American Exceptionalism in Speculative Fiction

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Much of the media in this genre is created in the United States, which is hardly surprising given the hegemony of American pop culture.  Because of the pervasiveness of American pop culture it has come to constitute a form of American soft power.  No country ever wants to see itself as anything but the center of the world but American pop culture has exceedingly made a point of this not only in the fantasy genre but in pretty much everything it produces.  In the eighties, it was all about some brave American taking on a Russian threat and ending up victorious; the hero often wrapped in the stars and stripes, delivering a big dose of patriotism with their knock out punch.  In the nineties, with the end of the cold war, we saw a brief time of antagonists coming from different geographic areas but the hero resoundingly remained American.  With the dawn of the 21st century and the rise of the McWorld vs Jihad dilemma, antagonists have overwhelmingly been Middle Eastern, while the hero remained American. The point of all of these stories is to suggest to the reader, viewer and consumer that no matter the situation or the villain, America is always on the side of right and will emerge victorious based solely American exceptionalism.  The bigger the threat, the faster and stronger the American response will be and whether by might or intelligence, some American will have the right answer to the situation.

The very first time I became aware of this phenomenon in speculative fiction was the movie Independence Day.  Yeah, it was great to watch Will Smith, as Captain Steven Hiller, take on the aliens but it’s telling that it was Jeff Goldblum, as David Levinson, who came up with the solution to the alien invasion. Yes, Levinson graduated from MIT and was an environmentalist but am I really supposed to believe that there was no one else outside of an American smart enough to figure out the invasion countdown clock? And what about the fact that the rest of the world seemed to be sitting around waiting for someone else to come up with a solution? Not only did Hiller and Levinson take the war to the aliens on behalf of the rest of the world, the Americans co-ordinated the attack which occurred on July 4th.  Could American exceptionalism be any more obvious?  Even President Thomas J. Whitmore, played by Bill Pullman, joined the fight because he was a former Vietnam vet. If that were not enough, Whitmore declared July 4th the Independence Day for the world. It's not like the independence of any other country from colonial rule could possibly be significant.

“Perhaps it’s fate that today is the 4th of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom, not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution -- but from annihilation.
We're fighting for our right to live, to exist.
And should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice:
"We will not go quietly into the night!
We will not vanish without a fight!
We're going to live on!
We're going to survive!"
Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!”

Considering that the Americans would not have gotten to their Independence Day without the French, one really had to suspend belief to buy into the whole rally the troops moment delivered by the impassioned Pullman, as President Whitmore.  Naturally, the president had to get into the action because like the rest of his people, he was a problem solver and epically brave. Thank goodness this is fiction because despite having the title commander in chief, there has only been one president since Eisenhower to actually serve in an active duty position.

Falling Skies, Season 5, Episode 10: Reborn

It’s the season finale! My pain finally ends! IT FINALLY ENDS!

Matt is doing a voice over to patriotic music as the whole gang fights lots of buzzy flying Espheni. Lots of shooting and fighting and Weaver’s little servant guy gets killed. Everyone pretend to care about the dead extra.

With the attack Weaver insists that they stay one more night before the attack. So everyone gathers around the camp fire for a big inspirational Mason speech. Yawn

The next day a load of bikers arrive – it’s one of Mason’s militias. Which means we have more people to hail Tom as their leader. They also get contact from one of the other militias describing a wall around DC (where they’re headed for reasons that probably made sense a few episodes ago before my brain begged for mercy). So it’s time to strategise how to get past the wall. And new guys are playing doubters since Pope has been kicked out of that role which means we have to have a lot of the same tiresome arguments (“why don’t the volm do it?” etc etc). It gives them chance to info-dump their whole plan (get virus bomb to queen. Kill queen, end Espheni).

Weaver decides to leave Anthony behind to hold the base – this is his gesture of faith. New team will attack the wall and be a distraction while Big Damn Hero Tom puts on his plot armour and goes through some tunnels to kill the Queen.

Battle time and Tom’s team enters the tunnels with a load of the named characters. Including people you wouldn’t expect to be in a strike team (like Digaan). They also find an Espheni hatchery – full of evil Espheni eggs and baby Overlords are apparently super-duper dangerous and violent. So they have to sneak past the eggs – and because of Lexi, Anne has a complete freak out panic attack about the eggs. Because she’s also pregnant. Oh joy, another Mason is on the way. This is proof humanity doesn’t deserve to be saved.

As they sneak past the eggs we hear some of Lt. Wolf’s back story (which also helpfully tells us why he knows the tunnels) and a brief discussion about the value of martyring yourself – which Weaver doesn’t approve of. Can you not have this discussion around the sound sensitive eggs?

Of course one of the extras bursts an egg, we knew that was going to happen. Lots of gun fire but no actual enemies to shoot. They then hilariously decide to keep sneaking and whispering after lots of gunfire. At this point I don’t even feel tension. I want everyone to die so much that the whole “zomg something may eat them!” instead is more “PLEASE LET SOMEONE EAT THEM!”) Lots of firing and grenades and stuff without them using any CGI budget on actually showing an alien. Is there actually an alien here or are they just fighting themselves

Falling Skies, Season 5, Episode 9: Reunion

So the Espheni now have a Queen. Yes a queen. This is a thing Espheni have but has not come up at any point in the last five seasons nor have the Volm bothered to mention at all because the writers are not even pretending they’re not making this shit up as they go along. 

Ben is spying on the Espheni and this queen using his Spikes, the conveniently-stumbled-upon-alien-tech and ice baths because why not (hey, post-apocalyptic Virginia apparently not in winter – where are you getting all that ice?)

Anne would rather Ben not kill himself in ice water but Tom is totally fine to with sacrificing him to touch the communicator, get hot, then have an ice bath.

