Steven Spielberg's Falling Skies

[Sawyer]

With the show having a panel at SDCC next month, now seemed as good a place to start a new thread as any...

The resistance is coming to Comic-Con. TNT is going to give fans the very first look at the eagerly anticipated new series FALLING SKIES, from DreamWorks Television and executive producer Steven Spielberg, starring Noah Wyle. The gripping drama series, slated to premiere in summer 2011, envisions a world where aliens have invaded, and the fate of humanity lies in the hands of a few survivors. Series stars Wyle (ER, TNT’s The Librarian movies) and Moon Bloodgood (Terminator Salvation) will join co-executive producer and writer Mark Verheiden (Heroes, Battlestar Galactica) at Comic-Con for a Q&A panel session scheduled to take place Friday, July 23, from 4:45 p.m. – 5:45 p.m. (PT) in Room 6A. They will also be available for an autograph signing, time and location to be announced.

In FALLING SKIES, Wyle stars as a former college professor who becomes the leader of a group of soldiers and civilians struggling against an occupying alien force. Bloodgood co-stars as Anne Glass, a therapist who works with the surviving children to help them cope with the traumatic situation. The series also stars Drew Roy (Lincoln Heights) as Hal and Maxim Knight (Brothers & Sisters) as Matt, Tom’s two sons; and Seychelle Gabriel (Weeds) as Lourdes, an orphaned teenager who helps run the group’s commissary. Will Patton (Armageddon, TNT’s Into the West) plays a fierce leader of the resistance.

FALLING SKIES is executive-produced by Steven Spielberg, along with DreamWorks Television heads Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank and screenwriter Robert Rodat. Rodat, who earned an Oscar® nomination for his screenplay for Saving Private Ryan, wrote the pilot from an idea he co-conceived with Spielberg. Verheiden and Greg Beeman (Heroes, Smallville) are co-executive producers. The pilot was directed by Carl Franklin (One False Move, Out of Time).

 

[Hunter Rider]

First Look: Steven Spielberg-Produced Alien Invasion TV Series Falling Skies

 

[Soapy]

Looks like Jericho.

Hopefully it will be good though. I'm in desperate need of a good scifi TV show.

 

[Sawyer]

Between this and Terra Nova, Steven Spielberg's got a hand in two of my most anticipated shows of the new season. Hopefully they can live up to their potential. But with Mark Verheiden involved in this, after some great episodes of BSG and being involved with Smallville in it's golden years, and the ****load of awesome writers lining up on Terra Nova, I imagine they'll both be pretty awesome.

 

[Superfreak]

looks interesting

 

[Sawyer]

http://tv.ign.com/articles/110/1107095p1.html

SDCC 10: Falling Skies Attacks Comic-Con
TNT reveals their new alien invasion series.
July 23, 2010
by Eric Goldman


Terminator Salvation's Moon Bloodgood and ER's Noah Wyle took the stage to provide significant Q & A for their new sci-fi show on TNT, Falling Skies, which made its debut at Comic-Con today.

Battlestar Galactica's Mark Verheiden, serving as Skies's producer and showrunner, was also on hand to show audiences a first look at footage from the show, which chronicles a team of survivors trying to rebuild civilization in the wake of an alien invasion.

An alien craft, looking a lot like a Marquis raider from Deep Space Nine, cuts across a night sky and opens fire on a New England neighborhood. A child's voiceover tells us the story of the alien invasion, playing over crayon illustrations of the alien attack.

We reveal Noah Wyle as Tom Mason, former history professor and father of three, who is forced to lead a team of survivors across a United States with all of its major capitol cities destroyed in an effort to both rebuild society and take out what's left of the alien invading force. So what do the aliens look like? Verheiden described them as scary, but what they really looked like were four-legged CG reptilian things with mouths full of really white, really long teeth.

Oh, and they may or may not sport mech suits with crazy lazer grids.

After the footage concluded, Wyle, Bloodgood and Verheiden fielded questions regarding the course the first season will take.


The first season takes place six months after the invasion, with 80% of humanity wiped out. The full scale of the alien attack will gradually be revealed as the series progresses.


Wyle's Tom Mason is an intellectual first and man of action second, an expert in the American Revolution, which comes in handy as he and a small band of militia take arms against the aliens still on Earth.


