Falling Skies
TNT | Release Date: June 19, 2011
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 43 Critic Reviews
Positive:
30
Mixed:
12
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The Hollywood ReporterTim GoodmanJun 13, 2011
Season 1 Review: The entertainment value and suspense of Falling Skies is paced just right. You get the sense that we'll get those answers eventually. And yet, you want to devour the next episode immediately. Read full review
88
Slant MagazinePhillip MaciakJun 20, 2011
Season 1 Review: The show, on the model of other epic sci-fi programs like Battlestar Galactica and The X-Files, still has the potential to break ground. But for now, it's telling a gripping, well-made story; it might not be ready to be appreciated as art, but it's impossible not to love it as entertainment. Read full review
88
New York PostLinda StasiJun 17, 2011
Season 1 Review: If "Walking Dead" weren't alive, up and taking a vacation to generate new blood, Steven Spielberg's Falling Skies would be the best current sci-fi series on TV. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesThomas ConnerJun 15, 2011
Season 1 Review: It's "Jericho" meets "V," with the good from both and the bad discarded. It'll raise the summer-TV bar significantly. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyKen TuckerJun 15, 2011
Season 1 Review: Pope, and Cunningham's sardonic performance, provide Skies with some much-needed flashes of sharp humor. Ultimately, though, Falling Skies rises above any one performance; it's the spectacle of humans versus aliens that draws you in. Read full review
80
Philadelphia InquirerJonathan StormJun 20, 2011
Season 1 Review: Falling Skies generates its own excitement, very much worth the ride, like Lost and Jericho, to watch characters develop as they struggle under confusing and life-threatening circumstances. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesMary McNamaraJun 17, 2011
Season 1 Review: Serious without being grim, uplifting without being saccharine, Falling Skies dares to image what feature films will not--a world in which Will Smith or Aaron Eckhart did not bring down the mother ship in time. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsDavid HinckleyJun 17, 2011
Season 1 Review: It all adds up to plenty of action and suspense, with heroes we like and villains we can boo and hiss. And the fate of the planet at stake. Who says there ain't no cure for the summertime TV blues? Read full review
80
TV Guide MagazineMatt RoushJun 17, 2011
Season 1 Review: When resting between thrilling action scenes, it's all very earnest, never campy or cheesy--but not particularly sophisticated or deep, either. It doesn't really have to be as long as it's entertaining. By those standards, Falling Skies succeeds. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalNancy DeWolf SmithJun 16, 2011
Season 1 Review: Hey, it works. Probably because Falling Skies tells a gripping story, full of people whose fate we cannot guess on a playing field whose contours are not yet clear. Read full review
80
Boston GlobeMatthew GilbertJun 16, 2011
Season 1 Review: Too often, TV's sci-fi creators fail to give us characters to identify with, focusing instead on special effects and plot manipulations. But the father-son-bond material in Falling Skies brings humanity to the story and grounds it in emotion rather than spectacle. Read full review
75
San Jose Mercury News/Contra Costa TimesChuck BarneyJun 14, 2012
Season 2 Review: Sunday's explosive two-hour opener boldly delivers on the promise by TNT producers to rev up both the pace and the firepower in Season 2. Read full review
75
NewsdayVerne GayJun 14, 2012
Season 2 Review: Skies fans should be pleased. Read full review
75
RedEyeCurt WagnerAug 1, 2011
Season 1 Review: Falling Skies, although competently directed, acted and sometimes written, goes off on more than a few tangents and paint-by-numbers subplots of the genre. It's best when it sticks to the main thread, and that's the battle for survival and to learn what the six-legged freaks are doing with the children. Read full review
75
HitfixAlan SepinwallJun 17, 2011
Season 1 Review: Falling Skies is exactly what you'd expect it to be, only a very good example of it (and is at its best in Sunday's pilot), and an ideal summer series. For once, Spielberg and company got it right on the small screen. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleDavid WiegandJun 17, 2011
Season 1 Review: Skies has enough going for it to appeal even to those who don't think they like sci-fi. Read full review
75
Uncle BarkyEd BarkJun 17, 2011
Season 1 Review: The special effects are better than decent and the ensemble cast wears pretty well as Falling Skies begins to hit its stride. Read full review
75
USA TodayRobert BiancoJun 16, 2011
Season 1 Review: As is often the nature of such programs, Skies does ask you to accept a lot of clunky dialogue and a few too many easily spotted twists. Even so, fans of the genre can embrace it as a summer-viewing diversion--one that's likely to work even better for younger viewers, who haven't seen all the films from which it borrows. Read full review
75
People WeeklyTom GliattoJun 16, 2011
Season 1 Review: The show doesn't have the sinister intelligence of ABC's short-lived Invasion, but it's good family entertainment. [27 Jun 2011, p.45]
75
Boston HeraldMark A. PerigardJun 16, 2011
Season 1 Review: Don't look now, but Falling Skies could be a summer obsession. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalNancy DeWolf SmithJun 6, 2013
Season 3 Review: The humans are still mostly good guys. Their dilemmas and antics--including blowing up a nuclear plant and giving birth to an infant who can stand up in her crib a few hours later--remain fun to watch. Read full review
