Friday July 19, 2013. 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. Room 6BCF. Cast: Colin Cunningham, Will Patton, Maxim Knight, Noah Wyle, Moon Bloodgood, Doug Jones, Connor… Read More »COMIC-CON NEWS: FALLING SKIES Panel With 2nd Mass & Cochise
TNT ordered a fourth season of sci-fi summer hit Falling Skies today with [12] new episodes to be filmed in Vancouver under a new showrunner David Eick (Battlestar Galactica). Shot here since the second season, this series about a small band of insurgents fighting against an occupying alien force remains the top summer drama on basic cable in the U.S., averaging almost 6 million weekly viewers after DVR playback is counted.
It’s a family show in a post-apocalyptic setting featuring Tom Mason (Noah Wyle) and his three sons — the eldest Hal (heartthrob Drew Roy), once-harnassed middle son Ben (Connor Jessup) and youngest son Matt (Maxim Knight) — and now one baby daughter with pediatrician Anne Glass (Moon Bloodgood). Other surviving resistance fighters in the 2nd Mass (Boston insurgent group named after the 2nd Massachusetts of the American Revolution) include Captain Weaver (Will Patton), Maggie (Sarah Carter) and frenemy John Pope (Colin Cunningham).
Related: Noah Wyle & Will Patton Shoot Dream Sequence in Gastown
Perennial Saturn Awards (sci-fi, fantasy & horror) winner Fringe gets a final hurrah this year with a nomination as Best Network Television Series and individual nominations for Joshua Jackson as Best Actor, Anna Torv as Best Actress, John Noble as Best Supporting Actor and Blair Brown and Lance Reddick as Best Guest Stars. Fringe won Best Network Television Series in 2010 and 2011 so it could go out with a three-peat. Anna Torv already has a three-peat with Best Actress on TV awards in 2009, 2010, and 2011. John Noble got the win as Best Supporting Actor on TV in 2010. And Leonard Nimoy picked up Best Guest Actor on TV in 2009.
Other filmed-in-Vancouver productions scoring nominations include Once Upon a Time, Supernatural, The Killing, Falling Skies, Arrow and Vancouver’s own Continuum.
Best Network Television Series
Fringe, FOX
Falling Skies gives fans a heads-up on the remainder of its darker, second season filmed in Vancouver. Key members of the 2nd Massachusetts Militia Regiment,… Read More »FALLING SKIES 2nd Mass Resistance Takes a Stand at Comic-Con 2012
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