Falling Skies Debuts to Solid Ratings

TNT launched its new original series Falling Skies last night to encouraging results. The premiere, which included two hour long episodes, collected 5.9 million viewers and a 2.0 rating in the 18-49 demo. Though the show wasn’t particularly engaging and felt flat with some dialogue and special effects it has promise. The backing of Steven Spielberg will buy it some time to develop. It now shifts to its regular time of 10pm on Sundays.

Falling Skies is being compared to another post-apocalyptic show in The Walking Dead. Zombies seem to have the edge over aliens these days and an already built-in fan base helped AMC garner record numbers. In comparison Falling Skies brought in more total viewers – not completely surprising given TNT vs AMC – but was 35% lower in the critical 18-49 demographic.