Not that season one of Falling Skies is over, let’s take a look back and see what was good and bad about the series. As I mentioned in the review of the pilot, there is nothing very new or exciting about the show, but the story was handled well (far better than the V reboot). The only highlights from the pilot were Noah Wylie and John Pope, so let’s see how the series worked as a full season. (Spoilers ahoy. Don’t read further if you haven’t seen the finale).

Let’s get one thing out of the way first, the Close Encounters ending sucked. Having Tom (Noah Wylie) go aboard just because they mentioned Ben was a cheap ploy and a cop out. Also, the surface to air missile taking out a ship and then blowing up half the alien landing bay was too convenient and seemed fairly silly. I also had some issues with the way Tom confronted Will about his drug use. The reaction from Will seemed fine, but Tom went about it in a fairly stupid way (there was no consequences from his escaping  and did they ever free the guard they tied up).

But let’s get to my two biggest peeves about the season as a whole. First Tom was so worried about his kids the whole season that he took too many chances and disobeyed too many orders. I was surprised that Will didn’t get thrown in jail (or demoted) at all. He seemed to throw all caution and common sense out the window. And while that seems to be somewhat believable with Tom being a worried father, the series went to the well too often with that excuse.

The other problem I had was not enough John Pope. His character was one of the best things about the pilot and he was the only character that was dynamic. But they buried him in jail or making bombs for half the season and never found a good way to use him. I’d much rather that he was the main character instead of Tom. It would make the show a lot more interesting.

Overall it was a decent series. It wasn’t great, but good enough to keep watching week after week. I look forward to season two and hope that they can improve the series. I would recommend the series only if you are planning to jump onto season 2, otherwise don’t worry about it. Mildly recommended.