At the military base we now have not just militias but entire military regiments who have appeared out of freaking nowhere and are now communicating with Digaan through the radio (after five seasons of silence) to accept the guidance of Mason’s Minions, praise be to Mason. A world map behind them implies they’re leading forces all over the world – like Risk but with clipboards and plot armour and even more ridiculous ideas than trying to defend Asia.

They also luck into more communications technology so they can communicate with the staggering, suddenly appearing, 42 militias all worshipping Mason for reasons unknown. Time for a speech of course

Tom also hallucinates his dead wife some more. So he wanders off alone to where he could be so easily ambushed. Instead he comes across a giant space ship – hey another alien ship for you to go riding in Tom! Hallucination Rachel tells Tom how they rescued him because they, the Dorni, like to choose humans who are useful (his epic plot armour is very useful indeed). Apparently The Queen is making it hard for the Dorni to hallucinate/communicate. They also think that the Queen arriving is pretty much the Espheni’s victory flag which makes her kind of bitter since she’s the last survivor of the Dorni who were destroyed by the Espheni (and turned into Skitters). She has a special weapon for the Queen. Which only Tom can use – it will destroy all the Espheni if he takes it to the queen

Yeaaaah even Tom mason must realise there’s a catch to this. Right? Right? He picks up the weapon. Uh-huh. Of course he does.

We hear someone die over the radio, reminding us that while the Masons & co may have forgotten the aliens for a few episodes, they’re still out there.

Ben debates with Maggie about risking his life some more being a spy and we get more nasty claims that the Nazcar lines are actually alien made. Ben is super sure it’s important and totally worth risking his life for

Matt and Evelyn continue to be couply and Maggie decides to apologise for Matt for the whole love triangle crap with his brothers which he had to deal with. Because both brothers being a pain in everyone’s arse is totally her fault (and it’s not like it, like any storyline, had been developed in enough of a manner to be a pain in anyone’s arse except mine).

Falling Skies, Season 5, Episode 8: Stalag 14th Virginia

Execution time – actually no it’s another stupid “let’s start the episode half way through then flash back” nonsense, so let’s ignore that and flip back 7 hours.

Weaver tries to appeal to Marshall which obviously goes nowhere – she’s convinced they will be happy dappy allies forever more. I don’t think that’s going to happen. She also wants him to point fingers at any other collaborators.

That night she goes driving by herself off into the woods and Weaver follows her. In the woods she speaks to someone she calls “sir.” Who is willing to bet it’s an Overlord? Whatever she’s talking to we don’t get to see for convoluted attempts to develop tension and drama.

The rest of the Second Mass who have come to fort Virginia aren’t especially happy with the sainted Masons being locked up. Marshall ends up locking them all up. Even her own Lieutenant Wolf finds her blatantly ridiculous position to be, well, blatantly ridiculous. Of course she won’t listen to him – but Weaver is there to scoop him up.

And take him to where Marshall was meeting with an Overlord. I am shocked. Truly I am shocked by this revelation. This is my shocked face. Behold the shock.

   

The soldiers continue torturing Ben and Tom decides to debate the prison guard who snaps because it’s so terribad hard for him to torture and kill people – and his own best friend was killed in one of Marshall’s purges. Since he’s a torturer I’m not even slightly sympathetic with him following orders, or comparing people to rabid animals. Hal and Ben talk Maggie and Isabella which apparently gives Tom hope listening in to his teenagers talking about women. Personally I think the conversation is vaguely skeevy and Tom listening in rather more so. Tom then using it as a way to talk family with evil torturer guy just finishes it off.

He manages to make a lot of progress with Evil Torturer guy revealing more people in the 14^th are less than comfortable with Marshall’s paranoid obsession with spies and traitors. Of course none of them could speak up without the inspiration of the Blessed Mason.

Anne is still doctoring people while under guard but her patients are rapidly losing patience (yes I did that. I have to find something to amuse myself watching this) with the over the top stormtrooper routine (honestly, like a doctor has to pull a sharp object to kill you). Anne also learns her husband is due to be executed and doesn’t take it well. But her patient is willing to listen to her as she tells him how amazing St Tom is – though it all goes wrong when she describes her half-Espheni daughter.

Falling Skies, Season 5, Episode 7: Everyone Has Their Reasons

Everybody has their reasons. And in the case of the writers of Falling Skies I believe the reason is “class A drugs.”

So Tom & friends have found a working military base. No, really. Actually, working, occupied military base. Weaver’s excuse for why it hasn’t been decimated is that it’s surrounded by three walls so is strategic. How this would have worked against the invulnerable mechs of season 1, the completely dominating air power of the last 5 seasons or the hordes of feral skitter – some of which can fly – let alone the swarms of piranha flies that can strip a human to bone in seconds… well, it’ Falling skies and this show has sworn to never ever make sense.

Of course, Tom, Weaver and Hal decide to go forward without advance notice, backup or even letting anyone know what they’ve found – they go forth confident in their plot armour. They’re ambushed and everyone points guns at each other until Katie Marshall appears – an old contact of weaver’s. She welcomes them to the 14^th Virginia.

So the 2^nd Mass gets a nice welcome into the base that was successfully protected by WALLS. (Ok maybe the first lot of inhabitants were wiped out but still leaving these guys alone for a year makes no sense. And don’t tell me they’re hiding – they literally have a building sized, improbably clean America flag). And technically Colonel Weaver outranks everyone so is in charge.

They tell Marshall that Tom shut down the power, in case she didn’t realise she’s supposed to worship at this feet and Marshall shows off how they’ve improved the base (flags – flags are very important it seems) and the intel they’ve managed to gain. Weaver also tells them about the Volm – which Marshall is not a big fan of because of their whole re-locate to Brazil idea which was back when the Volm were actually a major fighting force and not just handwaved away. They tell Marshall their plan which they’ve implemented through the militias and show off the shiny Volm tech and the plan to reach DC

Random domesticity – and Hal decides to get all kind of possessive over Isabella, not-so-subtly playing the MAH WOMAN game with a soldier who was flirting with her. And Maggie looks on. Oh look, the love dodecahedron continues. My interest does not grow. Maggie and Hal have relationship talks. Do not need. Tom talks politics and history with Matt like they’re going to rebuild very soon

And Weaver and Mashall catch up with a strong hint of them having been an item once. Well more than a hint. And an actual good depiction of her being haunted by a bad experience.

