Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS**

[Star Wolf]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

I'm an Iraq veteran, earned my CAB in Diyala a few years ago. Less than 2% of the American population will(currently) ever serve in the military, of that number perhaps 10% might see combat(less as the Iraq/Afghan vets get phased out). We're looking at a pool of perhaps 300,000-500,000 soldiers with combat experience and experience in counterinsurgency warfare. Kill off 90%(was that figure mentioned explicitly in the show already? Can't remember) of that number and you're left with maybe 50,000 veterans. Plus the Cold War warriors, old Vietnam vets and whoever else. So there should be a few of us running around.

But the show's location is well picked in that regard. Ft. Drum and the 10th Mountain Division would be the nearest major combat formation. And Mass. is not exactly a sought after destination for ex-military types. Not like Texas for example, where you have veterans everywhere.

Being ex-Army I will say that pretty much every military aspect of the show so far is laughable and silly but it is Hollywood writers trying to do current day characters in an alien invasion. The writers are a little out of their league. I'll give them a pass on that stuff for now. But they have a wonderful writing opportunity to show the characters face the realities of war and begin to mature into veteran badasses. I doubt the show will reach that level of writing, but I'll give it a chance.

A far more serious problem for the show, from a reality check standpoint is the logistical situation. My Cavalry Troop in Iraq(MTOE strength of 130 soldiers) had to run logpacks every 1-2 days to keep us supplied. A full 5-ton cargo truck of food and water, a 500 gallon water buffalo, plus a 2500 gallon HEMTT fuel tanker.

In the show, lets assume they have some clean water sources. And they don't need that much fuel for their few vehicles. But food? Yeah, a huge issue, particularly for Mass. which is not really prime farmland. Grocery stores only stock enough food for perhaps a week. Even if 90% of the population died instantly(which did not happen) stocks of food in Mass. would have been exhausted months ago. There is no infrastructure bringing in new supplies of food, no gardening(so far). Hunting as Pope suggested, isn't going to work for 300 people. Our heroes should be starving already, badly starving.

Are skitters edible? Maybe paprika works to season them.

I once worked with a Mass National Guard M48 unit at Ft Drum but it was before the 10th Mtn was recommisioned. Movie food to go along with movie ammo, why not. Maybe all of the suburbanites are dead. Besides the harnessed we have only seen Pope's gang on the retreat from Boston.

 

[Caliburn24]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

From what we have seen so far the aliens just attacked the major population centers and progressed down to smaller towns as time went on. There has been no detailed and systemic method to their genocide(yet). There should be little groups of people everywhere eating each other just to get by.

But of course the show is probably not going to get that dark, nor have the budget to really show destroyed cities and towns.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

There should be little groups of people everywhere eating each other just to get by.

The Walking Dead already has that territory staked out.

I would think hunting humans would be a bit more difficult than hunting a) pets and domesticated animals; and when they're gone, b) pigeons, rats, etc - if human corpses have been left around, the rodent population would explode. Paprika would do wonders.

I've been under the assumption that groups of humans are rare in the area, because otherwise why would Maggie not take a few guns and just leave the merry band of rapists if there were any other people around she might try to throw in with instead? She could put a few bullets in a few snoring thugs on her way out. The way they were boozing it up, she should have had many opportunities to wipe them all out. She would have stuck around only if she sincerely thought her only other option was to try to survive on her own - a chilling prospect. Only when they captured Tom's group did she finally act.

 

[sojourner]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

^Which reminds me. Pope wasn't very broken up about his brother's death. Almost like the guy didn't exist.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

There are enough pigeons in the Greater Boston area to feed humanity for a century.

 

[Star Wolf]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

There are enough pigeons in the Greater Boston area to feed humanity for a century.

My wife is from Manila she was amazed at LA's pigeons. No way that food would survive on Manila's streets. I wonder how fast the Boston pigeons would learn after becoming chicken.vt

 

[stj]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

Simple logic. Tom said he found his wife's body still holding her end of a bag that was too heavy for her to carry. How could that possibly be the case unless a) she was killed instantly, before either she or Doc could react or b) she is too stupid to drop the bag and run at the first indication of attack?

Either way, Doc is off the hook. He's not responsible for safeguarding a nitwit or a corpse.

She wasn't killed instantly or Doc wouldn't have bothered to lie. However, the assumption that there is no gray area between instantly running or immediately dying is unjustified. If the first indication is an aircraft on the horizon? If the first indication is a mechanical thumping on the street over? And, if they constantly abandon their supplies, they'll still die.

There are ethical views that say the strong do have a moral obligation help the weak. If the doctor had abandoned a retarded man or a child, the nitwit standard would still say he's off the hook. The bottom line mentality propagated in business culture may say that no one has a right to live unless they earn it and the stupid have only themselves to blame. That kind of thinking is hard to distinguish from sociopathy.

