The Sky Has Fallen & Made a Big Splash
“Falling Skies” premiered Sunday night with the first two of ten episodes, and the alien invasion drama brought in 5.91 million viewers, according to Nielsen.
This beats the cable premieres of “The Walking Dead” on AMC (5.3m) and comes in just behind “Rizzoli & Isles” on TNT (7.6m). And VP/Head of Programming Micheal Wright has already indicated there’s a good chance for a second season pickup.
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- photo: Ken Woroner
The show has a top-shelf pedigree, with Steven Spielberg’s name over the top and stars Noah Wyle, Moon Bloodgood, and Will Patton. And with shows like “V” and “The Event” crashing and burning earlier this year, the challenge for this show is to maintain the quality and build on that audience through the rest of the first season.
In my earlier review, I noted that “Falling Skies” does what the new “V” didn’t do – give the characters room to breathe. One of the things that made the original mini-series work so well was the build-up to reveals. You didn’t get all of the answers in the first ten minutes. “Falling Skies” feels very much like an extension of that, taking its time to build.
And while some may say that the characters are decidedly one-note as of the first couple of episodes, there is good reason to believe that they will all get more depth as the show progresses. Indeed, Wyle notes that there’s more planned for the show if it gets picked up for additional seasons.
Given that the first two episode were shot months apart, I think they held up well together. Especially given that they weren’t written as a two-hour pilot, but as separate episodes. I think by episode five, we should have a very good idea where this show is going and how fun the ride will be.
