Hybrid mystery bugs, a love triangle, and Tom’s new “rage” mentality that is sure to complicate things even further?! Yes, please! Season 5 has already hooked us and is well underway with two episodes down and only eight more to go until the series finale. (*Tear and Heavy Sigh*)

So, needless to say, we had a lot to cover today at Comic-Con’s Falling Skies: The Final Farewell panel. The panel was packed with producer and director, Olatunde Osunsanmi, and actors, Noah Wyle, Moon Bloodgood, Doug Jones, Conner Jessup, Colin Cunningham, Sarah Carter, and Drew Roy. We learned the cast and crew’s thoughts on, not only some of their favorite moments from the series thus far, but also, some of why we can expect to see in this fifth and final season.

Panel Highlights

• 

  Wyle discussed how the show’s pattern of consistently taking on new showrunners made the show “a bit atypical.” He said that the new characters always move the show in a new direction, changing the tone and structure.
• “I always new we’d come to this final battle but the road to how we got there has not been a straight one,” Wyle said.

Some of the actors discussed what they love about their characters:

• Carter said that she loves how mysterious Maggie is. Then! She said that she was excited to move on from the love triangle. Ah ha! The audience rumbled with excitement and Carter confirmed that, “She does pick [Hal or Ben].”
• Roy said that Hal has been on an “incredible journey” and loved that he has changed into “someone you look to instead of someone you look at.”
• Bloodgood talked about her character, Anne. She said that she still doesn’t “know who exactly [Anne] is.” But she said that she really loves how Anne moved from being maternal in the beginning of the show to now finding her “warrior” and more determined.
• Ben!” “Hal!” audience members called.
• Jessup talked about how much he loves his cast-mates. He said, “They seem like family to me in the same way that they are family to my character.”

• 

  Wyle wholeheartedly agreed, adding that when you are a part of a good cast and crew, the relationships you make are more valuable than anything else.
• Wyle was asked if he took anything with him when he left the show. He said that he took all of Tom’s clothes. Especially “his jackets.” He also said that he really wanted to take a Skitter and everyone laughed.
• Jones discussed how much he loves Cochise and what it has been like developing his character. He said that he has really enjoyed getting to understand Cochise and his father. He said that getting to explore their father/son relationship was a highlight for him.
• Wyle discussed where Tom’s “head is at” in this final season.
• “He came back as a different guy this year,” Wyle began. He discussed how Weaver was the militarist and Tom was the “humanist,” the professor, when the show started and now they have done “a bit of a transference.” Wyle shared that he feels that Tom has become more cold and strategic and is “amped up” after his journey through space. He said that Tom really believes that the “only way to succeed is to put [their] humanity on a shelf” and that it will take the help of the other characters to bring him out of that mentality.

Footage

We were shown three short videos at the panel:

The first video was a short montage of some of the greatest moments from the last four seasons. So fun and sentimental. Lots of sighs and excitement swarmed around me as this video played.

The second was a video of exciting things to come in the next episode! It was soooooo good, you guys! In an effort to not give away anything, I will just say that there is an amazingly intense scene with Ben, Maggie, and Tom that will change everything.

Major communication with aliens here, friends. Major.

The third video was a very short video of what is to come in the final season… Epic battle scenes, an execution scene that gave me goosebumps, swarms of bugs, insane explosions, and the most ominous voice you’ve ever heard say, “Exterminate all of them.”

It’s going to be awesome.

Audience Q&A

Q: What was your favorite scene?

A: Wyle and Roy shared a hilarious story about an explosion scene they did together in the pilot episode. They said that they were supposed to dive through a barricade right as it explodes. However, according to Roy, the floor was wet and he slipped, taking down Wyle who, in turn, took down a camera man.

Roy laughed that everyone was yelling that the crew member who was ready to set off the explosion, “No! STOP! Don’t blow it!”

Wyle laughed and added that he had seen Roy getting ready for the scene, doing pushups and jogging. He said that he thought, “He’s not going to get the best of me!” So Wyle said that he also did pushups and went jogging. “I’ve never been that sore,” Wyle said, laughing with the audience.

Furthermore, he said that the next morning, he came down from the hotel to the director and producers huddled together. When he approached them, they regretfully turned to him and explained that there had been a “problem in a lab” and they had lost all of the explosion footage.

Ughhhh….

So they were forced to shoot the entire scene over. “If you look at my face in the pilot, I’m in pure agony!” Wyle said.

Jessup also shared a fun story about a time when he had to jump from a building during a battle scene with Skitters. He said that he was hooked up to wires but he was too afraid to let go. He said that in the footage, you could see his hand up, holding the wire. “They had to C.G. a knife in my hand!” Jessup said.

“Yes young man do you have a question?” Wyle asked as a young boy as he stepped up to the microphone.

Q: There’s a lot of action in the show. Do you get to improv at all in action scenes?

Wyle grinned and said, “For those of you who don’t know. That’s my son.”

The crowd cheered and Wyle’s son graciously smiled and waved to the audience.

Wyle then went on to answer the question, saying that the action scenes are “meticulously” planned and rehearsed. He said that there can’t be improv in those scenes because everything has to be so precise in order to insure that everything is done well and safely.

Q: The show asks a lot of deep and philosophical questions about humanity. Has Falling Skies set the bar for you in terms of the emotional depth you want to work with in the future?

A: Wyle rounded out the panel with, in my humble opinion, a super fantastic answer.

He said that he didn’t really understand that genre “is harder than comedy and drama.” He said that it “takes huge attention to detail because [the details are] what make it believable.”

“I never understood the complexity and the depth of the material until I got involved with it,” Wyle continued, saying that he now loves genre writing and would “love to work with genre more to explore it in depth further.”