Thursday, September 29, 2005

TV Review: Invasion, episode # 2: "Light's Out"

The plot is thickening...

In Invasion's second episode, a cabal of, let's call 'em "compromised" individuals are beginning to consolidate power. The Sheriff is in charge, pushing for a quarantine that would cut off the town. A network executive is amongst the compromised too, appropriately played by the venerable Veronica Cartwright (Alien, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Witches of Eastwick, and X-Files), and she's suppressing stories that might alert the outside world to the strange happenings in Homestead, Florida. A priest - another alien? - is seen administering last rites to someone who shouldn't have died...

As the aliens grab for power, terminating an air man found the Everglades and destroying (or at least stealing...) unusual skeletal remains, Invasion landss on surer and surer footing. The structure of this dramatic series is really solid. The background of two families, joined by divorce and re-marriage, suspicious of one another, is proving awfully effective in ramping up the paranoid aspects of the show. Is Mom acting strangely because we don't like her new husband (the sheriff), or because she's been compromised by an alien? Interesting question; and one that allows both internal conflicts (resentments, jealousies, etc.) and external ones (an alien invasion!) to intermingle. The discovery of the missing wedding ring in "Lights Out" indicates the true fate of one character, but does this mean that the aliens replicate humans in toto, complete with emotions and human foibles? Should be interesting to find out.

Last night, we saw for the first time, the result of alien *ahem* penetration. On the airman's body we saw weird (and awfully realistic-looking...) bite/sting marks. And we saw part of what may be an alien biology, a stinger or claw of some sort. All of it was spectacularly well-handled. It was deadpan, serious, not at all played for humor, and very creepy.

Unlike Threshold, (or Trashold, as my wife, Kathryn, terms it...) this show doesn't appear to be written by 13-year old boys hepped up on hot-pockets. Both of the episodes aired so far move at a deliberate pace, and are populated by interesting, intelligent people who we recognize as characters rather than as "types" (like the plucky lady scientist "type"; like the military ops "type"; like the "geek" type - all seen on Threshold.)

If the show continues to be this good, Invasion is going to be on the air for a good long while. The lead-in from Lost should assure decent ratings, something that Shaun Cassidy's earlier genre series, American Gothic never had, but surely deserved.

Tonight is the premiere of Night Stalker, the remake of the 1970s series Kolchak. I'll be blogging that series too, starting here tomorrow!

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