It's hard to believe that the show Falling Skies has been on the air for 5 years.  I guess this is what happens when a show is on in the summer and it only has 12 or 13 episodes per season - time flies!  Even so, plot-wise, it seems like the finale to this show was really rushed and it seemed quite anticlimactic.  There are spoilers in this, so if you haven't watched it go watch the show and come back to this later...

Alright, don't say you hadn't been warned.  So, in case you had not seen this show before, the main premise, just like independence day, is that aliens come to take over the planet Earth.  They lay waste to the place, start killing off humans, and abducting their kids and putting harnesses on them to use them as communication vessels.  Later on the aliens, the Espheni,start creating human/Espheni hybrids to better colonize the place.  There are other aliens that have been fighting the Espheni, namely the Volm, who lend a hand here and there, but we don't see a ton of them. Among the humans who are fighting the enemy one rises up, a reluctant hero and leader (Tom Mason) a professor of History from Boston University who wins over the hearts and minds of people and unites earth (well...people follow him, don't know how united they are) to take on the Espheni Overloads.

This series had great promise, but it really fizzled out.  The finale starts with a proclamation that the final fight was more bloody than they expected (which didn't seem bloody on screen), and it really ends on a low, and confusing note.  Near the end the "Queen" is on earth to oversee operations. This sounds like a mythical creature even to the Volm.  The Espheni are essentially a humanoid species, but their queen looks like she is an arachnid. OK, well, the "skidders" seemed different from the Espheni, so maybe it was another case of a subjugated species.  However, the queen wants to clue in Tom Mason as to why she is attacking the planet.

So, apparently Earth is the only habitable planet in this region of space, so it would make a good planet to colonize as a refueling and supply depot in the Espheni plan to conquer other worlds.  If she stopped there it would have been all fine and dandy.  Not great, but we've seen television megalomaniacs before, so it's understandable.  But, we find out that the Espheni (the queen's "daughters") came to earth 15,000 years ago when we were primitive and our ancestors killed the overlords and ate their flesh (gasp!) so the queen is here for revenge!  Hmmm... How does a specifies  that is arachnid produce off-spring that is essentially humanoid?  Furthermore, I've heard of revenge being a dish best served cold, but what the heck made you wait 15,000 years?!  This was really disappointing. You basically had the mad, megalomaniacal, 'take over the world' villain come back and  exact his revenge.  How...stale.

From a character point of view, one thing that really annoyed me is what they did with the character of Pope.  I gave him a pass on his irrational behavior - he was grieving the loss of a significant other - but I didn't expect him to double down on the crazy. He seemed like a character whose potential was not realized, and in the end he basically prompts Mason to kill him after the war is over, basically realizing how sad and pathetic he was having come out a on the losing end.  Pope dies of natural causes, but we don't see what happens to his body.  Left to rot by the beach?  He certainly deserved better.  Needed a better story arc on this character, for sure.

Despite the pretty crappy ending, I have to say: It's still better than the Lost finale!

Your thoughts?