“Falling
Skies,” the much talked about alien invasion TV series (probably
because Steven Spielberg’s name is in the production team), premieres on
TNT next week, on Sunday, June 19. This happens just as ABC’s “V” — the
only remaining alien invasion series on a major network — has been
cancelled, so we thought this would be a good time to take a closer look
at those specific genre shows. After a quick peek at their evolution
over the years, we will try and define “Falling Skies” place into the
fray in a vain attempt to estimate its chances of success.
Contrary
to what one might think, alien invasion TV series are not quite as
common, or quite as old, as other sci-fi TV shows; but, similar to their
older and more popular counterparts, they originally grew out of movies
and novels. In 1898, one novel in particular not only introduced the
concept, but also laid out the early blueprint of such stories: H.G.
Wells’s The War of the Worlds. The novel tells the story of a
Martian invasion in England, during which a man tries to reunite with
his wife. Movies were, as usual, the first to jump on the bandwagon, and
it wasn’t until 1967 — sixteen years after the first movies — that we
had with ABC’s The Invaders, the first alien invasion TV series
produced in the US. The series ran for two seasons, but there was no
other production in this sci-fi subcategory until the late 1980s. In
1988, the new series War of the Worlds extended the story of
Wells’s book (first adapted in a 1953 movie) by using the now cliché
the-aliens-didn’t-quite-die trick, but wasn’t able to go beyond one
season. During the following two decades, other U.S. productions all
suffered similar fates, all suffering in ratings.
