TNT TV Show Sets Series in Acton: Hollywood-Acton

Skies Are Falling in Acton. Metaphorically speaking, of course, but it’s still worth checking out.

Falling Skies, a new alien-invasion series on TNT, has its early episodes set in our neck of the woods, with some pivotal scenes set right in Acton—Hollywood’s version of it, anyway.

The show begins six months after a worldwide takeover (and ensuing human massacre) by spiderlike aliens called “skitters” and follows the survival efforts of a history professor, Tom Mason (Noah Wyle), and a hastily created militia that calls itself the Second Massachusetts. The local setting makes the historical metaphors evident fairly quickly—a character compares the survivors to the Native Americans and the aliens to the neverending tide of Europeans—and according to a NYTimes.com review, history buffs will know that Acton’s militiamen took the lead in the first battle of the Revolutionary War.

It won’t take locals very long to recognize that this is not “our” Acton, with all uncertainty eliminated completely when the militia gathers with a group of criminals at the fictitious John F. Kennedy High School. But whether its ties are truly local, Falling Skies shows promise as an intriguing and suspenseful summer show that offers its fair share of executive producer Steven Spielberg’s trademark humanity—and creepiness.

Falling Skies is on TNT on Sundays at 10 p.m. and is also available at www.tnt.tv