Falling Skies, Season 5, Episode 6: Respite

Tom wakes up to find he is being tended by a strange woman who is surprisingly well dressed for a dystopia, in a room that looks like the aliens never invaded, with kids playing outside and an older man, similarly well dressed with a gun

The gun is because Tom decided to respond with violence and a knife to medical care. The old man, William, has treated his injuries and, because of that, Tom now can’t go anywhere until he’s healed. He declares his home a safe place where there is no war and no fighting. Which sounds ominous given the dystopia, aliens and all.

It’s all very creepily twee complete with saying grace and no food shortages at all. Faced with the normality of it all, Tom collapses into tears (I can get this is a major emotional moment seeing everything he has lost, but personally I think it would be more appropriate to yell “alien collaborator’s/clones/pod people!”)

Apparently Willie just stocked a whole lot and has a decent farm and has just kept his head down and the whole war has just passed them by. The kids don’t even know the war is happening because YAY DENIAL! That includes the 15 year old. Tom declares it not to be his business right before passive aggressively judging the hell out of them. He calls out Alicia for basically raising her kids to be so sheltered that when the war eventually reaches them they’ll have no chance. Of course she angrily declares that she doesn’t need advice on how to let everyone else do the fighting while she lives in denial land and raises kids to be complete victims because she can’t face reality, of course she does

Which then leads to Tom going snooping (despite hardly being able to walk) and catching the 15 year old Kyle drinking and smoking *gasp* (what they stockpiled booze as well? And cigarettes?) Kyle realises something off is happening

Later Alicia is happy to recruit Tom to teach her kids now-completely-irrelevant history but then Kyle goes missing trying to find out the truth. Tom finds him by the ruin of a mech and, of course, tells hi, all.

Did anyone, for one second, think Tom wasn’t going to tell this kid the truth?

Kyle demands to be a soldier and returns home to pout and tantrum and Alicia, of course, asking Tom’s advice. She agrees to let him take Kyle back to the 2^nd Mass to fight. And she kisses him.

Over to Hal who is still with Isabella and they share stories of their history teacher dads and her dad being a diplomat and how, in war they have to do naughty bad things. And they kiss – so this is how the love triangle will be resolved – a random love interest dropped in! Hey it took Hal, what, 3 days to move on from Maggie?

Falling Skies, Season 5, Episode 5: Non-Essential Personnel

We have some humans desperately sheltering in a barricaded building with injured to look after, surrounded by Skitters and no supplies. A woman, Isabella, thinks the need to leave since it’s not a great situation. When she and some of the people make a run for it they are almost caught by Skitters – and are saved by Pope and Anthony.

They recruit the survivors into his little gang, Anthony pointing out people he considers liabilities who can’t fight- they’re driven out. One of them, Isabella, points out she’s a nurse, useful – but she doesn’t get to bring the other “liabilities” with her.

Later she tries to convince Pope that she just did it to try and get them indebted to her – presenting herself as ruthless and selfish and knowing people only did what they could to get something back. Pope also tells her about his happy kidnapping.

He’s good at multi-tasking because while doing this he’s also taunting Tom and making him play hide and seek for Hal (kind of proving his point that Tom is willing to completely drop the mission for the sake of his family, but not anyone else’s). Pope continues to convince us he’s completely lost any grasp of humanity or decency. Anyway he cut Hal so nurse Isabella treats him and Hal tries to convince her not to join the dark side

Tom runs into the guys who were kicked out of Pope’s camp who update him on Pope and his numbers. He also knows Isabella isn’t a nurse. An increasingly more berserk Pope beats up Hal and almost kills him trying to get him to admit that Tom has caused many people to die. Of course he doesn’t.

They also get attacked by a super-skitter that wounds one of them – so Pope kills the injured guy. Yet he still has followers who agree with this. But Isabella isn’t a fool, she’s raided Pope’s supplies and is ready to run. Now Hal has to convince her to take him with her and risk her life for a man she’s just met. Of course she does.

Tom has some more alien ex-wife hallucinations. Honestly it’s a choice between Pope or Tom, humanity doesn’t deserve to be saved. Because if Tom dies the WHOLE WORLD IS DOOOOMED because without him the Espheni will win and destroy them all

Humanity needs Tom to survive? Yes definitely doesn’t deserve to live.

Falling Skies, Season 5, Episode 4: Pope Breaks Bad

It is time for another episode of Falling Skies. Let me get ready.

Ok, I'm prepared, let's do this

So Sarah died last episode and now it’s time for Pope to stand on that fridge and bellow his Manpain to the skies.

I’m going to need more booze.

Pope is sad about Sarah and Tom doesn’t have a shred of sense or decency decides that he needs to talk to Pope at Sarah’s grave after refusing to rescue her. Weaver tells Tom how right he was to leave her. Pope isn’t ready to forgive.

At the camp Anthony is begging Weaver and Anne to let him go back to active duty but he can’t because of his PTSD

And a Volm ship arrives. It seems Cochise has called them so he can see his dad, say goodbye and engage in a Volm ritual before dying. Yes, Cochise is dying. It seems Cochise was born without a vital organ that gives him a shorter lifespan and he’s made his peace and is ready to die – though Anne and the other humans consider this “giving up” and that he has to fight. Anne suggests transplants which makes Cochise laugh. He considers his dad donating an organ to be a “distraction” in the middle of war. Anne and Tom utterly refuses to accept his decision (and Anne with basic human technology thinks she can advise the Volm with their tech on the medical perspective of a completely alien anatomy). He gives them something before leaving which the other Volm Shack, can use.

