Steven Spielburg has made some great works of fiction on the big screen, but when it comes to television series, he seems very mediocre. We have had a lot of survival genre shows lately, many of which fall into the same realm, but unfortunately, he learned from none of their mistakes.

This show seems a lot like the walking dead, without the zombies and gore that made it cool. Instead we have aliens, with mechs and ships that seem to be far too powerful. Skipping anything that would help us feel sorry for these survivors, it just puts in the middle of their existence after the aliens attacked and conquered. Having something to show what they went through when the invasion occurred would of added so much more than the child's story that we got at the beginning.

Most of the characters seem like empty shells, other than Tom Mason (Noah Wyle) whom has a rich and detailed story, or not. We know enough about him to know that he had a decent life and lost a lot to get where he is and that he taught history, but that is where it ends. He has some family left, but they seem to be more of backdrops for his character, and not much else. He does seem like the only one with a brain though.

One thing I was surprised to see this series have was too many characters. Another science fiction survival series had this same issue, Stargate Universe, and we all know what happened to that one. Just as we finally knew enough about the characters to like them, the series got cancelled. From what I have seen for the character development for this series, we are heading towards very similar ground.

From what we know, we have the cruel military leader who wouldn't know a good idea if it blew off his danglies, a doctor who seems to be interested in Tom too much to be believable, Army dude 1, 2, 3 and 4, Tom's oldest son and his two flirting girlfriends, and his 8-year old brat. Sure they have names, but at this point, they don't seem worth naming. When we finally get a villain part way through The Armory, he is once again, generic TV Gang Leader 1. His type of character has been used so much in past shows that he it is expected in any series now. The only good part of his gang was Margaret (Sarah Carter) who seems to have more attitude than the rest of the cast combined. Now if they kill of a stupid character each episode and replace them with someone who can kick-ass, we might have a good cast by season 2.

Story wise, there isn't much to tell. Like any survival series, that is pretty much what they are doing. Look for food, look for weapons, escape the bad guys, get captured by some other bad guys, escape, continue surviving. Tom looking for his captured son seems to be only real thing worth mentioning, but that's due to it likely being a large part in the coming episodes.

The action seems well split up so that the episode doesn't seem to drag on too much, which is better than most shows created lately. Most of them are so short that if you get something to drink or go to the washroom while the show was on, you wouldn't even know they happened. They seem to be there just frequently and long enough to keep some viewers from falling asleep during the surviving parts.

So far, I'm not too impressed with this show, but there are some parts that show promise. Hopefully the coming episodes will have a bit more substance to them to keep people interested in it before it gets thrown on the pile with all the other almost forgotten survival tv series.