Steven Spielberg's 5-Season Sci-Fi Show Is The Walking Dead With Aliens

Published Sep 16, 2026, 7:00 PM EDT

Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock.

Sign in to your ScreenRant account

Steven Spielberg has become synonymous with movies. He’s directed a handful of everyone’s favorite films: Jaws, E.T., Close Encounters, the Indiana Jones trilogy, Jurassic Park. Spielberg is responsible for some of the most iconic visuals ever put on the big screen, from E.T. flying past a full moon to the girl in the red coat in Schindler’s List, but he’s not a snob about the small screen; he’s done some great work in television, too.

The seminal suspense thriller that put Spielberg on the map — 1971’s Duel, about a commuter being relentlessly pursued by a truck — was originally a made-for-TV movie (although it did eventually make its way into theaters). Spielberg executive-produced Band of Brothers, arguably the single greatest miniseries ever made, and later worked on underrated gems like Terra Nova, Under the Dome, and United States of Tara. He directed episodes of Night Gallery, Amazing Stories, and Columbo, and he developed a TV sequel to Minority Report.

In 2011, Spielberg produced Falling Skies for TNT. Falling Skies takes the conceit of The Walking Dead — an ensemble drama about survivors banding together after the end of the world — and swaps out a zombie apocalypse for an alien invasion. All the tropes of The Walking Dead are there, but the supernatural threat is the arrival of malicious aliens, not the bloodthirsty undead.

Falling Skies Is A Better Spielberg UFO Adventure Than Disclosure Day

Created by Saving Private Ryan screenwriter Robert Rodat, Falling Skies takes place in the aftermath of an alien invasion that left Earth devastated. We follow a group of survivors who fled Boston to form the Massachusetts Militia Regiment. As with The Walking Dead, that high-concept premise is just there to set the human drama against an exciting backdrop.

What made The Walking Dead work so well, especially in its heyday, is that it was essentially a soap opera with zombies. It was all about the messy personal lives of these characters. Yes, they had to keep an eye out for zombies, but their main concern was each other. They didn’t just want to survive; they wanted to live.

The success of The Walking Dead led to a lot of knockoffs, but most of them were more focused on the action and the horror than the drama — take Z Nation, for instance — but Falling Skies recaptured the focus on human emotions and relationships. Spielberg returned to the concept of alien visitors earlier this summer with his latest film, Disclosure Day, but it ended up being an underwhelmingly generic chase movie with a very old-fashioned view of UFO conspiracies. Falling Skies proved to be a much more satisfying Spielbergian alien adventure than Disclosure Day.

Falling Skies Is A Must-See For Fans Of The Pitt

If you love The Pitt and can’t wait for season 3, you need to check out Falling Skies. The Pitt relaunched Noah Wyle’s career, putting him back in an emergency room years after his breakout role in ER, but he made a non-hospital-based show in the interim. Between his time as Dr. Carter in ER and his time as Dr. Robby in The Pitt, Wyle played Falling Skies’ Rick Grimes character, Tom Mason.

Tom is a former history professor who became the third-in-command of the Massachusetts Militia Regiment following the invasion. Much like Rick, he’s both a fierce leader we can all look up to and a vulnerable everyman we can all relate to. Wyle was the perfect casting choice; he’s got the confidence to lead, as we’ve seen with his turn as Dr. Robby, but he’s got the relatable charms of a regular guy. If you can’t wait until January for another shift at The Pitt, check out Falling Skies and enjoy Dr. Robby’s crusade against the alien invaders.

• 

  Thomas 'Tom' Mason

• 

  Moon Bloodgood

  Dr. Anne Glass

Falling Skies is a science fiction television series beginning amidst the aftermath of an alien invasion, leaving Earth devastated. Six months post-invasion, survivors, including former history professor Tom Mason, form resistance groups outside cities to combat the alien occupiers.