This nifty globe thing shows areas where the Espheni are cloaking – predominantly capital cities (especially Washington DC because Murica). And the Nazca lines in Peru and Fayetteville for REASONS.

Pope arrives to snark before he leaves to be stopped by Anthony who now announces he hates the Masons for taking him out the fight. Oh for the love of all that is sensible. Really, are we doing this show?! Pope gives Anthony a gun. Their little rebellion does point out the epic hypocrisy of Tom and how he would certainly not have left his kids behind like he did Sarah. They also all belatedly pretend to care about Denny.

Anthony speaks out to inspire his rebellion while Hal tries to defend Tom’s terribad decisions. I wouldn’t wish that job on anyone, there are a whole lot of bad decisions to defend there.

Tom leads a squad (Digaan, Mat, Weaver, Extra) to get some supplies where they find a radio which Digaan uses to speak to a woman with a highly improbable English accent (unless he has actually found the Queen, no, she doesn’t speak like that), she’s coincidentally in Bolivia. Of course she is and naturally needs his leadership.

Extra dies to a swarm of Espheni bugs. Of course he does, he should have had a red shirt. No-one else is killed because they’re all main characters.

Falling Skies, Season 5, Episode 3: Hatchlings

So last week they found a huge nest of breeding skitter-beasts (which are now mindless feral monsters and not intelligent creatures leading their own rebellion because the writers are possibly drunk, have severe memory problems, don’t give a shit or all of the above). The plan is to use Digaan’s and Matt’s new weapon to kill them all and it seems to work

Current plan, which Tom is spreading to the world because of course he should dictate global strategy – why wouldn’t you want a hallucinating history teacher with rage issues who protected his half-alien traitor genocide daughter from leading you?! – is to destroy dormant Espheni technology before the aliens arrange the power back and to kill any squishy bioweapon bugs

Which is a fancy way of saying “kill shit and break stuff.” For some reason Anne, Cochise, the Volm et all think this is an amazing plan and totally not something that could have been thought up by an illiterate child cleaning a library who happened to have a book of Sun Tzu fall on his had, and it has been distributed to all the Mason Militias in the world

Oh my god the militias have been named “Mason Militias”. Every resistance movement around the world is now named after him. Let the Espheni win! Humanity no longer deserves to live!

So vast amount of Espheni stuff has now been destroyed but there’s an ominous cloaked area the Volm can’t see, which is powered by small batteries they have which they use for non-military purposes and haven’t repurposed yet because the script says so. One is nearby, the other is in DC

Maggie brings food to Caitlin who they met last episode to pretty much confirm that, no, they can’t cure her mutated monster brother. Except mutant Brian manages to use Maggie’s spikes to talk to Caitlin, calling her Kate, which only he does. But it hurts Maggie, it’s difficult and he can only really communicate in monosyllables to say how dangerous he is.

Hal, Tom and Weaver find another horde of skitters, one they assume has an Overlord in control. Tom finds this frustrating since it means he can’t follow his own commands (and, yes, he is commanding the Mason militia) since they’re up to their necks in Skitters and can’t break technology before the Espheni get it back online. The skitters are replacing at a ridiculous rate – Anne considers this and believes the Espheni are managing to replicate them quickly and she speculates some kind of biological mutant science thing

More speculation is interrupted by little Orphan Caitlin and her Beasty Brian – Brian has escaped and knocked Anthony unconscious and is now running loose who knows where. Tom decides a raging skitter being in their stronghold running free and possibly controllable by Overlords within 5 miles is totally not worth worrying about so basically ignores it. While Weaver thinks Beasty Brian just wants to be friends since he didn’t kill anyone – he just wants to hug them. With his claws.

Falling Skies, Season 5, Episode 2: Hunger Pains

We have more rabid, feral skitters running around fighting and eating each other and completely shredding every pretence of canon this show has ever had. Now a horde of feral skitters is trying to attack the human base. Firefight time and, for some damn reason, Anthiny almost climbs over the barricade to fight them in close combat (SERIOUSLY?!) This is a belated attempt to make someone care for Denny (did Anthony even speak to Denny before this?)

In the fight they lose all their food supplies which they decided to store in one place. Next to some explosives. Of course they do.

A quick strategy meeting confirms that all the militia groups (which randomly appeared last week) are all facing lots of resistance and feral Skitters, the odd annoying Overlord and a complete break down of anything resembling canon or coherence.

They need more supplies which means they need transport – which they don’t have which has Tom yelling at Weaver for not being able to pull working cars out of thin air. Tom focuses on what he wants to do while Weaver focuses on what they have and need.

Meanwhile Anne has find an insect which bit Tom which they suspect is an evil Espheni bug. Tom continues to ask for things they don’t have and throws in a hallucination of his dead wife for good measure who informs him people need to eat. Well, that’s helpful.

We move forwards 8 days where everyone is still disposing of skitter bodies (and skitter attacks are happening constantly) and all exhausted. Dingaan is also trying to reverse engineer Espheni technology to create a weapon which Tom is pushing for (and demanding miracles). We’re also introduced to Evelyn who tries to make friends with Mat and is the next step in Denny’s T-dog chain. Matt doesn’t trust her so she’s clearly Matt’s love interest. She’s also used to exposition Matt’s angst because he’s afraid to make any friends because everyone is going to die. Dingaan decides to tell him about fishing for some reason but the end line seems to be “take a chance.”

Food is desperately rationed and people are very hungry. Pope and Sara decide to cook skitter. Random extra eats it and, unsurprisingly, dies. REALLY horribly. Skitters are not edible (creatures evolved on a different planet are not a good food source).

Tom doesn’t actually blame it on Pope even though it’s actually his fault.

