Aliens are Invading My Television!

The wife and I enjoy summer TV shows. America's Got Talent is a favorite, as is Penn & Teller's Fool Us on the CW. Both feature amazing acts that you won't see anywhere else, and some have even overlapped. Bizarre British comedic magician Piff the Magic Dragon was on Fool Us last season, and is now a finalist on the current season of America's Got Talent.  Who would have guessed?

Besides watching talented people plying their trade on a national stage, we are left the rest of the time with aliens. Yes, those invaders from outer space are alive and well, quite plentiful, and seeking to conquer the world as space aliens are wont to do. Some you can see, and some you can't. Some only children can see. A few of these series are TV programs the wife and I have endured for multiple summers. We pray those shows end soon, even if it means the inhalation of our planet to achieve that end. If you are a fan of these shows, please enjoy my take on them. If you are fortunate enough to have never seen them, you will find out what you are not missing. Here goes....


The Whispers

This is my favorite show of this ilk. An electrically-based alien life form is visiting Earth in hopes of making it a new home world. Why? Their planet is dying, of course. Why bother asking? The alien life form (singular if his buddies don't get his phone call home) goes by the name Drill and only talks to kids. Drill talks to kids that have parents with national security clearance, and manipulates the kids to do terrible things to achieve his goal of conquering the world. As a former teacher, I like the premise of an alien that only children can communicate with, and travels through electrical and electronic devices (turn off that cell phone - now)! There is also a little bit of hanky-panky background between some of the adult characters - who all have national security clearance, naturally. Not the only invisible critters in the 2015 summer sci-fi pack, but a fresher take than most of summer's other space invaders.



Under the Dome

When I hear the term "jumping the shark," Under the Dome instantly comes to mind. What was originally intended to be a one-summer miniseries is now in its third mind-numbing season. It is like that family member who comes to visit, and you love to see them for the first few days, but they just won't leave. Under the Dome has definitely overstayed its welcome. This show has a bit of literary clout, with Stephen King penning the novel that this show is based on. While King's other short stories have been made in to movies lasting much longer than it would take to read through several times, making three seasons of hour-long episodes out of one novel is just plain immoral. In the show, the fine and not-so-fine folks of Chester's Mill are trapped beneath an invisible dome that cannot be penetrated. We don't find out why until season three. Season one developed the characters. In season two, a few of the principal characters found ways out of the dome, and then different ways back in again. In season three, we have new formerly-human characters who take over the town, put the citizens in pods inside caves beneath the town, and that experience transforms the townsfolk into mindless members of "the kinship." Actually, it seems most likely that the writers painted themselves into a corner last year, and shark jumping was required to created the ludicrous fiasco that is season three. The good news here is that ratings are at an all-time low, so there is hope that this abomination will end soon. The wife and I have to see it through to the bitter end since we have invested so much time in the show to get to this ridiculous point. I could kiss the feet of the person who invented DVRs for making commercial skipping possible, which makes this hour show into 43 minutes of agony. Oh - I forgot to mention: season three revealed that the dome and the glowing egg that created it were the result of aliens looking for another planet. Again, who would have guessed?


Extant

This program features another invisible alien, though this one is a viral life form that can impregnate women. Gestation time is remarkably short, and the fast-growing hybrid children have the power to manipulate humans. They supposedly need a new home world since theirs was destroyed (where have I heard that one before)?  Unfortunately for those hybrids, the corrupt government has taken benign synthetic people called humanics and turned them into soldiers. Halle Berry makes this show watchable, and the government double-dealings make it interesting. Now in its second season, I'm hoping they wrap this one up before it all goes south.



Falling Skies

Evil aliens invade and kill lots of people. Actually, they kill the majority of Earth's population. Those that are left fight back as loosely organized militias. Other aliens come to help, but not too much. This show is in its fifth and fortunately, its final season. Bad guy aliens include tall, thin critters called overlords. They are soft and easily killed, but rule their armies telepathically. The soldiers are things called skitters. Skitters were once other life forms that were enslaved and transformed into six-legged hard-shell soldiers by the Espheni overlords. The protagonists in Falling Skies have been infected by alien eye worms, harnessed by spinal implants, kidnapped by overlords, converted to alien hybrids... well, you get the picture. This show jumped the shark a couple of season ago, but we still watch because it is hard to look away. You know, you drive past an accident scene and look even though you know no good will come of it, and you feel bad for the people involved after you do look. I like Noah Wyle as an actor, but he is clearly just showing up for a paycheck, because this thing is going nowhere. What else can he so? At times I find myself cheering for the aliens!  Dicey writing makes each episode plod along for the most part, and this thing would be unwatchable if we couldn't shorten the misery by zipping through the commercials with the DVR. I don't care who wins the final battle - I'm just thankful it is ending!