70
VarietyBrian LowryJun 4, 2013
Season 3 Review: While this sci-fi lark is essentially just another cog in TV’s annual invasion of mindless summer escapism, as we’ve seen time and again, capturing that tone and feel isn’t nearly as easy as it looks--one reason it’s nice to see Wyle and company soldiering on. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineMatt RoushJun 22, 2012
Season 2 Review: Falling Skies has amped up the dramatic stakes this season, even offering a glimmer of hope when an unexpected visitor drops into their midst, balancing the earnest family values with a visceral survival saga that keeps the hokum mostly at bay. Read full review
70
The Huffington PostMaureen RyanJun 15, 2012
Season 2 Review: All in all, the new season of Falling Skies gets the basics right. Read full review
70
VarietyBrian LowryJun 13, 2012
Season 2 Review: Those who got on board last year have enough reason to continue flying these not-so-friendly Skies. Read full review
70
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob OwenJun 20, 2011
Season 1 Review: The characters lack the depth of those in smarter, premium cable dramas like "The Walking Dead," but they do show some growth as the series goes on. What Falling Skies does best is create a sense of the struggle for survival. Read full review
70
PopMattersChris ConatonJun 20, 2011
Season 1 Review: Falling Skies' mix of compelling individuals helps to make its early use of formula less troublesome than it might have been. Later episodes develop interesting and diverse motives, as the 2nd Mass begins to figure out what the aliens are up to and how to fight them more effectively. Read full review
70
TimeJames PoniewozikJun 17, 2011
Season 1 Review: Within Falling Skies' limited ambitions is some decent popcorn entertainment. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyKyle AndersonAug 11, 2014
Season 4 Review: While the sense of escalation is reasonably contagious, the push to the finale would feel better if it were worth investing in any of Skies' army of limp, interchangeable characters. Read full review
67
NewsdayVerne GayJun 16, 2011
Season 1 Review: Skies needs more horror. Less talk. More dramatic tension. Less (ummm) talk. More crazy, wild shootouts with the despicable aliens, who don't seem particularly bright, by the way. Less (all together now) talk. Read full review
60
VarietyBrian LowryJun 25, 2015
Season 5 Review: The first two episodes (both directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi) contain bountiful helpings of action, as well as the war-movie cliches that have been part of the program’s formula since the beginning. Read full review
60
VarietyBrian LowryJun 19, 2014
Season 4 Review: Based on the first few hours, then, it would be premature to suggest the sky is falling. But as the producers labor to manage and advance all the show’s moving parts, they appear to have lost a couple of battles. Read full review
60
PopMattersChris ConatonJun 10, 2013
Season 3 Review: When Falling Skies is clicking, it remains a very entertaining show that fills a niche. Read full review
60
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen GrayJun 7, 2013
Season 3 Review: It's hard enough keeping track of the aliens in Falling Skies, but the first few episodes introduce so many new challenges and mysteries it makes my head hurt thinking about them. Read full review
60
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob OwenJun 18, 2012
Season 2 Review: It's not deep, meaningful TV, but Falling Skies is OK summer entertainment for fans of breezy, things-blow-up-easy programming. Read full review
58
Boston HeraldMark A. PerigardJun 18, 2012
Season 2 Review: Unlike the similarly post-apocalyptic "Walking Dead," there's never much tension on Falling Skies. Read full review
58
Uncle BarkyEd BarkJun 15, 2012
Season 2 Review: Falling Skies holds few if any surprises, although its action scenes and impressively designed creatures still have pulling power. Read full review
50
VarietyBrian LowryJun 16, 2011
Season 1 Review: Taken on its own terms, this eight-part series--which begins in the middle, months after aliens have invaded Earth, thus turning a ragtag New England band into modern colonial resistance--has its moments action-wise, but the soapier elements mostly fall flat. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Matt Zoller SeitzAug 14, 2012
Season 2 Review: Falling Skies is better than it used to be, but it's still whiffing the allegory, the action, and the characterization: three strikes and you're out. Read full review
40
Washington PostHank StueverJun 17, 2011
Season 1 Review: Yet another dystopian vision with Steven Spielberg's brand name affixed to it (as executive producer), this time as a cheap-looking but occasionally intriguing sci-fi social study called Falling Skies. Read full review
40
The New York TimesMike HaleJun 16, 2011
Season 1 Review: Despite the high stakes of the story and the frequent violence, the tone is placid and slightly monotonous, as if we were watching the Walton family at the end of the world. Read full review
40
The Huffington PostMaureen RyanJun 16, 2011
Season 1 Review: There are some promising ideas and story lines here, but the pilot far outshone subsequent episodes in terms of quality and efficiency. Read full review
30
Miami HeraldGlenn GarvinJun 17, 2011
Season 1 Review: Every attempt at treating a Big Idea seems sophomoric and irritating. Even in its look, the show lacks the elemental rawness necessary to throw its intellectual conflicts into sharp relief. Read full review
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