Yes its worth it. I know reviews that say "it improves as it goes" are usually false, or just that *you* get used to it...but really, the quality, tone, and direction of the show gets drastically better after the pilot and first few episodes.
It gets progressively good every few episodes. I assure you that most of the annoying characters in the first episodes are actually not regular cast members.
***A big problem is that you essentially meet the "5 man band" out of sequence; the cast and particularly the Mason family works better as group-interaction. That is, Hal was kind of annoying in the early episodes and got too much emphasis, because other characters weren't there yet. Not only does Hal work better as "the tough guy" in a group dynamic than carrying a whole episode, his writing and acting honestly got better as well.
Particularly, Mason's middle son Ben is actually very well acted and written, and he's interesting due to the harness plot. The problem is that you only actually have Ben talking and interacting with the rest of the cast in episode 6. But once Ben is on board, the Mason family starts showing group dynamics between the four of them, and you realize Ben was that missing element. They play off each other.
So if you don't think the cast has "gelled" yet, they're really only all put together by episode 6. So I'd say, really hang around to watch through episode 6 or so (though episode 6 is part 1 of a 2 parter).
The cool moment for me was episode 3, when they actually:
spoilers
They try to rescue a harnessed kid to try out a new procedure to remove it without killing him. They figured out that the harness pumps in some kind of mind control drug, and the children died when they removed it because they went into shock; so all you have to do is put them on a morphine IV to transition off of the alien drug without killing them. Anyway they do manage to capture one harnessed kid, though Hal is caught by the Skitters. Angered that they saved one kid, the Skitters *line up a row of harnessed kids and have a Mech gun them all down* while forcing Hal to watch, then let Hal go. Tom explains that this is actually a real-life tactic the Nazis used: if an Allied POW was rescued, they'd execute everyone in his prisoner-group, leaving one survivor to spread the warning that they won't tolerate further attempts to free prisoners. I was pleasantly surprised that the show would actually be this dark: it was light-years away from two episodes before when they have the happy "birthday skateboard" scene; I think they just threw that in to hook the squeamish people watching the pilot episode, later episodes aren't like that.
By episodes 6-7 it was pretty good. Episode 8 was truly outstanding.
YES, its worth the investment. Io9.com kept saying "they showed us the whole season on screener copies, trust us it gets better as the writers and cast find their footing"....and they really did.
Further, as some have pointed out already, the writing was "predictable" but not really in a bad way. In more of a "if you've watched Independence Day, UFO, Tripods, etc. you'll probably know what you're in for". The good thing was they don't reveal the aliens' side of things so we find things out more or less at the rate of the characters.
***But as some reviews have pointed out and I heartily agree with, there's a contrast between "predictable" and "insane, Lost/Heroes/BSG plot mysteries that pile up without explanation, or with random plot twists which truly did not grow out of previous episodes". I mean its the difference between "boring and predictable", and "they bothered to set up the plot twists in advance, to the extent that you could have figured it out if you thought about it, but it never felt forced or labored" (after all its only ten episodes).
I mean right at the beginning of episode 2, for example (so I don't think this is a big spoiler), the science teacher uncle points out to Mason, "hey, why do the Mechs have 2 legs while the Skitters have 6? Why wouldn't they make robots in their own image?" -- so they actually *point out* plot mysteries which they answer about 4-5 episodes later, which really isn't *that* long (it wouldn't have been a sustainable "mystery" for 20 episodes, but for 5-6, it felt more like "we bothered to set this up in advance").
It gets progressively good every few episodes. I assure you that most of the annoying characters in the first episodes are actually not regular cast members.
***A big problem is that you essentially meet the "5 man band" out of sequence; the cast and particularly the Mason family works better as group-interaction. That is, Hal was kind of annoying in the early episodes and got too much emphasis, because other characters weren't there yet. Not only does Hal work better as "the tough guy" in a group dynamic than carrying a whole episode, his writing and acting honestly got better as well.
Particularly, Mason's middle son Ben is actually very well acted and written, and he's interesting due to the harness plot. The problem is that you only actually have Ben talking and interacting with the rest of the cast in episode 6. But once Ben is on board, the Mason family starts showing group dynamics between the four of them, and you realize Ben was that missing element. They play off each other.
So if you don't think the cast has "gelled" yet, they're really only all put together by episode 6. So I'd say, really hang around to watch through episode 6 or so (though episode 6 is part 1 of a 2 parter).
The cool moment for me was episode 3, when they actually:
spoilers
They try to rescue a harnessed kid to try out a new procedure to remove it without killing him. They figured out that the harness pumps in some kind of mind control drug, and the children died when they removed it because they went into shock; so all you have to do is put them on a morphine IV to transition off of the alien drug without killing them. Anyway they do manage to capture one harnessed kid, though Hal is caught by the Skitters. Angered that they saved one kid, the Skitters *line up a row of harnessed kids and have a Mech gun them all down* while forcing Hal to watch, then let Hal go. Tom explains that this is actually a real-life tactic the Nazis used: if an Allied POW was rescued, they'd execute everyone in his prisoner-group, leaving one survivor to spread the warning that they won't tolerate further attempts to free prisoners. I was pleasantly surprised that the show would actually be this dark: it was light-years away from two episodes before when they have the happy "birthday skateboard" scene; I think they just threw that in to hook the squeamish people watching the pilot episode, later episodes aren't like that.
By episodes 6-7 it was pretty good. Episode 8 was truly outstanding.
YES, its worth the investment. Io9.com kept saying "they showed us the whole season on screener copies, trust us it gets better as the writers and cast find their footing"....and they really did.
Further, as some have pointed out already, the writing was "predictable" but not really in a bad way. In more of a "if you've watched Independence Day, UFO, Tripods, etc. you'll probably know what you're in for". The good thing was they don't reveal the aliens' side of things so we find things out more or less at the rate of the characters.
***But as some reviews have pointed out and I heartily agree with, there's a contrast between "predictable" and "insane, Lost/Heroes/BSG plot mysteries that pile up without explanation, or with random plot twists which truly did not grow out of previous episodes". I mean its the difference between "boring and predictable", and "they bothered to set up the plot twists in advance, to the extent that you could have figured it out if you thought about it, but it never felt forced or labored" (after all its only ten episodes).
I mean right at the beginning of episode 2, for example (so I don't think this is a big spoiler), the science teacher uncle points out to Mason, "hey, why do the Mechs have 2 legs while the Skitters have 6? Why wouldn't they make robots in their own image?" -- so they actually *point out* plot mysteries which they answer about 4-5 episodes later, which really isn't *that* long (it wouldn't have been a sustainable "mystery" for 20 episodes, but for 5-6, it felt more like "we bothered to set this up in advance").
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That sounds incredibly lame considering the aliens appear to have developed advanced robots, and seeing as they also have space travel, they could just mine metal-rich asteroids.
