| Author |
Message |
Ritfie
Member
05-09-2006
| Sunday, July 03, 2011 - 12:28 pm 
What man would leave a woman behind to certain death? He'll probably sacrifice his life for another's in a future episode.
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Lycanthrope
Member
09-19-2002
| Sunday, July 03, 2011 - 3:19 pm
I liked it from the beginning. I'll be watching no matter what happens. I really hope Karen is okay and they are able to rescue her.
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Kitt
Member
09-06-2000
| Sunday, July 03, 2011 - 11:14 pm
Very interesting storyline around being able to communicate with the skitters. It's not looking good for the chances of getting the kids' harnesses off though.
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Sanfranjoshfan
Member
09-17-2000
| Monday, July 04, 2011 - 1:24 am
Did anyone else notice the extras in the final scene when they were all (supposedly) eating?
When that one table was holding hands and praying, none of the other people at the other tables were praying (except the pony tailed leader) but they were all sitting at their tables apparently pretending to eat! It just struck me as funny....they were digging their forks and spoons into the food on their plates over and over and over, but none of them were actually putting any food in their mouths!
I don't think they were just trying to be respectful of the praying table because of how they were wielding their eating utensils.
Dang, that prop food must have been AWFUL!
I noticed this one woman that was more obvious in her pretend-eating than the rest:
I don't know why I notice such weird, trivial things on TV and movies and then forget major plot points....it must be some kind of psychiatric disorder! 
Aside from that silliness, I thought this was a really good episode. I liked the way they figured out the skitters communicate with some kind of biological radio waves. I enjoyed this series from the get-go and it's just getting better and better....lately, the only summer shows I actually look forward to are True Blood, Falling Skies, and Suits, in that order.
PS - A couple of extras actually brought a cup or glass to their mouths but none of them seemed to actually drink anything...
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Whoami
Member
08-02-2001
| Monday, July 04, 2011 - 3:02 am
I didn't notice that this time SFJ. But I notice stuff like that all the time too. People who bring a fork to thier mouth but don't actually eat. And a big peeve of mine are those who pretend to drink. Those pretending to drink from a coffee cup with lid for instance. You can tell by the way they handle the cup there isn't a drop of liquid in it!
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Kitt
Member
09-06-2000
| Monday, July 04, 2011 - 10:33 am
Yes, empty cup drinkers! I wonder if they started out with full cups, or taking bites of food, and then there were so many takes they gave up. The bread looked tasty to me.
I had to look up how old the religious girl was - she looks 14 in some ways but has an adult face. In real life she's 20, so that explains that!
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Konamouse
Member
07-15-2001
| Monday, July 04, 2011 - 1:26 pm
As a former "extra" on many TV shows/movies I also pay attention to what is happening in the background.
Sometimes you get 'food' at the table but it's awful. And production doesn't want to have to refill plates/cups/bowls between takes when there are a LOT of extras. So you "mime" eating (and pretend to be talking).
When you are at a featured table (or as a featured extra) then you have to eat the food in the same manner EVERY take. When I was a silent wife to a Russian mobster's son I had to eat Borscht for a dinner scene (and bites of bread). I took really little bites and dainty spoonfuls of the purple soup. But I wanted to show off the ROCK of a ring they put on my left hand LOL!!!
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Kitt
Member
09-06-2000
| Tuesday, July 05, 2011 - 11:41 am
I bet that's a fun thing to do!
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Ophiliasgrandma
Member
09-04-2001
| Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - 3:44 pm
Glad I can DVR this thing. I've never seen such a show for skulking around in the dark using up time in lieu of forwarding the plot along.
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Sanfranjoshfan
Member
09-17-2000
| Wednesday, July 13, 2011 - 12:27 am
The skitter sleeping with and caressing the heads of the harnessed children was pretty surprising! That creature acted as if she was the children's skitter-mommy!
Maybe the harnessed kids are one step in some weird reproductive cycle. The loving way the skitter embraced the sleeping kids was just too surprising to overlook so it must mean something that has yet to be revealed. Maybe the skitters are slaves to the mechs, too.
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Kitt
Member
09-06-2000
| Wednesday, July 13, 2011 - 11:57 am
Yeah. I wondered if the skitter was nurturing the harness creature (which had become one with the child) or the child itself. The sound the big aliens make is more mechanical, so perhaps these skitters are actually "good" creatures that are just used as slave labour to do the big mean aliens' bidding.
Also I wasn't sure if my memory was right, but was the speed with which the kids started dying once taken away from the skitter unusual? I thought the first kid was in no stress at all until they started to remove the spikes.
I wondered if either the presence of the caged skitter made the first boy last longer, or whether the aliens have realised they were trying to free the boys and had adapted somehow, making them die sooner without skitter influence.
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Lycanthrope
Member
09-19-2002
| Saturday, July 16, 2011 - 7:17 pm
The nurturing Skitter made me take a step back. Is it/she showing love to the human children or the the "harnesses"? That one scene a few epi's ago where the Skitter made Hal watch the other kids be executed is called into question now. I really don't know what to think.
Margaret's revelation of being a cancer survivor was surprising. Just adds another layer.
That girl/woman that says she was a med-student looks like she's about 14 years old. I guess in my old age I just can't judge ages the way I used to.
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Kitt
Member
09-06-2000
| Sunday, July 17, 2011 - 1:07 am
Age 14 was my guess too. The week before they showed her talking to main-guy's youngest son, and I thought they were meant to be around the same age (because boys look so much younger than girls at that age). I was shocked the next episode when she said she'd been to med school.
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Lycanthrope
Member
09-19-2002
| Sunday, July 17, 2011 - 8:44 am
Yeah, and I checked at IMDB and she was born in 1991, so she's 20 now, probably 19 when this was filmed. I really AM getting old.
