A word from Sarah: On her idea of the perfect day in Los Angeles: “First, I would jump in the ocean. I actually swim at Venice Beach which is sort of questionable. I get random rashes.”

Our interview evolved into a mutual geek fest. This is the Academy Award nominated screenwriter of Saving Private Ryan. Turns out he’s as big a fan of post-apocalyptic action at I am. So here’s the scoop on “Falling Skies,” premiering Sunday on TNT, and an Oscar caliber look at my favorite subgenre.

Spielberg Continues His Love Affair with Aliens

Q: The aliens are cool but how much human opposition is there? They run into one gang in the beginning, but are there more?

Robert Rodat: It’s chaotic. Now that we’ve established that not everybody is in the resistance, which would be unrealistic in a chaotic situation, hey, we can do all sorts of stuff. We can have little groups here. We can have bad guys, we can have mixed guys. We might have somebody who’s into religion. There’s all sorts of paths we could go. Where we go, I don’t know but I think the idea that there’s more than one oppositional group, it’s not just the aliens but it’s the aliens and the complexities of the humans, some of whom are going to be adversarial, I think that’s exciting. I think that’s cool.

Q: In the first season, how many other human elements are there?

RR: Well, we do something I think is really cool. I shouldn’t reveal too much but the guys you see in episode 2 are not the only humans they’re going to run into. We do what we consider really exciting stuff about halfway or 2/3 of the way through the season.

6 photosMoon Bloodgood

Q: I liked that the aliens we see are more one on one, or one on two encounters. If you did an army of CGI aliens, it would look cheap.

RR: Well, there was a conceptual thing there too and not just a budgetary thing because if you think about it, these aliens are so overwhelming in power that if they were all still there, there wouldn’t be a show because they’d just wipe us out. So the only way we could make it make sense would be that there was a huge number of aliens and then the bulk of them left and left only a small garrison. So in a way, the aliens are kind of outnumbered too. Otherwise, logistically it would make no sense.

Q: Have we seen every type of alien in the first episodes?

RR: That I’m not authorized to say. We do have some surprises planned.

Q: What about the idea of harnessing. We’ve seen pod people and puppet masters. What was your take on this alien control of humans?

RR: That was one of the very first things that Steven [Spielberg] said. When we were working out the initial stuff, the thing that excited him was the idea that adults are killed if they’re a threat, and kids are captured for whatever reason and changed or altered. The harness was a logical outgrowth of that. Then what we’ll explore is what the harnessing does to the kid over the course of the show but that also is something that’s going to have to unveil itself gradually.

Q: That was Spielberg’s idea?

RR: No, I think the harness came from me but the idea that they were enslaving kids. I don’t remember the exact genesis.

Q: He’s explored that before, even in Temple of Doom with the kidnapped kids.

RR: Yeah, and the idea that the kids would be altered by their enslavement came. Then I started trying to figure out what’s the mechanism for that so that’s where the harness came from.

Q: It’s pretty hardcore starting out with the kids telling the story of how all their parents were killed by aliens.

RR: You know, people have accused me of making that, have said is that a budgetary issue?

Q: Oh, it comes across as a dramatic issue.

RR: I hope so because I sat down at the beginning, in the initial outlines I actually had a five page montage of the actual invasion. I wrote a few drafts of it and I looked at and say, “Ay-yay-yay, I’ve seen this before. There’s no emotion to this. It feels like one of those montages.” The children’s thing was a happy accident that was cost effective, but I think it’s much more emotional than one of those montages and cost $1.5 less.

“Falling Skies” premieres on TNT this Sunday at 9/8c.

I met Bloodgood in January when TNT unveiled “Skies” to the Television Critics Association. She was much more of her usual glamorous self, in a leggy dress at the non-apocalyptic Langham Hotel in Pasadena. I still believed if the roof blew off Roland Emmerich style, she could suture my wounds with a Prada belt.

Kids Cry About Aliens In 5 Minute Preview Of Spielberg’s ‘Falling Skies’

Q: The aliens are cool, but what I always love about these stories are the survivors trying to find supplies.

MB: And then what’s important to you because money now has no relevance. It’s just paper at this point and you need something like canned food, water. Things change and other things become essential.

Q: And your character was a pediatrician and that becomes the medic now.

MB: Yeah, a pediatrician who’s now forced into a situation where I have to be the head doctor and I’m in charge of anything. Anything that goes wrong, I have to either do it by theory or possibly do it as I go. I liked playing that because I was nervous even playing a doctor. I kind of used that to look like I didn’t know what I was doing while I was in the scene.

Q: Did you do any research on pediatricians?

6 photosMoon Bloodgood

MB: That, I did. I didn’t do any research on surgery and how to remove [organs]. I even spoke to a pediatrician but I wanted to look like I didn’t totally know what I was doing in terms of the other areas.

Q: The first two episodes are pretty heavy on the action and the guys out in the field. What are we going to learn about you back at the camp in subsequent episodes?

MB: I kind of become the voice of the civilians when it comes to Weaver, which is Will Patton’s character. They have my ear and I have their ear because he’s very, very driven to do what’s right for the military and what’s morally right. I’m kind of more looking out for [the real people.] I see all the people that are hurt and wounded and can’t fight, so I’m back at base camp being mother hen taking care of the kids, looking after Tom’s (Noah Wyle) kids. I obviously have a really fond relationship with Tom. You see my relationship develop with the other characters. Really my primary relationship is with Tom.

