Skip to content

Drew Roy

Farewell to John Pope’s Harley, Destroyed in FALLING SKIES Season 2 Premiere -Updated

Who knew at a Falling Skies location shoot in Vancouver last November that we were seeing the last of  John Pope’s Harley, destroyed by a beamer that night in a scene for last week’s second season premiere? Or that this could be our first and last chance to see a 2nd Mass resistance attack on the alien invaders using  motorbikes?

Falling Skies crew turned the warehouses along Western Street near Pacific Central Station into a post-alien-invasion disaster zone dressed with ash, dried leaves, debris and overturned burnout cars for a scene of Colin Cunningham’s John Pope on his Harley rounding a corner from Northern Street onto Western Street, followed by new series regular Ryan Robbins’s Tector on a second bike. 2nd Mass’s new insurgent strategy was to ride the bikes fullout to draw fire from the aliens, so that the rest of the fighters could target the exposed Mechs and Skitters. I spotted the heads of Sarah Carter’s Maggie and Drew Roy’s Hal above the cab of the pickup truck as it headed towards watching fans on Western Street, and when they cleared out I spied Connor Jessup’s Ben and Dylan Authors’s Jimmy (someone I never thought I’d be lucky enough to see on location) in the back of the truck too. This must be the spot where the Harley was destroyed by the aliens, who’d learned to hone in on the heat of an engine. Sarah Carter’s Maggie and Drew Roy’s Hal started running  in our direction carrying their prop guns, as if escaping from some kind of explosion, followed by the others, including Peter Sinkoda’s Dai and Mpho Koaho’s Anthony. I’m not familiar with the actors who play Beserkers yet.

I wish I’d stayed on in the bitter cold that night to see the beamer explosion with its blinding white flash and noise, which scared cast and crew alike, who hadn’t expected anything of that magnitude. I also missed the filming of a scene of Colin Cunningham’s John Pope shooting his gun at the sky next to his Harley in flames. Poor man.

But I can’t really complain much since Colin Cunnigham, the star of this long night shoot, took time out to come over and talk to us early on, posing for photos with everyone who wanted one.

Colin Cunningham and Ryan Robbins round the corner from Northern Street onto Western Street on  motorcycles.

Read More »Farewell to John Pope’s Harley, Destroyed in FALLING SKIES Season 2 Premiere -Updated

BIG READ: Darker Season 2 of FALLING SKIES Filmed in Vancouver

Published April 5, 2012 on Vancouver is Awesome

The second season of sci-fi summer hit Falling Skies takes place three months after Noah Wyle‘s father of three boys boarded an alien spacecraft in a bid to protect his middle son. It’s said to be an even darker look at the trials and tribulations of a small band of insurgents fighting against an occupying alien force which has killed most of the world’s adults and captured their children. So it’s appropriate they filmed it in Vancouver over the fall and winter durng our Rainocalypse, instead of in the Toronto area over the summer and fall in the mainly sunny weather of season one.

Noah Wyle (from ER) is former History professor Tom Mason, the civilian second-in-command of a Boston insurgent group named after the 2nd Massachusetts of the American Revolution and made up of about 300 fighters and civilians. Mason, whose wife was killed in the initial attack, has three sons —  Hal, played by Drew Roy, and Ben and Matt, played by  Connor Jessup and Maxim Knight.  Middle son Ben has been captured by the insectoid multi-legged aliens known as Skitters and harnessed. These harnesses are attached to the children’s spines and act as some kind of biomechancial device that allows the aliens to control their minds. Much of the first season is spent trying to get Ben back and to figure out how to remove his harness without killing him. But even when they do get the harness off Ben, it’s clear he’s not free from alien mind control. And that’s why his father boards the alien spaceship in the season one finale to find a way to protect Ben and stop the harnessing of kids.

This is the family show in a post-apocalyptic setting that legendary director Steven Spielberg had envisioned. Other key civilians are Moon Bloodgood as pediatrician Anne Glass and Seychelle Gabrielle as Lourdes, who’ve formed a makeshift medical clinic for the group. Will Patton is Captain Dan Weaver, the military leader of the 2nd Mass and Mpho Koaho as Thomas (a former Boston cop) and Peter Shinkoda as Dai are two of its best fighters. Jesse Schram is Karen Nadler, who starts off as Ben’s girlfriend and fellow scout until she is captured and harnessed. Sarah Carter‘s Maggie takes her place on the frontlines of 2nd Mass and maybe as Ben’s girlfriend too in the upcoming season.

Maggie happens to be the survivor of a gang of marauders headed up by Colin Cunningham’s charismatic and wickedly funny John Pope, an ex-con who causes mayhem wherever he goes, nicknaming Tom Mason, “Papa Smurf”; Karen, “Sexy Freedom Fighter”; Hal. “Strapping Young Man”; Anthony, “Black….Looks Like a Gangbanger”; and Dai, “Oriental of Some Kind” when they’re briefly in his custody early on. No one has better lines than Pope in this series, like his protest, “What am I? Canada”, when his 2nd Mass captors insist he go unarmed on a sortee. Here is Cunningham in character as John Pope on set in Vancouver.

At the Falling Skies panel at the Emerald City ComicCon last Friday in Seattle, new showrunner Remi Aubuchon (an SGU Stargate Universe writer/producer) and cast Colin Cunningham (SG-1’s Major Paul Davis) and Drew Roy talked about the upcoming second season and showed a three-minute teaser The Resistance Continues.

Noah Wyle’s Tom Mason has not been seen or heard from in three months. Many of 2nd Mass have died Read More »BIG READ: Darker Season 2 of FALLING SKIES Filmed in Vancouver