HDTV Heads-Up: Falling Skies

Noah Wyle (left ) and Drew Roy in Falling Skies

Coming soon to TV2 in HD is the Steven Spielberg production, Falling Skies.

The sci-fi series about life on earth six months after aliens have invaded is among the mid-season shows the network will roll out over the next month or two.

It’s unusual for TVNZ to air a drama series so close to the US broadcast.

Typically, programmers prefer to see how a show performs domestically before scheduling it here.

But with more people turning to the Internet to download content, broadcasters are increasingly under pressure to put ‘event’ programmes quicker to air, as TV2 did with another less successful ET showcase, V.

US reviews of Falling Skies, which stars ER’s Noah Wyle, have been mostly positive.

“The entertainment value and suspense of Falling Skies is paced just right,” The Hollywood Reporter reckons.

“You get the sense that we’ll get those answers eventually. And yet, you want to devour the next episode immediately.”

“It’s the spectacle of humans versus aliens that draws you in,” Entertainment Weekly argued while the Los Angles Times observed: “Serious without being grim, uplifting without being saccharine, Falling Skies dares to imagine what feature films will not — a world in which Will Smith or Aaron Eckhart did not bring down the mother ship in time.”

However, less impressed were Variety (“has its moments action-wise, but the soapier elements mostly fall flat”) and the New York Times (“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”).

Last month’s two-hour premiere on TNT was the most-watched new cable series of the year but viewership has eroded.

Because there are eight episodes, TV2 may package it in two-hour instalments, a strategy that was incredibly effective for V’s initial run.