Falling Skies Season One Recap & Comparison w/ V

Since the reboot of V does not seem to be coming back, it's a good thing that we have Falling Skies to watch now. It shares many similarities to both the original V and the reboot. Falling Skies also seems like yet another retelling, in modified form, of the American Revolution. For one thing, the series and the Resistance starts in Boston - the first reference to the Backbay neighborhood and the second to South Boston. 

The Resistance
The initial invasion of Falling Skies is dramatically overt, and more similar to what happens in Independence Day than in V  - Motherships arrive and launch attacks, then leave garrisons as they go somewhere else. Interestingly, the alien garrisons left behind are protected by large, odd-shaped structures. The initial attack is devastating and destroys all major cities and military forces. This attack uses a bright light, EMP-type weapon which bears some similarity to the "Blue Light" in V 2010.

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Resistance Leaders

Like in the mulitple V miniseries and series, the Resistance is largely lead by “moms and dads” – regular people in extraordinary circumstances. In V, the military is co-opted by the governmental collaborators who are their masters. In Falling Skies, the  military is essentially annihilated (as mentioned before).

 

One of primary adult characters and leaders is a female doctor, Anne, like Juliet in the original V. Another leading protagonist adult character is a history/military history professor named Tom Mason, as opposed to a journalist. Tom's PhD in the American Revolution lends more credence to the idea that the entire series is one entire retelling of the Revolution (similar to Star Wars). This is something we as Americans like to do in our storytelling.
 

In the original V, The Resistance teams up w/ mercenaries and counter-revolutionaries (whom would be called terrorists now) to help fight the invading aliens. In Falling Skies, the resistance teams up with a band of well-armed criminals. This merger of forces is bumpy and not at all smooth, but in the end it succeeds, partly because "Being the leader of a band of post-apocalyptic outlaws has been exhausting," according to Pope, the outlaw leader.

 

In Falling Skies/Original V, it is the outlaw criminals and mercenaries, respectively, who are the ones that develop alien armor piercing bullets. In the case of V, it was the lizard skin that the new ammunition penetrated. In Falling Skies it was the “Mech” armor that the new ammo could penetrate (made from destroyed Mechs, and inspired by a comment from one of Tom Mason's children). 

 

Alien Hierarchies & Evolution

The Aliens in Falling Skies seem to operate in a strict, racial/mechanical hierarchy, as opposed to the Visitors in V, who operate according to a military hierarchy. In Falling Skies, Skitters and Mechanical warriors (Mechs) comprise the lower caste helping the Grey alien-inspired "Overlords." One of the principal jobs of the skitters is to catch kids and attach biological harnesses to them. These harnesses turn kids into compliant servants of Skitters, and then eventually into Skitters
Ben, the son of primary adult character/leader is abducted (like in V) and harnessed to ensure his loyalty – in V, Donovan’s son is abducted and put into cold storage until putting him a conversion process to ensure his loyalty to the Visitors.

 

Episode 5 reveals a symbiotic relationship between alien Skitters and harnessed children – Aliens care for them, and according to one formerly harnessed child, “It’s like they care about us – part of a family – they know what we need before we do”  

Human Collaborators
The human collaborators in Falling Skies are much more nefarious than in V. In V, the collaborators are essentially upper crust society members seeking higher status by working with what appear to be alien "friends."After all, the aliens in V have a much more insidious, and less overtly violent agenda. They merely want to feed on "excess" humans. The collaborators in Falling Skies know that the skitters do horrible things to children, including turning them into harnessed slaves. However, they still try to deal children for peace to the skitters. The beginning of the collaboration to send children to aliens is revealed in Episode 5, which seems to be pivotal in revealing the connections between harnessed children and skitters.

V: 1983 & 2009, Part Seven : Why are They Here?

V 1983-1984 & V 2010-2011:
Part Six, Part Five, Part Four, Part Three, Part Two,Part One

Why the Aliens Are Here
Obviously the Reptilian meme among alien abduction/Area 51 conspiracies plays a strong part in both series. In both series the aliens hidden agenda is disguised by medical gifts to help humanity. However, their hidden agenda for coming to earth, and their time lines, are vastly different.

Time Lines, Purpose & "Red Sky"
While the original V series implies that that the Visitors are relatively recent arrivals to our solar system, this is not the case with the remake. The new series takes a page from conspiracy culture and states that the the Visitors have been here for generations, and are harvesting human DNA for reproductive purposes, instead of for for food. According to the most recent episode "Birth Pangs," the Visitors are harvesting the best DNA from around the universe to accelerate their evolution.

To that end they have been trying to carefully increase the phosphorous levels in human females to help reproduce Visitors, as well as in males they find genetically superior. This has been a multi-generational project. However, in contravention to conspiracy culture, the genetic manipulation wasn't done during abductions, but rather through disguised Reptilians on earth. Additionally, the Visitors release "Red Sky" to rapidly enhance the phosphorous levels, which fuels fears among the human population; in the original series the red dust in the atmosphere was a biological weapon against the Visitors and humans cheered when it was released into the air despite not knowing what it was for.

V 1983 & 2009, Part Six: The Changing Role of Reporters & Mercenaries

Part Seven: V 1983-1984 & V 2010-2011.
Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Post-Modernism in V.

It' been interesting to watch the old V series on my TiVo and compare and contrast with the new ABC series.

The Role of Reporters
1983: Donovan/Woman - There were two different media personalities during the two original V miniseries, embodying America's complex view of the media at the time. On the one hand you had the ambitious female reporter, Christine, who would do anything for a scoop. She becomes a PR mouthpiece / Press Secretary for Diana, but later reveals that the Visitors are not friendly and should be resisted and is killed for doing so. She does not join the resistance despite exposing the Visitors.

Donovan on the other hand represents the intrepid foreign correspondent, willing to go anywhere to get the story but who became a journalist out of strong pro-liberty passions. He is the kind of patriotic reporter America wishes we still produced. Donovan, an experienced foreign correspondent in war zones, becomes a natural leader of the resistance. Unfortunately, he doesn't put his PR skills to good use advancing the cause, as would be expected today.

2009: Chad Decker's character development is roughly similar to that of Christine, but as he gradually becomes skeptical of the Visitors he becomes a full fledged member of the Resistance. In the 1983 episode, the Fifth column was chiefly disaffected Visitors show disapproved of their species' agenda.

The Role of Mercenaries & Terrorists
1983: Ham Tyler - While Michael Ironsides may have fit the Hollywood ideal of a freedom fighter back in the days of the Contras, his character feels dated. He appears after several events in LA draw lots of attention and announces that the LA resistance fighters led by Donovan and Julie, need to join the worldwide resistance of which Tyler is a crucial leader.

2009: Kyle Hobbes - the current cultural zeitgeist is much less kind to fictional mercenaries and this character is much darker than his 1983 counterpart, Ham Tyler. However, mercenaries are a more accepted fact of American life now than then. The rise of private security firms such as Xe (formerly Blackwater)has allowed the U.S. military to increase the number of combat forces it has without putting it directly on their budget.

However, the primary mercenary contact Kyle Hobbes, while a member of the inner circle, is displaced by an Israeli Terrorist named Eli Cohen as the main resistance military leader and has set up cells around the world. What he and Ham Tyler have in common is that they are both parts of the larger resistance movement that exists outside of the isolated groups banding together which we first encounter.