Evelyn ends up in the medical bay as one of those suffering from hunger-related lurginess. Matt denies being her friend. Definitely love interest. Tom continues to tell Anne about the message from his hallucinations, she seems to be ok with that and wants to discuss having another baby.

General Gary Stu: Righteously Commanding His Lessers

The aliens are attacking, the zombies are hording, the vampires are flocking and all seems lost - the shattered remnants of humanity fall to despair, who could possibly save them? Fear not humanity - General Gary Stu is here to save the day and lead them to victory!

We have spoken before about Mary Sues (those protagonists who are exceptional among women, living in nearly all male worlds, mistaking characterisation for stabbing things repeatedly and generally giving us friction burns from the amount of eye rolling) who often embody impossibly perfect protagonist - but most of the General Gary Stus we’ve found tend to be male (not that there aren’t notable male examples) especially since they’re very common in dystopians - and the dystopian future is nearly always lead by cis, straight, white men but also because, as we’ve said before, there’s some bullshit that only the most privilege of people get away with.

The General Gary Stu is a leader, usually in a violent, militaristic and desperate setting (these are usually dystopians but not always). In some cases he will reluctantly step into the roles, in others he will boldly step into leadership but either way, leadership will simply and easily settle on him, simply because there will be no other reasonable choice or competition.

This could be because, all too often, the General Gary Stu will be ridiculously perfect. He will be so good, so skilled, so knowledgeable and so damn badass (nearly always so damn badass) as to completely eclipse any normal human or even a decent handful of super heroes. The most extreme example I’ve seen is Deacon Chalk (that name!) who is so over the top badass that even Batman would gasp at his awesomeness. But Owen from Monster Hunter Nation, Lee from The Remaining series and Gordon from The End are all certainly challenging for that post.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good badass. I’ll admit (albeit with some embarrassment) that I kind of love that moment when the hero or heroine’s eyes narrow and you know a thoroughly righteous slaughter is about to follow. Shallow, I know, but I love it and a book where I can rely on the protagonist to lay down some epic beatings will please some dark part of my soul (I always look forward to that moment in The Dresden Files or Elemental Assassin Series and, yes, even in some of the Anita Blake Series).

But General Gary Stu is more than just badass, in classic Stu/Sue style he is ridiculously perfect and lacking in real flaws. Gordon from The End is so utterly perfect that he was faintly nauseating and Owen was virtually supernatural (to the point of being an outright Chosen One) in his skill. More than lack of flaws is a general lack of character beyond being such an excellently awesome person - oh we have some angst thrown in for extra manpain (often involving dead family, especially wives) but other than that they’re lacking in any real humanising elements - they’re just utterly perfect, always-right leaders

Falling Skies, Season 5, Episode 1: Find Your Warrior

Time for the last season of Falling Skies, get your dice – it’s time for a random story generator (it’s not like this show tries to be coherent with its storytelling. At least the characters having absolutely no characterisation means they can do just about anything

And last season Tom found a new alien! Because all the aliens in the galaxy want to gather on Earth. The aliens greet Tom with talk of peace and his dead wife. A whole hallucination world of Earth being all good and none destroyed. How many times has Tom been in these dream worlds. His hallucination wife is talking about breast cancer as a not very subtle analogy for the Espheni. It’s all about him getting angry and “finding his warrior”. Then flooding him with water because he probably hasn’t bathed in a while.

On Earth Anne has taken over with Tom missing presumed ridiculously stupid (he’s gone on another alien spaceship! He has a habit of that).  She has a speech for the crowd telling them all that Tom and Lexi are dead (yay – oh wait, that’s the bad news). But the Espheni did lose their power core and a whole load of their ships left Earth for reasons unknown. She’s sure this means they’re winning (Pope speaks up in support since he flipped his character coin and he’s a good guy today). There’s a brief nod that Lexi was terribad evil but she’s dead now so we don’t have to care any more.

Weaver has his people shore up their defences though Hal wants to go on the offensive.

Alas, Tom isn’t dead and drags himself to the shore. Lexi is still dead because the half-alien magic child is just too ridiculous to continue when you’ve got a whole new load of ridiculousness to bring on. He kills a skitter with an improvised weapon as proof he has “found his warrior”. He has a moment of being all kind of shocked that he did this despite the fact that killing Skitters has been what they’ve been doing since the first season. He returns to camp where he runs into Pope – and Pope rambles on but tom won’t even speak to him

Instead he goes to shock Anne who is sleeping. After a reunion Anne does a health check on him and asks how he got home. He doesn’t tell her instead randomly objecting to her necklace and telling them about his weird memory hallucination and how it was a good thing and how the memory invaders totally knew him really well. Anne decides he’s just hallucinating and it’s totally not due to alien mind control (it’s not like that hasn’t happened before, right?)

Tom tells the whole crowd how it’s all good even if it is just a little freaky (hey let’s acknowledge that it’s freaky because then we don’t actually have to do anything about it) – oh and Lexi’s dead – and this is why they all need to be super angry because they’re just all not mad enough and he brandishes a skitter head at everyone because showing dead corpse parts is inspirational. Weaver looks Troubled.

Falling Skies, Season 4, Episode 12: Shoot the Moon

This episode has a strange dramatic opening, everyone on the ground posing with various weapons, something happening on the moon base – and a man begging Botha for help with some kind of alien thing on his chest (all with the background sound of ragged breathing and a loud heartbeat). He’s just one of many suffering horribly in an odd, foggy swamp place.

Everyone else is all tense and looking at the moon and hearing some very very loud wolves. Botha had left with a scouting team and returns alone and late – and not looking so good. He describes what he saw and Ben realises it’s a mobile mutation plant – a way for the Espheni to mutate people without dragging them to a factory first.

