FALLING SKIES Season 4 Episode 1
Episode Title: “Ghost in the Machine”
Writer: David Eick
Director: Greg Beeman
Previously on “Falling Skies”:
There is something extremely unsettling about “Falling Skies” and it has nothing to do with invading aliens or post-apocalyptic ghettos and re-education camps. It’s watching a show drastically change directions as if there is no plan or final destination for the series. Instead of pushing forward on the new stories of season three, “Falling Skies” has done a pretty hard reset to bring the heroes down to Earth again.
“Battlestar Galactica” veteran David Eick has taken over “Falling Skies” this season, and I can only assume that it was largely his call to send the Volm packing and reduce the 2nd Mass to prisoners of the Espheni. And while the reason given for the Volm’s departure is plausible, this effectively killed the intriguing notion putting humanity between two warring factions who didn’t really care what happened to the indigenous people of Earth.
I can accept this change if the new stories are an improvement upon everything that came before. But so far, I’m unconvinced that this is the right call for the series. “Falling Skies” still has some glaring problems which Eick hasn’t even begun to fix.
From this point on, there are full spoilers ahead for last night’s season premiere of “Falling Skies,” so you should skip this review if you’re not up to date or else Lexie will say something cryptic.
Roughly three weeks or so after the third season finale, Tom Mason (Noah Wyle) and the 2nd Mass find themselves under attack by the Espheni and soundly defeated. Anne Glass-Mason (Moon Bloodgood) manages to escape with Anthony (Mpho Koahu) and some of the other fighters, but Tom and his children are all left behind.
Before we go on, how about a moment of reflection for Lyle (Brad Kelly), who had perhaps the most ignoble death in sci-fi since Boba Fett was killed for a burp joke in Return of the Jedi. Lyle ran face first into the Espheni electric fence and he was zapped like a bug. And I don’t think that Lyle will be back in the Expanded Universe.
One of the few intriguing ideas of this fourth season premiere is that something has changed for the Espheni. They’re going out of their way to keep their prisoners alive and they aren’t even harnessing children anymore. Instead, the Espheni are using the classic re-education camps to capture the minds of the young while keeping the rest of their human prisoners in ghetto-like camps.
This is a mystery that’s going to depend upon its resolution. It can only be a successful angle if there is a compelling in-story reason for it. It can’t just be that Eick wants to revisit his New Caprica story ideas from “BSG.” Because there are some strange, silly things going on in the ghetto. Tom secretly escapes from his prison at will to become the masked vigilante known as Ghost, who rides around the ghetto on a bike to test the Skitter defences.
The hilarious thing is that the aliens have no idea that Tom is the Ghost. You’d think that aliens like the Espheni would monitor Tom at all times or manage to capture one human in a camp that they run. Plus, anyone who knows Tom should immediately recognize him as Ghost. It reminds me of those classic wrestling storylines where the hero was forced to fight while wearing a mask, but everyone knew who he really was.
Cochise (Doug Jones) makes one welcome reappearance when he reconnects with Tom and explains why his people have largely withdrawn from Earth. I want more of Cochise on this show, if only for his hilarious attempts to lift Tom’s spirits with Earth phrases that Cochise barely understands. Plus those Volm guns are a lot of fun to see in action.
While Tom is supposedly stuck in solitary, Hal (Drew Roy) and Tector (Ryan Robbins) are working on their own escape plan and going up against John Pope (Colin Cunningham), who has already acclimated to the relatively good life he enjoys as a prisoner. Pope almost always makes “Falling Skies” better because his character is always free to the a**hole. Even though Hal loses a fight to Pope, it makes Hal look better by standing up to him.
Elsewhere, the creative team made a mind-boggling decision to focus an entire subplot around Matt (Maxim Knight) inside an Espheni re-education camp. Knight has been one of the weaker performers on this show from the very beginning, which may be due to the previous creative team’s inability to write for children. So far, the new team isn’t filling me with much hope that Matt will suddenly become an interesting character just because he’s running a resistance group of his own. For example, Matt’s “History channel” exchange with a fellow prisoner was pretty groan-worthy.
“Falling Skies” has also gone full-on “V” with Lexi Glass-Mason (Scarlett Byrne) aged into young adulthood, opposite her disbelieving half-brother, Ben Mason (Connor Jessup). Somehow, Lexi is running a sanctuary for humans that appears to be safe from the Espheni. Maggie (Sarah Sanguin Carter) and Lourdes (Seychelle Gabriel) have either fully bought into Lexi’s vision or they are being controlled somehow. It’s not quite as boring as Matt’s misadventures with the Alien Hitler Youth, but it does need to get to a point quickly.
Despite all of the problems I have with “Falling Skies,” nothing would make me happier than to finally see this show take the next step forward and become one of best original cable dramas.
To paraphrase Fox Mulder, I want to believe… So, make me believe.
