TV Review: Invasion Series Premiere

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Aliens! Take three! Invasion is the third and final show to enter the networks this season with a premise based on the arrival of aliens on our planet. This show begins as a hurricane is baring down on the coast of Florida. The first third of this episode shows the hurricane as it attacks the area, and how a few of those involved are affected. The focus is on one extended family. During the storm, a small girl goes out into it searching for her cat. She gets lost, but sees a strange occurrence while out there. A stream of lights falling from the skies. Her father finds her and proceeds to take her home, the missing cat turning out to be in his truck the entire time. However, they never make it home that night due to a car wreck that causes the truck to flip over.

Also out searching, the girls mother is lost, but found the next morning - naked and by the swamps in the area. Not one scratch is on her, but she is disoriented. This state raises some concerns, but she appears fine. Another man, a priest, is also found in this same manner. The little girl tells her uncle about the lights she saw the night before, and they go out into the swamps to investigate. They find something strange, what appears to be a part of a boat or possibly the scientific plane that went down during the beginning of the episode. The uncle also makes another startling discovery - a skeleton. A discovery he hides from the little girl - returning them home.

He goes back on his own to retrieve it, and brings it back to the house to show his brother-in-law. He immediately brings up the alien theory, but it is quickly dismissed by the brother-in-law. They return to the spot the skeleton was found, and more strange occurrences happen. This coupled with the innate sense the little girl seems to have in this situation. She knows immediately that something is up with her mother. Something is also happening with her step-father and the priest. We just don’t know what. All we do know is that it appears the invasion has begun.

I can’t quite put my finger on this show yet. I’ll watch again, but for some reason it just didn’t grab me very much. I know I might be in the minority, and upon watching the episode again, my opinion might change on the show, but I just don’t see what the big deal about this show is at the moment. The first twenty minutes were the best part of the show to me. The rest of the show seemed to drag a bit. I’ll watch again next week, and see what happens.

Compared to the other two shows with this basic premiere, Surface and Threshold, both reviewed in this blog previously, I think Surface is the best out of the three, and I see the most promise here. Threshold and Invasion need to pick it up just a bit in future episodes in order to compete.