That foreshadowed (and some brief hints at Maggie/Hal breaking up and being friends thrown in with some Pope angst) a Beamer drops an ominous, fog producing thing. When the fog touches people’s feet they become glued to the floor – and then it releases chest sucking creatures into the fog. An extra is caught and gets a chest sucker on her and becomes all feral and evil. E

Everyone gets caught and glued by the fog. Matt manages to kill the chest sucker after him with a throwing knife. He and Weaver are stuck together

Maggie frees Ben and they both work to help Hal showing he has to truth them (despite his snark)and how well they work together.

Botha chews out Pope for his endless, ridiculous charging into danger (which got them both stuck. And yes, Pope has been needed this lecture for some time) but then Botha gets a chest sucker but Pope manages to kill it by chewing through the tube that connects it to the foggy thing. And yes that’s disgusting. Sarah then returns from parts unknown to help kill the chest suckers going for Pope – awww she foes care. Unlike me. Damn it Sarah, I thought Pope was finally going to be killed off.

Anne discovers the fog doesn’t like flares. Conveniently, she happens to have a flamethrower. Which runs out of fuel as she gets to Matt and Weaver, making it a pretty awful rescue attempt as she, too, is trapped. Weaver begins despairing so now there’s more “don’t give up” speeches.

On the ship to the moon, the broken technology we saw last episode turns out to be the bomb – bombs don’t like cold it seems. Lexi still upset that one guilt dream doesn’t make Tom trust her implicitly and Tom actually reassures her. He wants to use her super powers to destroy the power plant but she can’t – her powers rely on twisting natural forces all of which are absent or weaker on the moon.

We get some science as to what the power plant actually is (using a form of Helium the moon has lots of apparently) and why this made the Earth an ideal target. Exposition interrupted by a bigger ship rumbling them and pulling them to it.

They go onto the big ship and find that Mira is now fully harnessed (seriously, they brainwash the kids THEN harness them. Really?)  as a mouthpiece of an Overlord (the scorched one who hates Tom so much) who smacks Tom across the room – and uses Lexie’s necklace to strangle her, he just points at her and it contracts. A safeguard to control her. She tries to convince the Overlord she’s on their side.

Falling Skies, Season 4, Episode 11: Space Oddity

Lexi has arrived and naturally Tom wants to talk to her and Weaver backs him despite Pope, very reasonably (argh I hate agreeing with him), pointing out that the question  of whether or not Lexi is a threat has already been very very very convincingly settled!

Lexi tells her parents that yes she’s sorry and trusting the genocidal aliens and their mutant factories was actually a bad idea. Tom at least doesn’t accept her with open arms and points out the attack she was part of, Lourdes and all the nastiness.

While they talk, Pope argues with Weaver about killing Lexi. While Tom says how he cannot trust Lexi, not again – Pope fires a rifle at her. Lexi woo-woo means she just catches the bullet. Still, even though Tom agrees they have no reason to fear Lexi, he does say they have reason to hate her – and there’s no place for her there.

Of course, Anne speaks up in favour of Lexi and accepting her, quite willing to risk an Espheni plot – she wants time to try and promises to keep her away from the others. Tom adds she needs to keep Lexi away from him too. Tom does dispatch Weaver to play bodyguard

Tom goes to lecture Pope – but Pope is shaking and half crying, he can’t face more death – he’s haunted and very much in PTSD from the devastation of the attack. Tom still declares “my family, my problem”. Um, when your family kills people and sides with the Espheni genocide aliens then, no, no no not “your problem.”

The Mason sons also have doubts about their sister the evil genocide fan, but Tom does not hear the words of others, he is Tom and he doesn’t not have to listen to such petty concerns of lesser people.

Tom is still going ahead with the mission to the moon. Cochise begs Tom to wait until he has contacted his father and have him provide Volm support (though he reveals that he and his dad are at odds over whether Earth is a lost cause) but since this is a plan that would leave Tom not being a Big Damn Hero there’s no way that’ll fly.

When Anne gets Lexi alone she at least shows she’s not entirely on the “yay Lexi camp” and is still very very very suspicious of her daughter. Lexi has to do a lot of work to regain their trust. She shows off her super powers which doesn’t really fill Anne with faith; but Lexi is sure her super powers can help them get the Beamer to the moon to destroy the Espheni power core. But Anne refuses – Lexi can’t be trusted and can’t stay with them. Lexi cries and Weaver decides he needs to intervene and call Tom and Anne into a meeting

Weaver convinces Anne that Lexi’s super powers could actually be super useful. Tom finally relents after much nagging and every named character lines up to tell Lexi how awful she is. Hal also slips Tom some super dangerous Volm poison just in case (hey, I hope the ship with the anti-volm features doesn’t notice that!)

Falling Skies, Season 1, Episode 10: Drawing Straws

We’ve only got a few episodes left so it’s time for Evil Lexie to begin her redemption arc – starting with nightmares of Ben turning into a monster and blaming her.

Her Overlord mentor teaching her how to use her powers and that breaking stuff is “setting it free” and “sending it home to the stars” never mind that most things don’t really want to get up close and personal with stars. Also, trees in this world break up into perfect boards. Seriously, Falling Skies, you couldn’t break up some branches, you just ordered a load of timber and scattered it around?

Time for Overlord conversation – and this whole land of lava alternate dimension thing is an awesome way of communicating but I can’t help but think a radio or something may be easier and less dramatic. As an added flaw, it seems the whole talking through molten rock is something Lexie can do as well – so she listens in.

Overlord #1 is worried about how powerful Lexie is if she can’t be controlled while her mentor thinks she can win them the war, sees humanity as inferior and he is super capable of controlling her (with added gloating about her wrongly thinking her power is for peace). Overlord #1 wants her dead for safety’s sake. Mentor Overlord bows and says “yes brother” so there’s a clear hierarchy.

The next time Lexie is taken to train by her “father” she uses her powers to destroy him throwing in “power perfected is divine” and that she is the “bringer of death” not peace.

