stir things up every now and again ... it's either clever or cheap writing.

Science Fiction - you may like the soap opera elements or not. But you can have fun (to a degree) with this

Some movies and shows are a mystery to me. Why are they appreciated and loved and high rated by a community which claims to have high standards and no easy 'suspension of disbelief' ? OK, maybe I have too high expectations from that community, namely the SF-lovers. I am at least one, but luckily no part of a community.

I had no high expectations from 'Falling Skies', when it started, but they were lowered in an instant after watching the first episode, as I had to realize, that this show is not about Aliens, Science Fiction, or war, or even surviving the ultimate invasion, but about the American Dream, which is a dream since it isn't allowed any longer to be lived out: Adults and teens (male only in the past, but now also female) running around in then open, wavering and shooting all kinds of guns in a so-called situation of self-defense.

That means complete freedom, no more fences, no more tax payments, no more traffic rules. A world full of rednecks, even some with academic degrees (at least those who can yield a gun fast enough), more or less united against the common enemy, some more or less willfully collaborating.

And so it stayed, for the full first season, the full second season, the full third season, and the full fourth season. That is continuity, I said to me, at least.

Maybe some people who get permanently bashed at work can come home, watch this show and go to sleep thinking about their lead role against foreign invaders like...everyone, in case of an invasion, of course.

It doesn't do the show any good that Steven Spielberg is involved. On the contrary, it seems that a work of Spielberg today does mostly look for satisfying the smallest common denominator of the biggest number of viewers. There he failed with 'Terranova', which was one step above 'Falling Skies', but at least delivered some good CGI, some interesting theories and strange characters.

Which 'Falling Skies' doesn't. It is a straight-to-beer-can delivery and grabs random pieces from the third-class storytelling wasteland of pulp magazine, that should never see the light of the telly in order to store the cockroaches where they belong.

After unbelievable four seasons, that 80ies-like torture of an SF show will hopefully come to an end with the final 5th season. Oh, it's a shame, many will cry, there would be so much more to tell....

The only satisfaction that came to me is the idea that the story of the show has some parallelism with the US Iraq adventure. There, they devastated the country, too, tried to install a submissive government, which failed, too. Conversion of the society to western standards failed also. Because at gunpoint, such things usually do not work out very well. Which Israel could have told them long ago (if she would have had realized that, eventually).

However, the season 4 finale was actually so massively ridiculous, predictable and stupid, I thought I would have maybe completely missed the subtle humor (or horror) of all four seasons. Am I a damn idiot, I asked myself ? Yes, I answered, it was idiotic alone to watch this show, hoping it would improve a bit in time.

Normally not one to watch many TV-series but this one caught my eyes. The storyline was simple enough: a group of people trying to make ends meet in a post-apocalyptic world in the aftermath of alien invasion. Simple! But oh my was I ever wrong.

The show will probably not change your viewing-habits but it will leave you with an deep impression of the great care the creators worked by. The characters are well-written and well-acted, they have emotions and soul, personality. They seem real. The story is paced moderately and the show rarely focuses on one element, like pure action or spacey Sci-Fi-phenomena, for long but manages to find the balance between these genres, making a show everybody should be able to sit through. And enjoy :-) The setting, mood and world is believable (as believable a post-apocalyptic world would be to me) and the atmosphere reaches a point of realism yet maintaining the fourth wall. The aliens are charming and sounds like the velociraptors from 'Jurassic Park' (actually a good thing), but they are more than meets the eye. We want to know more of them, yet the show keeps them at bay. They blend seamless into the world of chaos thanks to the before mentioned care by the creators. This is not one of those series that rely on cheap jokes, puns, mundane stereotypes, half-cooked morale and whathaveyou, but rather depicts a world not unlike your own: clever and natural.

Check it out :-) BTW, my first review ever on IMDb so be gentle with the rookie :-)

There has been a good amount of bad reviews on this TV show. I, however, disagree with them on the merit of this show. I remember first hearing about this show and being intrigued by the fact that Spielberg was creating and producing a TV show about an alien invasion. Let's be honest, this is not an original script or idea. The alien invasion/end- of-the-world/post-apocalyptic genre is not something lacking in modern entertainment. There has been and currently is a myriad of movies and TV shows the fit this genre. So yes, if you are looking for a TV show that is completely original and new this is not necessarily the show you are looking for.