Then again, I don't care what their reason is for using children as slaves and collecting worthless trash when they have interstellar travel. It's going to be stupid.

If you can't accept the premises, you can't. However, post-apocalypse for real people would include a lot of family angst, because real people don't forget their families and concentrate on their military careers or their girl friends or whatnot. A lot of the objections to stupid writing turn out to be misunderstandings. For instance, at this point there's no reason to think the aliens used nuclear weapons instead of KE weapons (that is, dropped rocks.) But people would still say "nuked." Or, a fire may be an accident or harmless cookery, but a flare is a signal, and it is rational to respond to them differently.

The logistics necessary to sustain morale and fighting effectiveness in an invading force trying to establish a collaborationist government are necessarily going to be much larger than those for the natives trying to survive. The show has tried to address the food logistics, as in Chef Pope's foodstocks list. But in truth, the ammunition logistics seem to me to be even worse.

The general notion that our glorious badass soldiers would naturally mount an effective resistance is not necessarily an assumption shared by the writers of this show. Nor would it necessarily be justified by facts. At this point, the military is getting its ass kicked, repeatedly, and the show seems to be open to the idea that it will the whole people in arms that will launch the assault on the thing looming over Boston.

 

[arch101]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

I'm an Iraq veteran, earned my CAB in Diyala a few years ago.

THANK YOU for your service. Much appreciated!

 

[arch101]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

There are enough pigeons in the Greater Boston area to feed humanity for a century.

HHAHAAA! Ain't that the truth. Geese, too. Actually, if some of the survivors can pen up some fish, they could do quite well. Lots of fish here. Of course, they'd have to learn how to smoke it so it wouldn't spoil and establish some kind of rudimentary distribution network.This would solve some of the food problem, not all.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

She wasn't killed instantly or Doc wouldn't have bothered to lie.

Doc lied because the writers weren't thinking the scenario through enough to realize they hadn't set up the scenario properly.

However, the assumption that there is no gray area between instantly running or immediately dying is unjustified.

Okay, fine. Doc sees an airplane on the horizon. He's a big panicky wuss, so he runs. What does wifey do, stand there like an idiot in the middle of the street holding a bag she can't carry? Her only option is to run for cover, too. It should take about half a second to realize that. Supplies can wait, the important thing is to survive.

And in that scenario, maybe Doc isn't a big panicky wuss. Maybe he's the sensible one, and the wife was endangering him by having an insufficient survival instinct. Because hey, the person who didn't run ended up dying, didn't they? Doc was right: survival first, supplies second. Doesn't work so well the other way around.

There are ethical views that say the strong do have a moral obligation help the weak.

How is Doc stronger than the wife? They're both adults, and both soft suburbanites who are unsuited to knowing how to handle the situation they're in. Neither is obligated to risk their own neck to help the other. It's survival of the fittest, and Doc is the one who proved his fitness to survive. If the wife is less adapted to survive in that situation because she hesitates in a dangerous situation, she's an albatross. Those who want to survive need to cut loose of people like that.

Or, maybe it was just random. Doc happened to see the airplane and reacted the most quickly. Wifey didn't notice till it was too late. That's just the luck of the draw. Doc could have easily been the one who died instead. What does he have to feel guilty about? Shit happens.

 

[stj]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

How is Doc stronger than the wife? They're both adults, and both soft suburbanites who are unsuited to knowing how to handle the situation they're in. Neither is obligated to risk their own neck to help the other. It's survival of the fittest, and Doc is the one who proved his fitness to survive. If the wife is less adapted to survive in that situation because she hesitates in a dangerous situation, she's an albatross. Those who want to survive need to cut loose of people like that.

Doc's fitness to survive has yet to be proven. But, if we're going to play around with Social Darwinism, it's reproductive fitness that counts. It's Tom whose vastly more likely to have surviving offspring. Doc survives now because he is useful to other people, and they help him. Business may imagine society is a cut-throat market place but that's self-justifying BS.

The scene was not badly written because the writers did not assume Doc was justified by this pinheaded ideology. Most people who supposedly love "shades of grey" are in fact looking for a normal human being (that is, chump who buys into sentimental ideas about right and wrong) confronting a straight up, black and white vindication of the kind of mean-spirited ideas expressed above, and angsting over it. The scene was well-written "shades of grey" precisely because it didn't assume wifey was justly punished for stupidity, i.e., Doc was right, yet nor did it paint a cardboard hero who righteously executes punishment, vindicating the normal conventions of morality. (At least, the ones that used to be norms in drama.)

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

Nice ratings bump from DVR viewings (Live+3 does count for something - better to get a boost than not).

Falling Skies increased its adults 18-49 rating 43% and its 18-34 by 50% vs. the Live+SD numbers.
...
The second installment of TNT’s epic drama Falling Skies scored excellent growth in early time-shifted viewing, lifting its audience from 4.2 million viewers in Live + Same Day to a current tally of 5.7 million viewers in Live + 3.

