By Brian Williams | 8 years ago

Good news Noah Wyle fans! If you just can’t get enough of the history professor turned freedom fighter living in a world conquered by space crabs, then you’re in luck. TNT has renewed Falling Skies for a third season. That means at least one more season of Tom Mason looking constantly bewildered, one more season of Pope being the bad guy then the good guy, then the bad guy again, and one more season of Captain Weaver making really bad military decisions.

According to Variety, the season 2 premiere of Falling Skies pulled in a whopping 5.5 million viewers. The Stephen Spielberg produced TV show has managed to pull an audience by dangling the mystery of why the aliens invaded Earth like a half-eaten carrot without giving any real clues as to what is going on for the entire first season. Ratings indicate that the audience is still trotting along waiting to take a bite. While the first episode this season didn’t really deliver on the promise of a big revelation that the season 1 finale set up, the subsequent episodes have introduced some interesting story developments which promise to widen the scope of the conflict (such as a Skitter rebellion and a new American Government).

Even though the show itself still has yet to offer any reason behind the invasion, at the recent SETICon this past June, science advisor Kevin Grazier did offer a couple of clues, one hopeful and one ambiguous. Grazier said that when he came to work for the Falling Skies’ 2nd season he told them up front that if the aliens were here for our natural resources then he’d quit on the spot (his storied career working for Battlestar Galactica not withstanding, this made me want to give him a high five), he’s still working for them so I guess we have the answer to that question. He went on to say that he looked very carefully into real astronomical data about where the aliens come from and that the location itself would provide a neat answer as to why they were here. As neat as these tidbits of info are, Grazier also said that we may not get into any of that until season three, so I guess it’s a good thing the show got renewed.

Just in case you were wondering what an alien Invasion would look like in your neighborhood, go here to see Skitters blow up your house in google streetview. Falling Skies airs Sunday nights on TNT.