99 Words About … The horrible dialogue of TNT’s ‘Falling Skies’

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With all the millions spent on aliens, spaceships and the post-apocalyptic wasteland of “Falling Skies” (9 p.m. Sunday, TNT), producers couldn’t set something aside for a wordsmith?

When a risk-averse cable channel gambles this big, you want to root for it. But a good quarter of the dialogue just makes that ricochet noise as it clangs off your ears.

The result is like putting lipstick on a pig. And then asking it to write dialogue.

Which is fitting, because even with Noah Wyle’s teacher-turned-soldier no longer cramming a history lesson into each scene, nearly every detail still feels ham-handed.

– CHRISTOPHER LAWRENCE