Over to the good guys who are poking around in the Beamer to make it work and Matt is apparently becoming a teenager. This is apparently the excuse we’re running with for why, when Cochise & co are talking about hacking into the Beamer drone, Matt decides he needs to go touch things and miraculously figure out how to pilot the thing

Oh it must be such a proud moment for Tom to see his son becoming a Mason – doing stupid things and being rewarded for them by the plot. Also, Beamers apparently have radios (despite being drones) plugged into Spanish language broadcasts.

The broadcast is a warning from Spanish ghetto inhabitants, apparently ghettos around the world are being emptied and the Espheni have a new super-scary weapon to track down escapees and everyone should just hide. There’s a brief discussion of authenticity and they believe it because it was sent out on 1776 megahz frequency which is the American date of independence so clearly meant for them

That’s right, these Spanish escapees, in Spain, talking about lots of European and North African ghettoes have designed a broadcast aimed at the Americans and thankfully knew enough American history to code it. Really.

Everyone argues about what to do. Pope is an arsehole (which surprises no-one). Tom makes a big damn speech. Pope mocks him about who is going to be fool enough to fly the Beamer – the answer is Tom. Of course it’s Tom. Was there ever a chance it wasn’t going to be Tom?

Race on Falling Skies: Part 2. White Heroes, POC Sabotage

We have previously written about Race on Falling Skies back in 2012. Since then, Falling Skies has had several more seasons and the plot has, well, I’ll use the word “advanced” though possibly “drunkenly blundered around stomping all over it’s past canon” may be more accurate.

Among the many things on this show that have not got better, the depiction of POC is certainly one of them. In fact, the latest season of Falling Skies should probably have the subtitle: The Heroics of White Men and How People of Colour Screw Them Up. It’s a sadly prevailing theme that has permeated the season as the heroic leadership of the Masons keeps tripping over POC getting in their way, being helpless, being problems and making bad decisions - and paying for those bad decisions. After all, the Masons constantly make bad decisions but rarely do they face any repercussions for that and their foolishness is often presented as heroism (I bring up, again, Tom Mason’s little trip on alien ships which he has now repeated). The POC on the show don’t benefit from his plot warping

Take Anne Glass. Anne is the most prominent POC on the show and she’s certainly stepped beyond her role of lurking in the background, bandaging the wounded. But her new role as semi-leader (at least until Tom returned) has not been good for her. Her overwhelming obsession has been towards finding, protecting and saving Lexi, her daughter. That’s not necessarily a bad thing or an unrealistic motivation - but it is used as an excuse to remove all common sense from her character. When looking for Lexi her followers beg her to slow down as she’s driving them all to exhaustion - she even pushes herself so constantly that she forgets to eat and sleep and actually collapses. She’s emotional and out of control - attacking and killinga  Skitter and nearly killing Deni in the process (despite, as a doctor, probably having a better idea of the consequences of that than anyone else). She repeats that and badly hurts Ben when she attacks the Overlord - repeating exactly the same mistake a second time with other people being hurt because of it.. She isn’t effective, she’s driven and determined - but she isn’t sensible, she doesn’t really achieve anything and she puts herself and others in danger while she pursues her drive.

When they find Lexi, she is one of the most ardent defenders and champions of her, ignoring all evidence that Lexi may actually be a problem. Yes, this is something every Mason but Hal are also in on, but Anne is the most determined and the least willing to listen to reason. In fact, after Lexi comes out of the cocoon and kills Lourdes and after Ben follows Lexi and discovers she’s actually performing vicious, mutating experiments on humans, he and Tom both come to realise that Lexi is a dangerous threat. Anne does not. Anne continues to be focused on Lexi - and demands everyone else be as well, actually being angry with Tom because he’s not willing to throw away the lives of all of the survivors to chase after their daughter who they have overwhelming evidence is dangerous and a threat.

Tom supports Lexi but sees the truth and has the chance to change his mind, be cautious and be sensible. Anne does not - in fact, her continued blinkered faith in Lexi is an opportunity for Tom to show how sensible he is, to redeem his past mistake and do it by talking Anne down. Anne’s stubborn refusal to deal with reality is an opportunity for Tom to reassert why he’s a leader.

Falling Skies, Season 4, Episode 9: Till Death Do Us Part

So lunar panels. Yes, lunar panels, the gang has found panels that glow in moonlight. Though not actually moonlight (because that would be a stretch even for Falling Skies) but from a power sourc being beamed from the moon – the little green light they keep seeing.

Clearly this was a recent development because a whole lot of storylines in past episodes would become dubious and… gah, I’m expecting consistency from Falling Skies again aren’t I?

Anyway, this explains why the Volm can’t find the elusive power source, because they’re looking on the wrong celestial body. Cochise sneezes over this, or possibly curses in volmian. Anyway, the power core on the moon powers everything on the whole world – so we assume it works even when the moon is on the other side of the planet. We know this because Tom et al have decided it does. Though for all they know the Espheni in Australia could be burning koalas in giant koala power plants. (Hey, don’t mock, it makes as much sense as your average Falling Skies storyline)

Tom decides the solution to this is to go to the moon and blow it up. As you do. Naturally other people sensibly point out the rather blatant impossibility of that task but he’s sure they can

Personally I think the Volm can. C’mon, they don’t have the tech and vehicles to get to the moon? Or have they been abandoned without one single ship?

Apparently the Volm are all out of ships so they’re going to use the beamer they have – that would be the one they SHOT DOWN (therefore not flyable, because if it where it would still be flying and not, y’know, SHOT DOWN) and is now buried and made of alien tech which they have to learn how to repair, programme and steer – and they don’t even know if it is actually space going or just an atmospheric craft

This is their plan.

No, really.

It’s Falling Skies.

The next day Maggie joins clearing the rubble, transitioning over her alien spikiness but seeming to have no hostility for Hal. She has to adapt to her sudden alien super strength though – and nearly hitting Sarah with rubble. Pope is, predictably, an arsehole. Ben arrives to offer Maggie superspike training and to add to the sexual tension.

