Comic Con: Falling Skies Panel Reveals Little But Shows Promise

The new Steven Spielberg-produced TNT series Falling Skies doesn't premiere on TV until next summer, but it's already the subject of a lot of speculation thanks to a pretty elaborate viral marketing campaign that seemed to be tied around the show's panel at this year's Comic Con. All that buildup resulted in the world premiere of the series trailer, the first footage of the film to be screened in public. Stars Noah Wyle and Moon Bloodgood, plus co-executive producer and writer Mark Verheiden, were also on hand for a Q&A, which was enthusiastic if a little stilted-- there's only so much you can discuss about a show that's only filmed a pilot.

The trailer, though, was pretty impressive, using a child narrator in the beginning and his drawings to hint at the alien invasion without actually giving anything away. Falling Skies is set after an alien invasion has essentially reduced the human race to scavengers, and Wyle's character is a former American history professor who gets the bright idea that he can make like the Founding Fathers and fight back against the tyrannical overlords. Bloodgood plays his inevitable love interest, who is apparently charged with taking care of fellow refugee kids (she's a woman, after all) but also is another one of the leaders as the human resistance gets going. The footage went heavy on the action and even gave away a few glimpses of the aliens, but you also get the feeling that Wyle will have some Thomas Jefferson-esque inspiring speeches in his future on the show.

I'm not sure what to tell you about the Q&A, since it was a lot of talk about what they might get into as the show goes on-- issues of leadership and heroism and even the budding romance between Wyle's and Bloodgood's characters are hinted at in the pilot but are being developed as we speak. The best answers came from the silly question asked by moderator Marc Bernadin; asked what they would raid from Sears in the event of an apocalypse, Wyle picked duct tape (to huge applause) while Bloodgood merely wanted a clean pair of underwear. She also said she'd want Samuel L. Jackson on her resistance fighting team, while Verheiden pointed out they joked about Bruce Springsteen being part of the resistance. "I want him on my side," he said.

Really it feels too early to give Falling Skies an hourlong panel, no matter how much the audience is into the alien invasion concept or at least fond of Bloodgood from her days on Journeyman. The trailer looked good, but it was about a minute long, and there's not much more to tease about a series that's still in development. I'll be a lot more interested in the Falling Skies panel next year, when the show has premiered and the viral marketing campaign has exploded, and presumably all this alien-happy fans in the room will have an actual story to sink their teeth into.

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