Falling Skies (TNT) season 3 premieres 6/09/2013 (1 Viewer)

The third season has its two-hour premiere tonight at 9/8c on TNT.Remi Aubuchon ("24", "Caprica", "Persons Unknown") continues as showrunner. Greg Beeman ("Nash Bridges", "Smallville", "Heroes") continues as producing director. Doug Jones (Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth), Gloria Reuben ("ER"), Robert Sean Leonard ("House M.D."), Stephen Collins ("7th Heaven", "No Ordinary Family") all join the cast for the third season in multiple episode stints.

Thanks for the reminder. Most of the summer series don't start until late June so I would have totally missed this

Looking forward to it, have really enjoyed the past two seasons.

No problem.I thought the first hour had some of the cringeworthy bang-the-audience-over-the-head stuff I've come to expect from this show, but the second hour was solid. Tom leading Weaver's men to the slaughter as a diversion was unexpectedly ruthless. Karen remains as creepy as ever. Robert Sean Leonard is a lot of fun as the crazy nuclear scientist. And Tom and Anne's daughter might just be the creepiest newborn since Rosemary's Baby.But I continue to wonder why they give so much screen time to Tom's youngest son, when the boy who plays him is such a terrible actor. The show grinds to a halt with every scene he's in.

We watched the two-hour season three premiere last night. I was also given season one on DVD as a gift a few months ago. But I missed much of season two, so we're thinking of watching it again from the beginning.

One thing I noticed right away (comparatively from season one to season three) is that the aliens are given a lot more air time, which in my opinion is a positive thing. I remember wanting to see the Skitters and Mechs much more so than I did during season one. Now I have to learn more about the Espheni, since last night was the first time I had ever seen or heard of them. I get the feeling that I missed a ton of important information -- including everything having do with Manchester and the Overlords -- by not seeing much of season two.

"And Tom and Anne's daughter might just be the creepiest newborn since Rosemary's Baby."Adam,

Agreed! That scene when the newborn baby is standing up(!) in the crib staring blankly at the only other person in the room really resonated with me -- very creepy indeed. And a few moments later, we hear "Mama." Chilling.

Adam Lenhardt said:

But I continue to wonder why they give so much screen time to Tom's youngest son, when the boy who plays him is such a terrible actor. The show grinds to a halt with every scene he's in.

Click to expand...

I feel the same way. Kind of like Sofia Coppola in Godfather III or Chuck Norris in anything. Also the chubby guy in "Revolution", Aaron. Certain people just shouldn't be in front of the camera, really takes you out of the moment and ruins the scene.

There's a fine line between bad acting which can be tolerable and "really wooden, terrible acting" which sometimes makes me wonder how these people ever got the job.

Yeah, everything with the baby was crazy creepy.

This is a show that has really grown from it's season 1, and found it's footing along the way. Season 1 was kind of rough; but Season 2 helped.. and I agree with Adam, the second hour was pretty solid. The first hour was a big part "to catch you up" "things you missed" type stuff

Ockeghem said:

We watched the two-hour season three premiere last night. I was also given season one on DVD as a gift a few months ago. But I missed much of season two, so we're thinking of watching it again from the beginning.

Click to expand...

Season two just came out on Blu-Ray last week, so if you're looking to catch up it's available. While still imperfect, season two was a big improvement on season one.

One thing I noticed right away (comparatively from season one to season three) is that the aliens are given a lot more air time, which in my opinion is a positive thing. I remember wanting to see the Skitters and Mechs much more so than I did during season one.

Click to expand...

A big part of that is budgetary. They only have the budget to make so many new models per episode, and it's taken two seasons to build up to the CG model base they have now. And Doug Jones's Lafayette-esque alien ally is a prosthetic creation, so that makes it easier.

Now I have to learn more about the Espheni, since last night was the first time I had ever seen or heard of them.

Click to expand...

The Espheni are the Overlords, it's the real name for their species.

Stan said:

I feel the same way. Kind of like Sofia Coppola in Godfather III or Chuck Norris in anything. Also the chubby guy in "Revolution", Aaron. Certain people just shouldn't be in front of the camera, really takes you out of the moment and ruins the scene. There's a fine line between bad acting which can be tolerable and "really wooden, terrible acting" which sometimes makes me wonder how these people ever got the job.

Click to expand...

