Thursday 20 August 2015

Falling Skies: S05E06: "Respite"

Rating: 5
OK

In A Nutshell

No Pope this episode, sadly, so you'd expect all tension and drama of the human kind to diminish like the number of episodes left in this series? You'd be mostly right, but thankfully this didn't quite cross the line into pure dullness.

So, seems that alien that grabbed Tom last week just when he and Pope were about to blow each other up, was random and not anything deliberate for "the greater good" or whatever. Well, not as far as the overall arc goes but probably was pretty convenient to prolong the Pope/Tom battle, which is ok by me. Tom wakes up in a cosy bed in a quaint house. His wombs have been treated and he hobbles about to mingle with a family untouched by the war, with the grandpa, young children, teenage boy and the single-cute-he's-going-to-share-a-kiss-with mother. In a high degree of predictability, this episode progresses like a textbook, lacking any of last episode's true grit and human emotions, merely reminding us of the good ol'days and classic family issues. The teenage boy is moody and probably broody, and smoking/drinking, claiming that he doesn't know what's going on but a few miles or so away. Quite how a teenage boy didn't hear anything via radio, TV, internet or big super doper aliens in the sky, I don't know. The little ones, maybe, but the boy? Very hard to believe. Such is the obvious route this episode takes, we have him stomping off from the house and bumping into a dead alien (seems for 3 years he's not walked at least a mile away from home!) and Tom spills all the beans about the aliens in one sentence. Instantly the boy wants to fight in the war that he's not heard about until a minute ago. Yeah, it's all that stupid. Even more stupid, is come the end of the episode, when Hal and new girlfriend turn up, Tom manages to convince the boy to stay with his family in some of the most unconvincing words a testosterone teenage boy would believe.

Meanwhile, back at the second mass, Maggie has her spikes removed. Cochise ends up doing it in secret against the doctor's wishes, but seems he doesn't know much about what he's doing cause the final spike refuses to come out, so he calls the doctor, who throws a towel over Maggie, and then pulls the spike out. Blimey, either she's a real dab hand, or Cochise is really rubbish!

Things all end with Tom, Hal and new GF meeting with the second mass once again and revealing that they've literally decided to very conveniently make a base on top of a secret alien communications device. Yup, back to the cheese stuff again.

What I liked

Not a lot to like this week, unless you liked the Hal/GF flirting stuff, or Cochise's rather blatant rubbish medical knowledge. It was all quite pleasant at the house that's amazingly avoided aliens for 3 years, but we don't watch this show for nice reasons, right?

What I Didn't Like

No Pope!

No drama of any genuine level.

Predictable

Cheesy plot

Huh?


Tom plays happy families briefly this week. Quite how he didn't suspect an alien mind game I don't know. He did manage a rather brief cry though, which was comical.

Hal and his new GF do some amazing tracking, given they've gone miles chasing after a flying alien that's long out of sight. Oh look what they happen to stumble upon!?? Yes, you guessed it.

You wouldn't trust this alien with a game of Operation!

Maggie, meet, ummm, my new "friend".

Doesnt look like much, but they say this could help them win the war.

And Finally

The whole spike removal held no drama at all, with the most tension at the family home for Tom being when the mother cut her hand on some glass. It was all very dry and procedural once again this week, which can mean only one thing; bring back Pope!

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