However this show is very unique in the way that it tells this age-old story of aliens invading and taking over Earth. It begins 6 months after the aliens have already taken over the world. I really like that start because it skips over what most TV shows and movie(V, Skyline, War of the Worlds, Battle: Los Angeles) completely focus on. It focuses on the struggle for survival of a group of soldiers and civilians (2nd Mass).

This show does an incredible job of showing the reality of the daily struggles these people go through to survive in an alien-occupied world. Everything from getting food, to medical supplies, to transportation and gas, and places to hide and stay is a real struggle they have to face in the show. I love the gritty reality of the show. You really see struggle these characters go through for basic things.

A lot people also complain about the characters saying they are flat and not developed. Let me counter it by saying this. You can't compare this TV show (which only gets 10 episodes a season) with another show that gets 20-24 a season. They have WAY less time to tell story and develop characters. They do a great job with the little amount of episodes they get. The 2nd season vastly improves on the first season and amps up the stakes on all levels.

I would recommend this show to any SciFi fan. It's a fun show to watch and I find myself loving the characters and wanting to see how they survive not only the aliens but also the daily challenges placed before them for basic survival.

Don't write it off because of what other people say. Try watching it for yourself, you won't regret it.

I disagree with the negative comments about the show. This show is about family and the lengths that one man will go to provide and protect his family. It just happens to be set to the backdrop of an alien invasion and global armageddon.

There are a few points in which the writing/editing seems a bit choppy and confusing, specifically at season changes three to four and four to five. In both instances a perceptive viewer will catch up. The show flows much better watching it without commercials and in three hour segments than it did on its original airing on TNT. The commercials and episodic gaps made tough to watch. I recommend rewatching it on HBO without commercials.

In closing, it is a fun show with good baseline values shared by very flawed people whom are facing the everyday challenge of making difficult choices that others are unwilling or unable to make.

Well I really liked seasons 1 to 3, although there were some plot holes, there was nothing major that put you off watching the show, in fact seasons 1-3 were quite enjoyable, and I was really looking forward to season 4. However, from the first 5 minutes of season 4 it was quite clear that something went wrong with the plot, indeed I can only guess that the script writers lost the plot, literally. Nothing that happened really made that much sense, and the story became very disjointed, confusing and at times patronising. I watched every episode of season 4, and it seemed to get a little better after episode 6, but still no where near as good as season 1-3. I lost count the number of times I asked myself, why would they do that, or can the Aliens be really that stupid ? I can only hope they sacked the season 4 script writers for the final season and hired people who can actually write a story that makes sense.

The series started really slow and weak and kind of cheap regarding special effects etc. So we almost stopped watching after first couple of episodes. But then it developed really well, particularly the third and parts of the forth season are really good. The last season however weakened everything again with some rather unnecessary plot parts and apparently they decided to end it with season five quite late during the season five, so it felt really rushed. The last episode and the whole ending was really disappointing.

I'm not sure why people are complaining for the wrong reasons. Some seem to think Science-Fiction means "Babylon 5" - Aliens, Space...lots of costumes. So you can't really say "this is Sci-Fi" from ten years ago. No, this is Sci-Fi today.

And yes, there is a lot of dramatization and overacting, but overall a pretty decent plot is strung around it. There are some parallels to the "Walking Dead" and other series. I'm still struggling to call "Falling Skies" original. It's a lot of things at this time and we have to see how it works out. It certainly has the Walking Dead feel, where characters are replaced along the journey to keep the human tragedy fresh. Always new despair to be recalled and told about - some of which may be pretty interesting to see.

I'm not sure - I'd say a decent 7 points for this one, depending on how it develops. Pacing is really a problem in the series. You never feel like a huge amount of people is on the move or anyhow involved in this. It feels like some people sitting in a school and crying a lot (which is what it is).

If this is another show trying to make the viewer cry and emphasize with the protagonists - don't! Writer's don't do it, please! We are not interested in sad stories per se, we want to see a world that is bigger than a schoolyard, one that has deeper stories to tell. I'm giving this 8 show points in hope of a deep plot and fewer emotional problems. We know they are there, but unless these problems are plot-defining, they are really, really boring; so cut it short.No more filling up minutes with pathos.