As indicated by the ominous, albeit incredibly creepy cool third season key art that TNT recently released in anticipation of the upcoming third season, the peace and tranquility fought for during last summer’s second season finale of FALLING SKIES was probably too good to be true. Confirming our suspicions, was none other than executive producer Remi Aubuchon who recently took some time at WonderCon to share a bit of intel action, adventure, mystery and romance is in store for fans this summer. See for yourself, after the jump.
What can you share about the new species of aliens that were introduced at the end of Season 2?
REMI: Obviously it was a heartbeat of a moment at the end of the second season with this new alien that showed up, and our characters ask the question that hopefully we’re all asking, which is: “What the hell?! Haven’t we had enough aliens for a couple of seasons?” These aliens already appear different than the aliens that have invaded our planet and we have to hope that there is some hope on the ways. So what I think we’ll see because we have the amazing Doug Jones playing that alien is that we’ll learn more about what is actually happening and why the Espheni or the Overlords or the Skitters are on our planet in the first place. We want answers. I know me as a fan, I always want answers, but I don’t want answers spoon-fed to me. I want to discover them along with the characters. I always think that’s more fun to do that then all of a sudden have a long “Star Wars” scroll, which was very innovative at the time, but now is not what fans really want – and to figure out exactly what it is that these new aliens are going to bring us. Are they really going to help us? One thing I also don’t mind telling you is we start the 3rd season 7 months after the end of the 2nd season. So in a fun way we have to catch up to everything that’s happened in the last 7 months and a lot has happened, and we try to do that as efficiently as possible in the first returning episode. But even more and more stuff will be revealed and hopefully we will be processing it like the characters are processing it. Like we’re given a lot of information, a lot of things are changing. Like what the heck’s going on with Hal? What’s Tom going to do? Are they going to stay in Charleston? Are they going to leave? What’s going to happen? We’ll know all of this and we’ll know pretty quickly, but we’re still going to have to process the implications and ramifications of it, which will be fun.
What are the new aliens called?
REMI: They are called the Volm.
What was the inspiration for that name?
REMI: It’s a challenge to come up with new aliens. We’ve been seeing them for a long time and I will even say that it is a bigger challenge for me to pitch new aliens to Steven Spielberg, who is the expert of all aliens and many who work at Dreamworks believe that Steven has actually met aliens – and I wouldn’t be surprised. (Laughs) So we really have to work overtime to make sure that things feel different and unique — and yet at the same time there’s only so many aliens you can do. So one of the things we tried to do was make sure that the Volm are very different from the Espheni and that they have a different culture and we worked very, very hard. We have an amazing science advisor, Kevin Grazier, who a lot of us worked with on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and CAPRICA and he literally did a 3-dimensional map of the universe for us to point out exactly where all these aliens have come from, what they are, how they would be different, and stuff like that. He worked really hard on it.
In the first episode back, will we find out if the Volm are friend or foe?
REMI: Yes, we will. That does not necessarily mean that we will trust that information. But we will definitely feel if they are our ally or enemies.
Why did you feel it was necessary to do a time-jump between the 2nd and 3rd seasons?
REMI: There were a couple of reasons. First of all, it’s always fun to do a time-jump, both from a writing point of view and a viewer’s point of view. As you know, Anne (Moon Bloodgood) is pregnant. So a part of it was we didn’t want to go through an entire season with Anne being pregnant. We wanted to get past that as quickly as possible and open up a whole story there. Second, we wanted to bring Tom’s (Noah Wyle) character along further. Also the mythology seemed to ask for it because how many details do you want watching it build up to a certain point.
Is that to increase the show’s momentum again?
REMI: Yes, exactly. I also think there’s a fun thing in that. Like BATTLESTAR GALACTICA pushed ahead a year, and you suddenly realize Baltar has messed up the entire thing. So it’s like you can go from there and backtrack what’s happened. It’s a fun storytelling technique sometimes.
What was the thinking behind Hal’s (Drew Roy) parasite?
REMI: Part of it is the character that Drew Roy has created for Hal. He leads with his heart. He’s always there. He’s the first one in to fight. He’s just such a good Boy Scout and that just seems like a prime target to mess that up and invest some sort of evil thing in it. And Drew, just in that one scene, took that wonderful guy Hal that we love so much and twisted him on the side. That will be an interesting adventure. It will put all the other characters through hell. 
To see if the new aliens going to help or hinder the 2nd Mass, be sure to tune in for the 2-hour premiere of the 3rd season of FALLING SKIES on Sunday, June 9th at 9:00 p.m. on TNT.
Tiffany Vogt is the Senior West Coast Editor, contributing as a columnist and entertainment reporter to TheTVaddict.com. She has a great love for television and firmly believes that entertainment is a world of wondrous adventures that deserves to be shared and explored – she invites you to join her. Please feel free to contact Tiffany at Tiffany_Vogt_2000@yahoo.com or follow her at on Twitter (@TVWatchtower).