Unfortunately, I think the Skitters and their Espheni Overlords have fallen victim to budgetary constraints. The Overlords used to be enigmatically threatening in Season 2, but they haven't shown up at all this season. Human Overlord Karen herself has had less than 5 minutes of screen time.

Yeah, I'm not clear on how the Espheni organizational structure works. I was under the impression that she was promoted because there was some kind of memory transfer between her and the Overlord that Tom killed last season. I could be remembering wrong, or I misunderstood the events of the Molon Labe episode. I…

I'm wondering what happened to Charleston's previous doctor(s). Didn't Anne introduce herself to the existing medical staff when the 2nd Mass arrived at Charleston? I was under the impression those people had more training than Lourdes.

For me, the show is still sufficiently fun to watch regularly. I almost dropped it this season, but curiosity got the better of me, and it turns out the human characters aren't as insufferable as in prior seasons. I wish the character development was better, and I wish the plotting lived up to its narrative potential,…

Yep, the characterization on this show only elicits dismay on my part. The CGI aliens and tech are still the only selling point for me, and fortunately there is enough so far to keep me watching. The overall story also holds my interest well enough, though the actual execution of the plot can be eye-rollingly…

I liked this episode better than last week's solely for the plot movement. I can honestly say I wasn't bored (though some of the speechifying made me roll my eyes as usual). Part of the fun for me, however, was in some unintentional hilarity.

I don't mind the family-focus of this show; I accept that that's part of the package and I'm not gonna waste energy fighting it. For me, it's not the decency that's the problem; it's how the show presents its cloying, mawkish sentimentality. As you said, their character drama comes off as laughably small in light of…

I, too, don't understand what the Espheni are doing. The Volm landed on the planet last season (~8 months ago by the show's chronology), yet it doesn't look like the Overlords are doing anything about it. You'd think that a handful of Overlords would descend upon Charleston to deal with this major shift in the war ……

I found it entertaining. This was a forgettably mediocre but enjoyable C+ for me. Compared to last week's forgettably mediocre and onerously boring C- episode, this was faster-paced and had plot value.

I think the Espheni are the fishheads, and the spiderthings are just called Skitters. Perhaps Karen sucks at being an Overlord, and that's why the Skitters and Mechs are just kinda flailing at their strategies. You'd think that with the arrival of the Volm, the Overlords would congregate in the area and handle this…

It seems the grade has dropped down to a B+, so maybe the commentariat's reaction to this episode mitigated Les's enthusiasm for it.

Hmm, it looks like Les modified the letter grade down to a B+. I don't know when that happened, but let's pretend it happened after I posted.

Ahaha, yes, the knife fight brought up a West Side Story comparison for me as well. I wonder how much of the viewer base of this show knows West Side Story and reacted to that scene similarly. That whole fight was bizarre and out of place.

I had to re-watch the search party segments after reading the comments here. Normally, when I blank out on this show out of boredom, I'm not missing much. However, in this case, I apparently missed out on the hilarity of what they did with that woman's corpse.

Yeah that really only works when the tree trunk receives a significant amount of sunlight on one side. This certainly doesn't happen in the middle of a mountain forest where there is a lot of shade and moisture. The moss is bound to grow all over.

Hah! Pope should profit off his past by offering self-defense classes for rape victims. He can hand out flyers about What Not To Do When You're A Freak. Then he can leverage his training position to continue his abusive behavior.

Tom is intentionally poisoning Weaver in the hopes that he'll become a belligerent drunk who goes on a killing rampage. Weaver will then eliminate all the Masons in an alcohol-fueled murder spree and subsequently flee from Charleston. He'll seek out a new band of humans who can easily dispatch his drunken self, and…

I enjoy the show enough to keep tuning in weekly. Unlike Revolution, which I have willfully dropped from my viewing plate next season, this show still gives me enough of what I like to be entertained. However, in the case of this episode, I'm baffled it got an A- from the reviewer, LOL; it's a mediocre C- for me.

Hah! Well, I still really like the aliens, even though they're basically background fodder at this point. I keep hoping that the tide will turn and the Espheni will get their act together to actually become real characters. The aliens aren't even credible antagonists at this point, since the humans keep routing them.…

I have nothing to contribute to this discussion, so I'm just gonna say that I like how your entire second paragraph is one sentence! ^‿^ The show has trained me to tune out during large chunks of the episodes. In this particular case, I was mostly zoned out during the search party and burial scenes.