I really like the guy who plays Aaron. It's not an Emmy winning performance by any means, but it gets the job done. I agree that Chuck Norris is a terrible actor, but he's great at kicking ass on-screen so he sort of justifies his position. This kid is Sofia Coppola in Godfather Part III territory for sure.

This kid is Sofia Coppola in Godfather Part III territory for sure

Click to expand...

Or the whiny blond chick from Revolution.

I liked the premiere. I can't help but notice the 3 TV doctors sharing scenes together, including 2 from "ER". I bet that Noah Wyle and Gloria Reuben shared more scenes together in the 1 episode of "Falling Skies" than all the 5 seasons of "ER" put together.

What is almost as scary (and kind of sad), is seeing the kids nearly mutated into aliens.

Also, interesting that Tom brought up Roosevelt and Churchill allying themselves with Stalin, knowing fully well of Stalin's true colors, when it came to trusting the alien ally.

Very strong episode tonight, I thought. A very Pope-centric hour that played to the nuances of the character rather than the broad strokes. Colin Cunningham knocked it out of the park this week.The two-year anniversary bit was a nice way to provide a moment of reflection for the characters, but I think what it was really about was establishing the timeline. If it's only been two years since the invasion, the duly elected US president serving at the time would likely still be serving his existing term of office. So if he's survived, that throws out the makeshift government that Mason and the Charleston folks have established.

I watched this week's episode tonight, and thought it was very good. I never saw that ending coming. "This is the sound ..." was moving along nicely, and then I jumped out of my seat. And that baby is still very creepy. From what I could tell it looked like it was tracking the aircraft. As the episode progressed I really wanted anyone else to hear the baby's words for corroboration. I really need to pick up season two so I can watch this again from the beginning as I'm trying to piece together much of what I missed from the second season.

So any idea's who the spy is...

My suspect....

todd s said:

So any idea's who the spy is...

My suspect....

Spoiler

Mason's assistant. Gloria Ruben's character.

Click to expand...

That is also my guess.

Doug

Lots of whizz-bang in tonight's episode. I like the idea of the real, properly elected president basically serving as a coordinator of all of the disparate resistance groups. It's a role someone in his position can do, and there was none of the power plays I was expecting. And anything that forces Mason and Pope nearly alone in close corners intrigues me -- as long as they don't hop on the same old merry-go-round.

My wife and I are behind on our dvr viewing and we just watched the season premier (only the first hour) of this Series. We've seen every previous episode, but we watched this one feeling we had missed the first hour. This is the one called "Thin Ice".

When S2 ended we had just caught our first glimpse of a new creature but that was all it was. But now they are our allies and have been around for a while. Tom's older son Hal, uses a wheel chair, I don't remember that happening. Hal has been elected President, sure don't remember that.

Have we caught episode amnesia for did this season premier omit some important stuff?

They skipped ahead several months (I think 7). They sort of just mentioned things in passing to help us catch up. Think of it as if thier world kept going while the show was on hiatus. Now we are back watching and have basically missed everything and need to catch up.

I have a quick question for those who know this series well. The scene with Hal in front of the mirror -- was he hallucinating, or was that something else? When he moved and the image (i.e., the 'reflection') didn't, I was wondering what was going on in that scene. I thought that was very well done. Thanks in advance.

P.S.: I love the voice of the alien (one of the lead allies -- the one who was taken into custody). And Lexie is still creepy.

I think it just indicates that he has a kind of split personality given by that ear bug. Beyond that, I don't think the audience knows for sure what's going on with him.

Cochise is voiced by a guy called Doug Jones who does a lot of VO work. Well, looks like he is a makeup creation and not CG, so I guess it's more that he plays the character.

Greg,Okay, thanks. That was a wonderful scene in my opinion.

I really liked Pope's story about what landed him in prison. It was unexpectedly suburban, and framed with the self-lies that allow Pope to keep moving forward.I also liked the vice president actually thinking to run the Volm's mystery device past their resident scientific genius. It's the kind of thing real people would do but people in these sorts of TV shows never seem to do.The rest of the episode was full of overwrought speechifying and pound-you-over-the-head emotional beats. I also thought the fighting between Tom and Pope was poorly executed. There's enough genuine and earned conflict between the characters that it felt cheap and artificial having them actually brawling and Pope tweaking Tom with the snake. It's an example of two characters where I'm far more interested in what they have to say to each other than watching the show turn of one its few avenues of subtext into something explicit and empty.