Looks like the numbers are solid for now.

 

[Frontier]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

Wow, I'm surprised by the level of hate and bitching. I find the show quite enjoyable.

 

[Checkmate]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

It's not people's fault that the show is stupid.

I, personally, can't get over the insanity of skipping around all happy-happy during the day under wide open skies with a massive amount of people (including the use of excessively loud motorcycles and other vehicles). Why not? Because quite suddenly, as the sun drops below the horizon, OMG, only small groups of people can mobilize, and they have to do it like ninjas cause the bad guys might hear them tip-toeing around. Nevermind that the civilians are still mozing around as they please under that still wide-open sky despite the advanced aircraft and scout ships the aliens are shown to have. And god forbid they have to use their weapon; a single shot brings the aliens out of the woodwork en masse. But, apparently, those aforementioned loud ass motorcycles don't. And as long as you go out as a "scout" with one, you're fine and dandy. Be as noisy as you want, and toss your head up over a trench over and over again. No one'll see you.

Then there's the whole rip-off thing. The alleged lead of the show just happens to be a virtual clone of Matthew Fox and there's a mean ol' criminal type who's going to (and in a painfully obviously way) develop a heart of gold. Gosh golly gee willikers, I just can't figure out where I've seen that before recently.

But hey, if you can get past that, yay for you. I, personally, can't and hope the show dies a quick and painful death so something else more interesting can come along in its stead.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

I was more thinking that if Luke Skywalker died in the beginning of the movie, that the day had to be saved by Obi-Wan and Han Solo. Not that Noah is old enough to play Alec Guiness, but then he's no Professor Jones either despite similar academic qualifications.

Noah is too young to play a history professor that knows better than soldiers without seeming like a punk.

Yes, I've seen lost too.

 

[Star Wolf]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

Professor knows better then soldiers, what soldiers? My main problem is that the enemy as show is not tough enough to have killed all the soldiers as stated. Perhaps they are still in hiding awaiting the second season when a timely arrival saves the 2nd just like on Stargate Atlantis. I do laugh at the ragtag guns of the resistance which would be hundreds of times harder to find then a regular M16. I mean and RPG-7 will show up in a Boston suburb

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

Wow, I'm surprised by the level of hate and bitching. I find the show quite enjoyable.

If there were 4 or 5 other shows to choose from about aliens (invading Earth or, better yet, in outer space) where the aliens weren't funny-forehead humans but rather, really exotic looking critters reminiscent of movie-quality effects, then I'd be more inclined to bitch about the show's flaws.

But given the lack of alternatives on TV, I'm finding myself being extremely lenient.

The alleged lead of the show just happens to be a virtual clone of Matthew Fox

You mean a clone of Jack Shephard? He's really not much like Jack, who was a guilt-ridden doctor with daddy issues and no kids, who wasn't even capable of happiness when his problems were "solved" (he got off the island), whereas Tom is a nerdy history professor who was apparently well adjusted and happy until the aliens frakked up his contented life, who has adapted amazingly well to his unsuited role as a military man, and whose central concern in life is protecting his kids.

All they have in common is that they're not Vin Diesel leading man types. But that would have been so boring and obvious in both cases, I can see why that option wasn't chosen.

I, personally, can't and hope the show dies a quick and painful death so something else more interesting can come along in its stead.

It's about a thousand times more likely that it would be replaced by a nitwitted reality show or a cheap Canadian import about heroic cops or doctors (or maybe paramedics if they're feeling especially creative!) That cool, kick-ass space opera I want with crazy-looking CGI aliens bouncing off the spaceship walls isn't likely to materialize instead, so I'm rooting for this show to survive.

 

[JD]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

It amazes me how much people analyze every second of this kind of thing. I don't know how you guys could ever actually enjoy anything.
When I watch this kind of stuff, I pretty much just watch it, and if I enjoy the story I keep watching it. I find the story in this interesting and entertaining, so I'm going to keep watching. Sure, it's not THE GREATEST THING EVER, but very very few things are.

 

[Checkmate]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

The alleged lead of the show just happens to be a virtual clone of Matthew Fox

You mean a clone of Jack Shephard?

No, I meant exactly what I said.

Not that your opinion either way really matters to me. When you're primary argument is "well, it's the only show on so I'm going to ignore how awful it is," not to mention your constant need to shit on shows you've never even watched, well... there's not much more to say about that.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Re: Falling Skies 1.2 "Prisoner of War" discussion/comments **SPOILERS

This isn't the type of show where you analyze the realism level down to the type of firearms available and the level of fallout in the Greater Boston area. It's the contemporary equivalent of an Irwin Allen production. It's fun and dramatic-- or, as Squiggy would say, it's dramistic.