{alltv} Spielberg's alien outlook darkens in 'Falling Skies'

Steven Spielberg has always been curious about what's out there.

The Oscar-winning director, who explored the idea of extraterrestrial life in E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind and War of the Worlds, tackles the topic again as executive producer of TNT's Falling Skies (Sunday, 9 ET/PT), a series that follows a band of survivors after an alien invasion and occupation. "It was just a very deep interest I had, based on my father's interest in astronomy and getting interested in the stars when I was a boy," he says. As a filmmaker, "I was able to put that wonder to good use."

It's difficult to imagine there aren't beings elsewhere in the vastness. "I have a harder time embracing the absence of intelligent life in the universe than I do accepting it."

What that life might be like is a matter of imagination, but the malevolent occupiers of Skies are far from from the friendly visitors of some earlier films. "A lot of people think that I started out as somebody who had very benign feelings toward visitors from outer space. I still have those feelings," he says. "But if you ask an actor 'Would you rather be the hero or the villain?' the actor will say, 'Let me read the villain's lines.' … I feel the same way about aliens. Sometimes, it's a little more fun to write for the bad dudes."

In Skies, alien attacks have reduced mankind to pockets of survivors, including the 2nd Massachusetts regiment, a ragtag mix of military and civilians with a Boston history professor (Noah Wyle) as one of its leaders. They move about the countryside, avoiding and sometimes battling alien threats in the form of Skitters, powerful, multi-legged biological forms that Spielberg likens to spiders, and Mechs, their robotic attack troops.

Spielberg is intrigued by post-apocalyptic stories and the drama of rebuilding civilization. (Renewal is also a theme in another new Spielberg series, Terra Nova this fall on Fox.)

"One of the things we all discussed was the most exciting event should be something as small as having to go to a Food King to ascertain whether it's a bait-and-trap or an opportunity to resupply," he says. His colleague, screenwriter Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan), saw parallels to the Revolutionary War, with aliens instead of redcoats.

Spielberg always saw Skies as a TV project because of the hours needed to answer its many questions, including the invaders' motivation: Are they truly evil? "It's going to take a season to answer that question."