MovieChat Forums > Falling Skies (2011) Discussion > This show made me never want to waste ti...

This show made me never want to waste time on crap shows again


So I guess thats a positive.

Im way more picky about series I choose to watch now. Hate getting a few seasons in then feeling the need to finish an atrocious show like this,. Its the reason im quitting The Strain right away. God awful writing.

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I watched the season opener of The Strain and immediately regretted it afterwards. I've learned the same lesson, I'm not investing any more time is something that doesn't truly entertain me.

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The first episode of The Strain was really catchy and then everything went downhill from there. the new season is total garbage. Under the dome has potential though with the changes made in the new season.

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No it doesn't. Under The Dome is as bad as Falling Skies.

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Falling Skies is Shakespeare next to Under the Dome

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Yeah, but Sherry Stringfield in tight jeans.

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Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm not entirely sure why I continued to watch this one when there's really such quality tv going on these days.
I started The Last Ship, Under the Dome and The Strain...and dropped them all by mid season. It's just not worth it.
I guess I had some allegiance to Noah Wyle from the ER days and the initial premise of the show held such promise.

Cable really is the place to be these days but TNT still hasn't caught up with any nuanced approach to its writing.
Even USA is coming around with shows like Mr Robot.
But maybe there's still a place for old fashioned family type drama and sci fi...maybe I've just been spoiled and some of us just require more.

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The Last Ship is one of summers best shows. Give it another chance!

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"But maybe there's still a place for old fashioned family type drama and sci fi...maybe I've just been spoiled and some of us just require more."

Why oh why do people these day feel that anything that isn't adult themed with every sentence begining with the F word of worse and graphic scenes of sex an violence every few seconds is somehow automatically inferior and beneath them to watch. Falling Skies may well have had it's faults but give me that any day over things like Game of Thrones which ram a diet adult content down your throat to try and show how sophisticated and grown up they are.

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No man...read my actual words. Not your interpretation.

I'm not referring to sex, violence or the "f" word. I could give a crap about that.
if you equate quality with adult content than you're missing the point.
I called it "old fashioned family drama" because it reminds me of the shows I use to see as a kid. TV use to set a lower bar, in general, than it does today. The best tv shows now are more reminiscent to films. The writing is more sophisticated.
The characters more realistic.

I'm talking about nuance and complexity. Characters that ring true. Actions and motives that grow organically from the plot and flow naturally to the point you feel you are a part of the show and actually know the characters. You relate. It feels real.

Falling Skies did not have these things..Sorry. I didn't hate the show but the characters were pretty one dimensional. Plots got switched around for the convenience of the writers and quite often made no sense.

If you don't know what I'm talking about than you are really missing some good shows.

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Sadly an awful lot of people would equate your words "nuance and complexity. Characters that ring true. Actions and motives that grow organically from the plot and flow naturally to the point you feel you are a part of the show and actually know the characters. You relate. It feels real." with shows that deal with adult themes and content, to them any show that could be considered "old fashioned family drama" is automatically consigned to the "god this is crap" bin, it makes making family oriented shows that last more that a season nigh on impossible. IMHO your comment "TV use to set a lower bar, in general, than it does today. The best tv shows now are more reminiscent to films. The writing is more sophisticated.
The characters more realistic." is incorrect, I believe that yes the technical side is now much more slick and far more money is spent on producing shows today than in the past but as for setting the bar lower I disagree, older shows were written to simply entertain and they did that job far more, perfectly complete with cliche and stereotyp characters than any show today, now sadly so may people expect TV to be art which frustrates me. Falling skies was not great but I simply watched it for what it was a silly bit of Sci-Fi fun, I wasn't examining every character motive and interaction for flaws and every scene for the artistry of it's writing.

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People don't expect TV to be art. People expect to be entertained and not have their intelligence insulted with glaring plotholes, retconning major things at random and abandoning subplots.

In older shows, this was less of a problem because the episodes were more often standalone stories; freak of the week style. The conflict was solved in 45 minutes. New shows are not meant to be like this. People expect longer arcs; if not a season, then at least a few episodes. People expect previous episodes to matter. People expect characters to learn from (or at least remember) previous events. In that regard, older shows were a lot more like movies. Characters were often given less development because their growth wasn't the point. The point was to have static roles that would deal with the monster, criminal case, discovery or whatever of the week. Movies are the same; they compress a character into 90 minutes on average, and the characters are written the way they need to be for this story.

Many long running franchises have adapted to the changing expectation of viewers. Star Trek was fairly alien of the week and gradually developed longer arcs in TNG. Law & Order and spinoffs started as criminal of the week and added more background and personal life subplots to their main characters. Just to name a few examples. "Old" shows are not doomed to suck and be "too old school". Inconsistent writing is not old school. It's just plain bad. If you want to retcon, forget or ignore previous content, write a show that has a gimmick doing that - time travel, memory loss, whatever. It's still possible to make standalone episodes. It's not a question of "art or not art", it's just two different concepts for shows. Falling Skies tried to be the character-driven, long story arc "modern" show, but failed.

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I didn't compare FS to Game of Thrones. At first, to Walking Dead because the scenario is similar, that's hard to avoid.

I mainly compared to shows that are also scifi drama and may have soap-y personal drama. Not one of them has "adult content". But all have better character depth and a more coherent story. THAT is what I expect. I'm not spoiled by GoT. I'm spoiled by Babylon 5, a show that completely lacks "adult" elements.

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They shouldn't end this show by any means cause it's script still had a huge potential in the future seasons.
It is only finished cause it didn't brings a large enough profit to these TV moneybags.
That's the exact reason why I'm feeling that I wasted my time and that they robbed me and my time after I watched 5 great seasons of this nice TV show with this sudden and unnecessary end. I'm very disappointed.

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With the OP. I put enough time into this show that last week I gave Fear The Walking Dead a view, and realized I don't want to be hanging out with these people for 5 seasons because it's likely going to lead nowhere.

THE ONLY CRITIC WHO CAN REVIEW WHILE JOGGING:
http://bit.ly/1pPzoBc

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I should have learned the lesson from Stargate Universe. I gave it a fair shot, but ultimately just hate-watched the second season. But then, it was only a waste of 2 seasons. Falling Skies definitely taught me to just call quits when it sucks too much.

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Yeah, I've given up on a bunch of shows that I may have watched in the past. I did manage to make it all the way through the first seasons of Killjoys and Dark Matter though, but if it were the fall, and there were other shows on, I probably wouldn't have.

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None of you people have checked out the two seasons of The 100? Its an awesome series, much character progression, hard choices, tough survival, main characters deaths, blood and gore etc. I know a lot of people got turn away from the first season by the pilot episode but the series is a progressive one that by season 1 finale and season 2 it turned simply awesome! And the third season is coming up in the mid-season.


If anyone want to watch, check out couchtuner la. All the episodes are there.

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Yeah, horrible acting, forgiving mass genocide... and always trying to go over the top... I thought it got worse and worse, in the end I dropped it when I realized I hated over 90% of the cast.

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Then why are you still hanging around? To troll? And if you really dropped it, then you have zero business here. So bye!

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its a pretty bad show. I watched first season and gave up on it. Watching this last season only because i wonder how they will end this crap fest. I feel bad for anyone who wasted time watching the entire show. Lots of wasted potential here.

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Then why are you still hanging around? To troll?

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True that. I watched 2 or 3 episodes of this show. Rated it 1 and stopped it. Boring swill. Weak writing, weak acting.

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