TNT’s Falling Skies‘ first season brought a unique idea to television: what happens after an alien invasion. Humanity – for all intents and purposes – has lost the greater war, but the 10% of those left band together to fight back where they can.
As far as the technical aspects of the DVDs go — and considering my own ability to observe audio and visual quality – I can say the following: things look and sound pretty good. I have reviewed the DVD versions, so I can’t speak to the HD transfer, but the SD version looks pretty good upscaled, retaining that grainy feel the series maintained.
The special features were pretty solid. There were your standard-fare featurettes, including an interesting one about the CGI work done to bring the skitters to screen. My favorite feature, however, was the highlight video from the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con panel. I’m a big fan of these panels, though not really from an information gathering perspective, as the press rooms represent a much better opportunity to talk to a given show’s stars and producers directly. But if the cast and crew get along well and have fun doing their work, it shows on stage. Sadly, the video was just the highlights and not the full panel, but what made the cut was all good stuff, including a story from Moon Bloodgood about a note and gift Noah Wylie had given her that made the former ER star blush onstage.
The DVD sets also include commentaries on about half of the episodes. Each of these were interesting enough. Director/Co-Executive Producer Greg Beeman chimes in on the second and third episodes “The Armory” and “Prisoner of War.” Beeman came off a little too all-over-the-place for my tastes, but he shared some interesting insights into the Tom Mason/John Pope relationship. Wylie and Co-Executive Producer Mark Verheiden team up for the eighth episode “What Hides Beneath.” All three can be heard on the commentaries for final episodes of the season, “Mutiny” and “Eight Hours.” I specifically enjoyed Wylie’s insights into both the acting and production side of things.
As mentioned, Falling Skies season two is airing now, and the DVDs and Blu-ray Discs are available wherever you normally buy your DVDs and BluRay Discs, natch.
(The preceding piece was based on a complimentary copy provided to CliqueClack for the purpose of review.)
Clacked by Ivey West 
on Jun 25, 2012 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
