Friday, July 15, 2011

Can You Guess What's Missing From 'Falling Skies'?

As you TransGriot readers are aware of I'm a huge sci-fi fan.   When I heard about the Steven Spielberg produced TNT series Falling Skies I was eagerly looking forward to watching it.




Since tuning in to the show I like it, we're halfway through the initial ten episode run and Falling Skies has already been renewed by TNT for a second ten episode season.   But I'm one of those people who even if I'm watching a movie or a television show that is supposed to be escapist entertainment, my brain is engaged and asking the who, what, where, why, when and how questions.

And as a fiction writer, I'm on the alert for things that are out of place in a story or don't make sense.  .       

One of the questions I have been pondering besides the thin representations of POC's in this show is that another segment of humanity is missing from the survivors who make up the 2nd Massachusetts resistance fighters and civilians the show focuses on:  the TBLG community.

According to the backstory of Falling Skies 90% of humanity was wiped out in the alien attack and the story is set six months after it happened.

The 2nd Massachusetts is made up of survivors from the city of Boston, of which 12% of the population is made up of TBLG people. 

Boston is also one of the areas where we have a significant cluster of transpeople. Obviously the . Falling Skies aliens want all humans gone from this planet, so I find it highly unlikel;y and improbable that they would harbor the same prejudices against BTLG people to the point that every GLBT person in the Boston area was killed in the initial attack.

I would submit that there's a very real possibility there would be (or should be) TBLG survivors either in the 2nd Massachusetts they're focusing the series on or one of the other resistance groups. It also isn't a stretch to surmise that some of those LGBT people would either be fighters or have specialized skills or knowledge important to the continued survival of humanity.


Well, there are five more episodes left to go in this season's run, so I doubt that I'll see a TBLG minor character pop up in them.   Then again, who knows?  Maybe they'll create an episode in which a TBLG character has some significant info or tactical information on how to take the fight to the aliens critical to the success of the rebellion and peeps have to get over their phobias.

Then again, maybe it's my wishful thinking about that happening.

TransGriot Note:  Seems as though Renee noticed some of the issues I noticed about Falling Skies in her post about it at Women's Eye On Media.  






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