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Ophiliasgrandma
Member
09-04-2001
| Sunday, July 17, 2011 - 11:34 am
Don't forget Doogie Howser.
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Kitt
Member
09-06-2000
| Sunday, July 17, 2011 - 8:54 pm
Saw that coming! "Let me take your kids, the things the aliens want the most, we wouldn't do anything mean to them, promise."
How come Ben is Irish when none of the rest of his family are? ;)
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Sanfranjoshfan
Member
09-17-2000
| Monday, July 18, 2011 - 6:01 pm
"Saw that coming!"
I totally saw that coming, too.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Monday, July 18, 2011 - 7:27 pm
Me too! Just too obvious..
The nurturing Skitter last ep was quite interesting and then the middle son mentioned something that went along with that this time.
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Kitt
Member
09-06-2000
| Sunday, July 24, 2011 - 9:43 pm
I liked Mike(name?)  .
Funny how his son and Ben seem so different. I don't know if it's meant to be because the son was so ill before and therefore more vulnerable to suggestion by the skitters??
And only two episodes left... how did that happen!?
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Kitkat
Member
08-23-2008
| Monday, July 25, 2011 - 12:00 pm
I liked Mike also, Kitt.
Maybe the skitters did something different to Mike's son. He always seems to have a far away look in his eyes, like he is seeing or hearing something that no one else can.
I didn't catch that there are only two episodes left. They are sure going to have to answer a lot of questions in a hurry.
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Kitt
Member
09-06-2000
| Monday, July 25, 2011 - 12:46 pm
Yes, just 10 episodes total (one next week then a two episode back-to-back finale). And then season two is just 10 episodes too, plus we have to wait until next summer for it.
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Sanfranjoshfan
Member
09-17-2000
| Monday, July 25, 2011 - 4:39 pm
"Funny how his son and Ben seem so different."
I got the impression that Rick was harnessed a lot longer than Ben....we do know that the longer a kid was harnessed the harder it is on them when the harness is removed.....and I think removing the harness from Rick was harder on Rick than it was on Ben. Also Rick may have been a year or two younger than Ben, which might also make a difference. I always had the impression that Ben was captured a couple of months or so after the initial invasion (6 months previously) but Rick was captured right away....so it could be that Rick was harnessed a few months longer than Ben.
Very interesting exchange at the end...Rick (the recently unharnessed kid, son of Mike) said "We would never kill one of our own", so he seems to view himself as being more skitter than human.
I believe that the skitters would also see Rick as one of their own....which implies that a skitter would never kill a harnessed child.....because the harnessed kids are all considered to be part of the "skitter family" for want of a better word.
If that premise is true, then when the mechs killed that group of kids in front of Noah Wiley's oldest son, the mechs were acting independently of the skitters. If a skitter would never kill "one of their own" (a harnessed kid) then it falls into my on again/off again theory that the skitters, just like the harnessed kids, are also slaves serving the mechs!
Another clue that fits this theory came up several episodes ago when they found the kids working under the watchful eyes of the mechs and skitters in that red brick building. I noticed that the job they were doing was collecting scrap metal. Maybe the kids were working under the direction of the mechs and not the skitters and they were gathering scrap metal in order to build/repair the mechs.
So I'm thinking that the mechs are probably the leaders and the skitters are just used as "nannys" to nurture the children until they're able to fulfill the needs of the mechs.
My theory sort of dwindles at that point unless the children are being used as the brains or maybe even a power source for the mechs or something really alien and bizarre like that.
Good show! I hate that there are only 2 episodes left!
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Kitt
Member
09-06-2000
| Monday, July 25, 2011 - 5:07 pm
Yeah, I think the skitters are like slaves too. I see a whole messed up and switched around DS9 situation, similar to the Founders with their Vorta and Jem'Hadar. The skitters are a cross between the Vorta and the Jem'Hadar, being indentured servants and guard dogs for the mechs, and then the harnesses are a bit like the contraptions that administer ketrecel white, they drug the children into being soldiers and needing to please their skitter owners. And the skitters seem to have a similar ralationship with the children as the Founders did with the Vorta, they seemed to care but if one misbehaved they know they would have to be punished.
Also I wonder what happens when the children age out - are they freed or eaten or ...? And why they only want children not older kids (presumably because their brains are still adaptable?).
And... is there an organic being inside the mech? I.e. is it a race of mechanical beings or is it a race of organic beings wearing mechanical suits for protection? I kind of think there has to be something organic in there.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Monday, July 25, 2011 - 5:14 pm
That theory also makes sense of what that girl said last night of the skitters "they have their quotas too". She was trying to excuse them for capturing the kids....
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Sanfranjoshfan
Member
09-17-2000
| Monday, July 25, 2011 - 7:11 pm
"And... is there an organic being inside the mech?"
Yeah...I'm still stuck on the scene where the teacher said one student asked why the mechs only had 2 legs instead of a whole bunch like the skitters do....because humans make robots that are bipedal like humans are. That does imply that the skitters did not design the mechs....and bipedal kids might more easily learn how to control them and make them run easily while remaining balanced since the kids are bipedal themselves.
I thought there might converted children in those suits...but then I remembered when they killed a mech and it fell next to them in an early episode, I figured there would have been some evidence of human remains visible in the mech wreckage if a kid had been inside it.
Of course, the harnessed kids could be controlling them from afar like military personnel who control airplane drones in Afghanistan. For the harnessed kids, it might be like playing a video game from another location and we all know how easily kids can pick up video gaming!
I love shows that aren't predictable...and Falling Skies meets that criteria.
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