“Invasion” (2005-06, ABC), episode 1 – Last week’s season premieres of “Lost” and “Invasion” (8 and 9 p.m. Wednesdays on ABC) featured a level of suspense above and beyond “What’s in the hatch?” and “What are those glowing lights?”
The big question was: At what point will the local affiliate interrupt with coverage of the tornadoes ripping through the Twin Cities and the plane with landing-gear trouble circling Los Angeles? (It turned out that only the first half-hour of “Lost” was lost.)
It made for a fascinating blurring of fiction and reality, especially since “Invasion” begins with a hurricane and “Lost” began last season with a plane crash. “Invasion’s” time-slot competition (“Law & Order”) rips stories from headlines, but when Shaun Cassidy was dreaming up this show, he was unconsciously predicting future headlines.
Sci Fi Magazine previewed “Invasion” just before Katrina fell off the charts in “The Book of Popular Girls’ Names.” “Invasion” is about the idea that “unexpectedly your entire community could be leveled by nature and it will never, ever be the same again, and you have no road map for what lies ahead,” Cassidy told the magazine.
ABC prefaced the premiere with a warning that “due to recent events, some viewers may be sensitive” to what would follow. Of course, the network secretly suspected people were hungry for this series, especially since “Lost” subverted two long-held theories last season: 1. People don’t watch science fiction shows, because they can’t relate to them; and 2. People don’t watch serial dramas, because they don’t like the commitment of tuning in weekly.
People may not like reality TV anymore, but “Lost” and “Invasion” are evidence that they are interested in reality. “Lost’s” intense plane crash on a remote Pacific island seemed real. “Invasion’s” storm resonated even more. In fact, after Katrina, it may have struck viewers that this fictional Florida hurricane wasn’t destructive enough. No one evacuated and everyone was rebuilding their roofs the next day.
“Invasion,” along with the similarly themed “Threshold” (8 p.m. Fridays on CBS) and “Surface” (7 p.m. Mondays on NBC), is probably on the air because of “Lost’s” success. Of these three alien-visitation dramas, “Invasion” appears to be the most worthy, because it’s about ordinary people who seem like they’ll be fun to hang out with weekly.
The pilot featured a little girl lost in the woods during the storm (she witnesses the aforementioned lights), a guy being sucked into a swamp by a glowing jellyfish and a naked woman turning up after the skies clear. What’s not to like? Well, for one thing, the show overplays its body-snatchers hand (“Mommy, you smell different”), but I expect (read: hope, with my fingers crossed) this will be the first of many twists.
Frankly, this is all getting a little weird. I half expect the local news team to cut in with a story of Martians landing in Crosby the next time I’m trying to watch “Invasion.”
A scroll at the bottom of the screen will suffice, thanks. B+
– John Hansen, “Why are these castaways smiling?,” Brainerd Dispatch, Sept. 29, 2005