On Sunday night, TNT’s new alien-invasion show, Falling Skies, debuted to positive reviews and a very healthy 5.9 million viewers (that’s more than another recent bit of post-apocalyptic programming, The Walking Dead). Audiences were obviously ready and willing to join the fight to save humanity from the alien scourge.
But this doesn’t mean there aren’t a few lingering questions that Falling Skies needs to answer. We now question the top five confusing issues from the show.
1. Where are all the bodies?
In a throwaway comment, we learned that the aliens had managed to kill off roughly 90% of the world’s population. Fair enough.
But where are all the bodies? A worldwide cataclysm like that of Falling Skies should have left untold numbers of corpses rotting in the streets (see The Walking Dead for a good example of this).
We know that some skitter victims were left lying in the streets, thanks to young Matt Mason’s graphic pictures of his eviscerated mother. We can assume that heroic Tom Mason gathered up the remains of his beloved wife and buried her.
What about everyone else though? With the remainders of humanity fleeing and hiding for their lives, there couldn’t have been many burials. Cremation fires would have attracted aliens.
The only reasonable explanation is that the aliens are human-hungry carnivores, returning to munch on their prey at some future point. You would have thought that the characters might have mentioned this…
2. Was it really all that hard to notice the two-leg, six-leg weirdness?
The militia’s biology teacher introduced what was probably a major plot point when he told Tom that his high-school students had noticed something odd about the aliens: The biological-looking skitters have six legs, but the robotic killing machines known as mechs only have two.
What could it possibly mean?
Obviously, it means something. Probably, it means something important to the show. I’m sure Falling Skies will get around to that explanation soon.
But the real question is, how did no one notice this before? It’s not like it’s hard to spot. Two legs on one alien variety, six legs on the other. Why isn’t everyone wondering about this, all the time? It shouldn’t take a high school biology class to figure it out.
3. Why does the militia draft a little boy but allow able-bodied adults to just hang out?
One of Tom Mason’s go-to soldiers happens to be a young boy. We’re talking about a tiny 13-year-old with no discernible military talent. Yes, he’s described as a great soldier (repeatedly), but there’s no evidence of this. The main thing we see the kid do is nearly get everyone killed by suddenly freaking out about his dog.
You could argue that the militia needs all the help it can get. So what about the many able-bodied adults just hanging out at the camp and teaching hippie-style biology classes? Shouldn’t they be fighting?
We won’t even go into Tom’s constant decision to include his boy soldier on every single mission.
4. Can you eat a skitter?
As every survivalist knows, bugs are high in protein and excellent emergency food sources. Doesn’t it seem likely that some semi-starving survivor would have tasted an alien by this point?
Maybe they have. Maybe someone (I’m going to vote for Pope here) has taken a big bite of alien flesh to see what it tastes like. What was the result?
It’s possible that skitter meat is disgusting. It may be toxic to humans (nice, easy explanation there). Or it could be that the flesh of an alien is yummy but a little too hard to come by.
That brings up a related question: do aliens taste like chicken?
5. What’s with all those guns?
It’s well-established by the end of the pilot that the aliens respond to electromagnetism, fire and loud noises. So why does everyone depend so much on guns?
Pope’s crew had the right idea with the bows and arrows. If you shoot a skitter quietly, the other monsters don’t seem to know about it.
The gun-dependent militia should probably take note of this. After all, weapons that kill effectively and quietly include:
- Bows and arrows
- Knives
- Swords
- Machetes
- Fire
- Clubs
- Spears
- Poison
- Kung fu
- Really, really big rocks
Did you enjoy the premiere of Falling Skies? Did the show leave you with any moments of confusion? Do you want answers to these questions, or would you prefer that I just keep quiet? Leave a comment below to let us know!
(Image courtesy of TNT)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
Laurel grew up in Mamaroneck, NY, Grosse Pointe, MI and Bellevue WA. She then went on to live in places like Boston, Tucson, Houston, Wales, Tanzania, Prince Edward Island and New York City before heading back to Seattle. Ever since early childhood, when she became addicted to The Muppet Show, Laurel has watched far too much TV. Current favorites include Chuck, Modern Family, Supernatural, Mad Men and Community. Laurel received a BA in Astrophysics (yes, that is possible) from Colgate University and a PhD in Middle Eastern Studies and History of Science from Columbia University before she realized that television is much better than studying.
