Reviews

Falling Skies, At All Costs, Review

There's a lot of heart to heart in the latest episode of Falling Skies...after the traps are sprung. There's more to say about the fifth episode of season three, but you've gotta keep reading!

By Lisa Bernier | June 24, 2013 | | 0

Charleston is still under siege in “At All Costs,” but anyone expecting an action-packed battle was disappointed. The entire attack merely served as a setup for the arrested Lieutenant from the “real” President to see the advantage of having the Volm as allies. Seeing two Volm with guns shoot down four Skitter planes makes her do a complete 180.

This, in turns, leads to Tom and President Hathaway setting up a face-to-face meet. Um, anyone else smell trap? Or at the very least, that all is not what it seems? Whatever…Tom apparently doesn’t. He agrees to the meet, and also, brings Cochise along to convince the President the value of the Volm. MISTAKE!

Meanwhile, Anne takes a swab of DNA from Alexis because she thinks her baby isn’t huuummaaan. She brings it to Dr. Kadar (Robert Sean Leonard!) and asks him to build a DNA machine. Apparently being a nuclear physicist specialist allows you to know and/or do anything when it comes to science, even if it has nothing to do with what you obtained your degree in.

Whatever. Science is loosely applied throughout this entire show, why should I be surprised? There also seems to be some indication that the reason Doctor Kadar is such a nutbag is because he lost a child in the initial attack. Oh, Robert Sean Leonard. You rise so far above the material given you. The man could act his way out of a bag. He certainly does through the terrible gray wig and glasses they’ve placed on him to make him look post-apocalyptic “eccentric.”

Tom, the General, Cochise, and Pope fly to the President, where Cochise immediately gets taken into custody. Tom and the President have a heart-to-heart, and then they all have a heart-to-heart with the tied up Volm…who spouts eloquent about a flower, and that somehow convinces everyone that these aliens are OK and can be trusted. Please. The metaphor wasn’t even that good.

Oh, also, Ben could get his spike removed and be a normal kid again, but he and his sidekick friend decide not to. Yes, this takes an entire episode of watching the two of them talk about it on the roof. It’s taken me a four sentence paragraph to write about it (you do the math about how lame that storyline was).

Tom and friends are convinced by the President to fly with them to some secret location, but in the rush to get away from a skitter attack, Conchise gets separated from them and put on the President’s plane…and then the rest falls under the heading of “major spoilers.”

As an episode, “At All Costs” wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t exactly good. Then again, this is Falling Skies and I never expect any of the episodes to be stellar. It’s good, summer, sci-fi popcorn fun. Still, spending the amount of time they did on that idiotic Ben storyline makes me think they may need to shake it up a little in the writer’s room. I mean, it wasn’t even significant symbolically. It was just filler.

Sigh. And the episode is to be continued. Well, hopefully the second half will be better than the first.

Highlights: the creepy baby storyline is morphing into an evil alien baby storyline, the president of the U.S. is alive and kickin’ (though possibly not to be trusted), and Noah Wyle’s beard is still awesome.

Lame points: Hal having a split personality due to the alien in his head, Ben taking an entire episode to decide to do nothing about his spike, and Tom Mason just continuing to be a gullible dope.