Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

With a premise like this, Falling Skies should have been a real winner. There should have been lots of tension, action, and philosophy. Instead, we have lots and lots and lots of quiet conversation, down time, and what is presumably meant as character development, but which just comes across as filler, meaningless chat, and stock characters. If the planet were really devastated by aliens and people were hunted by advanced machines, the remaining people would be desperate, frightened, and frazzled. But the characters here are relaxed, chatty, and might as well be on vacation. Other than the very infrequent moments when they are actively encountering the aliens, there is no sense at all that any aliens exist. And how is it that these advanced, interstellar travelers can't see a group of 300 people traveling together on foot? The production values are cheap and easy, and while the digital work on the aliens is at least acceptable, there is far too little of it. TV budgets are not movie budgets, of course, but look at what Spielberg can do with sounds and the implied presence of hostile aliens in a movie like War of the Worlds. Lack of money doesn't have to mean lack of effectiveness. This show should be much, much better than it is.