"Falling Skies" has reached its end with the season 5 finale officially closing the series. The final episode, "Reborn," saw Tom Mason (Noah Wyle) defeating the Espheni alien race after confronting their queen. However, the series' ending did not sit well with several critics and fan reviews.
In the finale episode, it was revealed that the reason the Espheni attacked Earth was because their queen sought revenge for her daughter who died during a previous invasion 1,500 years ago. Unfortunately, as pointed out in a review by Movie Pilot, this important information was dumped only at the last minute of the show.
Anne (Moon Bloodgood) died during the skirmish with the Espheni but the Dornia were able to bring her back and the only major death in the finale was that of Pope (Colin Cunningham) who conceded his defeat to Tom before he died, ending the feud between their sides.
The epilogue, which took place months later, revealed that Tom had declined to become humanity's new leader. Matt (Maxim Knight) went on to write a book about the war against the Espheni while Hal (Drew Roy) and Maggie (Sarah Sanguin Carter) were wed. The series officially ended with Tom giving a speech to the remaining humans.
Season 5 garnered an 83 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, indicating that many critics found the season generally favorable, although the audience score is significantly lower, down to only 65 percent. IGN gave the final episode a mediocre score of 6.3 out of 10 while Movie Pilot rated the finale much lower at just 4.5.
Most complaints are with regard to the numerous plot holes that littered the fifth season as well as the lack of a big-scale human-against-alien war that was apparently promised in the season 4 finale. The season still got positive reviews due to its strong opening.