Pope follows Sarah where she’s wandered off to find something for her wrist and finds her with a box of pills, something she had said she was going to stop in her big dramatic “hey this funeral needs to be more about me” speech last episode. So, relationship drama!

Anne is helping, she doesn’t agree with Tom but she’s willing to go ahead since everyone else is willing to go with it and it’s giving them some level of hope. There’s also Lexi angst – Anne is mad at Tom because he’s doing something other than search for Lexi (not reasonable) and because he has an idea and everyone is expected to step into line (much more reasonable). They have an argument about faith vs hope (and Anne upset that Tom doesn’t have faith that their evil daughter isn’t evil despite all the evil she’s evilling).

To help with the digging, Cochise has a hidden supply cache that may help (hiding supply caches is something he picked up from human history, apparently, and not a rather basic military tactic of a warrior race…)

Falling Skies, Season 4 Episode 8: A Thing With Feathers

So last episode a lot of people died who I didn’t really care about. In the aftermath, the survivors (who I don’t really care about either) now emerge from their bunker. Thankfully the Espheni didn’t search very hard with their army of agile skitters and the not-very-hidden bunker wasn’t found.

They search the ruins for survivors, finding many bodies (and Pope finds a wounded Skitter – which Sarah insists on finishing off rather than Pope.)

Ben wakes up as Lexi’s prisoner among the Espheni where they can hear the screams of people held captive (but Lexi is still on team Espheni? Yup, evil). She calls all the screaming a “peaceful solution”. It’s the e3volution of the species to have humans imprisoned and experimented upon. Did I mention she was evil. Ben finally tells her that what she is planning is genocide, is extinction – at last someone said it to her! She uses his spikes to control him and he gasps “you’re going to kill me like you killed Lourdes” as he collapses, bleeding from his eyes. She tries to spin her evil and Ben tells her he’s making him her slave, just like the Espheni did. She says she still wants to be family and he walks away from her.

Hal finds Maggie and she’s alive (I’m shocked. Truly. This is my shocked face. Just look at how shocked it is).  They get Maggie to Anne for treatment but Anne tells Hal that Maggie is paralysed due to spinal cord damage. To cure her they talk to Cochise who suggests taking super-healer serum out of Deni’s spikes and injecting it into Maggie – which could kill both of them. Deni agrees but Anne won’t go ahead without Maggie’s say-so. Maggie is unwilling to have alien DNA injected into her despite Hal begging her to.

Hal lies to Anne about her refusal. She’s too out of it to stop Anne from injecting the fluid. After the procedure, Maggie is so weak that Anne doesn’t think she can survive and Hal cries and admits he lied – Anne says she would have done the same for Tom. While they’re all sad, Ben returns and tells Anne about Lexi’s lovely genocide plot and how impossible it is to rescue her – and even if they could, it’s pointless because Lexi is gone, there is only Espheni. Ben also suggests using a full spike transplant on Maggie to save her – Anne is all angry and stompy (curse you Ben and your truth telling!) and is worried that a full pike extraction would kill Ben (since just removing the fluid hurt Deny a lot). Ben insists and with Volm tech they remove the spikes (which are wiggly living things). She gets three before she worried about Ben. Maggie and Ben’s spikes glow and they start synchronised seizing

Under the rubble Tom is alive (no, really, this is my shocked expression honest) and even buried under 10 tonnes of rocks he manages to be the big damn hero, pulling Botha out from under a slab. On the surface Weaver organises the digging while Pope declares Tom is dead and Matt leaps at him for the suggestion. Even Pope recognises that talking about a kid’s dad being dead while he’s present is not a nice thing to do.

Falling Skies, Season 4, Episode 7: Saturday Night Massacre

Anne is still bonding with her evil collaborator alien child in her evil cocoon which is so dangerous that the Volm have fled the area and if there were any sense in this world everyone would be dead 10 times over for continuing to make ridiculous decisions like this over and over and over again.

Alas, this is Falling Skies so there is no sense in this world at all. Or coherency. Or even consistent canon.

Yes, this show is beginning to annoy me. Ah well, let the hot mess continue

The cocoon opens, alas, I thought we were going to get at least a few episodes without Lexi’s tortured logic. Lexi emerges with different coloured eyes

Really, you went through an entire cocoon scare for the sake of a new set of contacts? Most dramatic aliens, ever!

She emerges all angry because humans can’t let go of their hatred (because she is still ignoring the whole alien invasion thing and because this is Falling Skies absolutely no-one even tries to challenge her). She’s going to find a family that’s not so filled with violence

Someone kill her. Please. Espheni, human, volm, I don’t even care – I’d even applaud Pope at this point if I didn’t have to listen to one more of her ridiculous arguments.

She decides to leave talking about how terribad and violent the humans are, followed by Lourdes the eternal sycophant. She decides to take Lourdes with her – by draining her. When Pope decides to try and shoot her, she freezes everyone. Lourdes falls, dead, bleeding from the eyes and Lexi calls her free

So, we’re going full on woo-woo here? Because this has kind of left sci-fi aliens and gone full out psychics and magic. And can we finally accept that Lexi is evil and everyone was right about her needing to die in the cocoon?

Lots of sadness over Lourdes death and everyone remembering they’re supposed to care about her (but no-one skinning the Masons for letting the monster escape). Finally, Hal manages to get in a decent “I told you so” (seriously, to even begin to redeem this hot mess of a show, I’m going to a need a lot of this) He storms off and Anne tries to say he’s wrong (damn it Anne!) but Tom at least acknowledges that he rather epicly failed in his promise to deal with Lexi if she came out dangerous. Anne keeps depending Lexi while Tom at least seems faintly open to considering the fact her daughter is the enemy. She wants to save Lexi – and Tom to help her with it (how many more people die while they figure that out?)