Q: Can you buy that, where he was married before the attack.

MB: So was I.

Q: So can you buy that nine months after, two people in that situation can become romantic?

MB: They could but I think you always want to respect the fact that two people were married. Both lost their spouse in a very violent way and you don’t want the audience to say, “Wow, they’re already hooking up. They’ve got a family, their sons are there.” You want their relationship to build and have a natural maturation and respect the prior relationships that just months ago they were alive and they lost their spouse.

Q: The issue of civilians are military is interesting because you can see how they’re a burden on the army. But then what is the arm fighting for in the first place?

MB: It is a total dichotomy of you hold us back from being able to protect us, but if we don’t protect you then we’re doing this all for nothing. You’ve seen that dance all the time between Tom and Weaver and Anne and Weaver. It’s always this struggle because my favorite kind of characters in movies or TV is when you’re watching it as an audience member, you go, “I can understand his point but I can also understand that point.” You have to sit with that question and wrestle with the stuff. I think questions that are easy to answer are never compelling. It’s always the ones that make you think what would I do in this situation, makes you have a little conflict inside.

Q: What is the set like in the camp, the wasteland, on the road in the middle of Toronto?

MB: It’s interesting because it’s supposed to be in Boston but they do a really good job. It looks really desolate. We’re in high school and you see old pictures of people and what was relevant before isn’t relevant now. Then the kids put up pictures of aliens so you see this hybrid of a former life in this ghost town and also the new life that we’re trying to keep creating so we stay sane.

Q: That opening scene with the kids’ pictures is hardcore.

MB: I’m actually sitting there holding them for Matt (Maxim Knight). That’s my hand. I’m going, “What do you see here? What do you see here?” It’s my words, you just don’t see me.

A word from Moon: “I’m into chivalry. As much as I’m a guy’s girl with a potty mouth, a polite man who opens the door is so refreshing.”

The opening is so hardcore. Children narrate the backstory over school kid drawings of aliens wiping out the army, blasting an EMP, catching kids and harnessing them with spinal implants to be drones. Hell, the kids talk about how all their parents died! So this ain’t about whoopin’ E.T.’s ass. It’s about damn, we just need to make it through.

Tom (Noah Wyle) is second in command to Weaver (Will Patton), but Tom’s the star. His son Ben has been harnessed, but he’s got two other kids with him. He used to be a history professor so he puts all the sci-fi into historical context. At this point they already have terminology and signals to mobilize and organize missions.

Aliens Terrorize Noah Wyle And Stephen Webber

My favorite part of these survival stories is always: Where do we find supplies when everything is gone? Well, “Falling Skies” has got that. The supermarkets are already picked over, so they have to go out of the way and find warehouses, and even those are half-raided. They do eat a cupcake in one scene. I don’t know how that stayed fresh. It wasn’t Hostess, and it’s spent 9 lonely months in the bakery section.

The social aspect is really interesting too. With episodic television they have time to really explore how much the characters’ lives have changed. Anne (Moon Bloodgood) used to be a pediatrician. Now she’s the medic in the field. Tom used to tell his teenage son he couldn’t ride his bike at night. Now he gives him ammo for the road. Even the kids reminisce about what life used to be. They’d rather be in school than fighting aliens (so be careful what you wish for, kids).

The new makeshift military is in conflict with the “civilians.” It’s funny because the military was wiped out so these soldiers were also civilians. They take the perspective that the civilians are a burden in this battle, but of course the civilians are all we’re fighting for. What do we win if we eliminate our society in the process? That will be fascinating week to week. Tom has historical context to analyze that conflict too. There also seem to be other human factions to cause problems for the survivors.

Of course it’s an action show and the battles so far are cool. It’s more one on one, or one on two fights with the aliens. That’s better because if they did a whole CGI army of aliens it would just look cheap. I’m sure they’ll get there at some point but the intimate scuffles are good. The burnt out streets look like the future war in The Terminator.

The aliens resemble lizard octopi. They look impressive, obviously CGI and maybe some practical ones, but they’re definitely mean aliens. And when they bring one down, you kind of feel for the dying alien with a close-up on his gasping face. But don’t be killing us and taking our children, dudes.

I’m into “Falling Skies.” I don’t necessarily care that it’s aliens, but I don’t mind. They’re the monsters, but it’s the shambles of society and how we put it back together that have me hooked.

Above is a five minute preview clip for “Falling Skies,” the upcoming TNT series from Executive Producer Spielberg. Oh, that’s the third thing he can’t get enough of: getting an Executive Producer credit. You can tell it’s a Spielberg-approved alien drama, because it opens with children coloring, drawing sad pictures of their families getting murdered by aliens, crying. Your heartstrings have been epically pulled, and it gets way lighter from there. Noah Wyle and Moon Bloodgood (what a batshit crazy name she has) star in this creepy-looking drama, which lands June 19, 2011.

I enjoyed the preview. It looks very “The Walking Dead“-y so far, but with so much zombie overkill lately, it’s nice to get an alie break. Then we can run aliens into the ground for awhile and go back to vampires. Hopefully, not teen vampires.

With Steven Spielberg acting as executive producer, the show stars Noah Wyle as a college professor who ends up leading a group of resistance fighters after an alien invasion. I’m not sure what’s more ridiculous: the fact that these aliens, with their advanced technology, have trouble conquering our planet, or the idea of a college professor doing something useful outside of academia.

Zing! Take that, Professor Knapp! Who’s “plagiarizing” now? (IO9)