Tom's middle son is missing, abducted by the aliens - who have an interest in our youth. And yes, that interest and the search for Tom's son will fold into the show's mythology.


Moon Bloodgood plays a former doctor who lost her husband and child during the invasion, and will most likely become an all-too-convenient love interest for Wyle's character as the series progresses.


The survivors represent "the writers of a new Constitution" according to Wyle, who likes how Skies is about defending one's homeland as much as it is about how society goes about rebuilding itself when all modern technology is destroyed; when there are no more laws or police.


Children will take arms, and the show will address how young a child should be when they are forced to learn how to kill at the sacrifice of their innocence.


The producers know what the aliens want, why they came to Earth, and that will also be revealed as the series advances.



So what did IGN think? The idea of humanity forced to rebuild and come up with new means of civilized living in the wake of an alien invasion is a great idea, one that lends itself to a variety of dramatically exciting and satisfying possibilities. But judging by the surprising lack of excitement on the faces and in the voices of the panelists - especially Verheiden, it's fuzzy as to whether or not the show will deliver on the epic promise of its conceit.

The footage didn't really register much beyond hitting on familiar beats we've seen in other mediums with post-apocalyptic or alien invasion plots. We get The Road esque shots of dirty people trudging down muddy roads; we get wide shots of landmarks in ruin. And, worse, we get glimpses of aliens that don't seem very original or scary, borrowing a bit too much from District 9 and suffering from an effects budget a network like TNT can afford.

We don't think the show is dead on arrival, by any means. But the jury's still out as to how successful this inspired idea will translate in episodic television. Love the premise, but not quite in love with the glimpses of its execution seen so far.

Falling Skies premieres June 2011 on TNT. And if you attended the panel, please tell us what you thought in the Comments section.

I really hope this will end up better than how IGN is making it sound.

 

[dark_b]

Meh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39eegoYnH9s

 

[Primal Slayer]

ya that preview was hellaboring. Hopefully the actual episode is better.

 

[Sgt.Pepper]

I'm going to reserve my judgement. I'm not excited for it but I'll give it a shot.

 

[Prison Mike]

Looks good to me.

 

[Crockett]

Even if I'm not holding my hope high for it I'll give it a shot.

 

[GREEN =w= DAY]

saw a preview over at imdb.com. the show looks pretty interesting. seems that this show will be TNT's version of the Walking Dead, only instead of a zombie apocalypse it's an alien apocalypse.

 

[roach]

Saw the trailer today at True Grit and was floored...this looks awesome

 

[louiebling$]

Saw the trailer today at True Grit and was floored...this looks awesome

I too seen it before True Grit and I was sold... this show looks like its going to be great

 

[Dr Lee]

this show looks interesting... will definitely check it out...

 

[Catman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39eegoYnH9s

So...War of the Worlds: The TV Series.

 

[Kent]

So...War of the Worlds: The TV Series.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5tcn3Y2PM8

 

[Doctor Jones]

Ths show could be either great or disapointing. I'll watch it for Wyle, Spielberg and the idea. I've always wondered why they didn't do something that was post alien invasion.

 

[roach]

It looks like they are taking a page from Walking Dead where the zombie apocalypse isnt the focus...its the people trying to survive.....this looks to be not about an alien invasion but the people trying to survive and fight back

 

[BlackLantern]

just saw the trailer this morning....looks interesting enough, Ill check it out

 

[Sawyer]

It looks like they are taking a page from Walking Dead where the zombie apocalypse isnt the focus...its the people trying to survive.....this looks to be not about an alien invasion but the people trying to survive and fight back

To be fair, I think BSG did that sort of thing before The Walking Dead.

 

[The Squirrel]

Color me interested.

 

[roach]

To be fair, I think BSG did that sort of thing before The Walking Dead.

true

 

[Isub_Zero]

Ths show could be either great or disapointing. I'll watch it for Wyle, Spielberg and the idea. I've always wondered why they didn't do something that was post alien invasion.

Isn't "V" is this kind of concept? And what about the 2005 TV Series - "Invasion"?

 

[roach]

I think this is more of the lines where the aliens came and kicked our butts and now humanity is struggling in a world where they are not on the top of the food chain.

Where "V" was more about the fight against the aliens. The "V"s didnt come and kick everyones butt in alphabetical order...they came and assimilated into the society and then were revealed to be hungry lizards here to eat us.