[ryanforever]

You can find the Eddie interview on www.invasion-tv.com

[Quarterley]

Toronto Star - Sept. 21, 2005:


Invasion has the winning humans

It's top choice of new alien shows

BY VINAY MENON

A weather plane is rumbling toward a hurricane.

The four-engine C-130 approaches the eye wall, navigating the torrential downpour, bobbing through flashes of lightning.

The pilots throttle-up and broach the eye. But as meteorological data is analyzed, instruments suddenly go haywire. Dozens of glowing orbs float up from the ocean and the plane disappears.

So begins Invasion (ABC, CTV, 10 p.m. tonight), a deftly executed drama that's entangled with enough paranormal intrigue to hook viewers who dream of vacationing in Area 51.

Like CBS's Threshold (Fridays) and NBC's Surface, which premiered on Monday, Invasion uses the ocean as a placid cover for hidden menace. In all three, a serial mystery is then built around leviathans or body-snatching aliens or, forgive me, shape-shifting spectral entities.

This season, the truth isn't out there — it's under water.

Invasion starts as a hurricane is about to make landfall in Florida. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, several scenes may induce wincing — a child caught outside wailing for her missing cat; fleeing motorists tanking up at gas stations; residents unloading provisions and boarding windows with plywood; a military convoy meandering through the wasteland; a television reporter handing her card to a victim, saying, "If FEMA isn't out here by tomorrow, call me."

But Hurricane Eve — is the Biblical allusion intentional? — is only the beginning. By tonight's end, one thing is clear: Something strange is happening in Homestead, Fla.

Invasion and Threshold are the latest TV additions to the extraterrestrial canon, a genre that expands once or twice a decade. As fictional devices, aliens are remarkably elastic, empty vessels just waiting to be filled with our projected hopes and jitters.

Aliens, in some way, reflect the zeitgeist: From malevolent invaders (The Thing From Another World) to bumbling assimilators (Third Rock From the Sun) to sage oracles (The Day the Earth Stood Still) to endearing oddballs (My Favorite Martian).

This cultural theorizing is, of course, strictly subjective.

I mean, did H.G. Wells write The War of the Worlds as a parable about the horrors of the industrial revolution or as a criticism of British imperialism?

Were the pods and assumed identities in Invasion of the Body Snatchers a cautionary tale about communism or the scourge of '50s conformity?

Today, we're saddled with free-floating anxiety about ecology, government, and most significantly, the threat and/or response to terrorism, a chicken-egg proposition that floats the gloomy prospect of perpetual war for perpetual peace.

You don't need to do mental contortions to identify these concerns on television this fall: From the government conspiracy in Surface to the sleeper-cell metaphor woven in Threshold to the environmental subtext of Invasion, a show that suggests monster storms are a smokescreen for something more sinister. (Incidentally, if you just want to dim the lights and enjoy a few heart-stopping jolts, try the WB's gripping Supernatural, an old-school thriller with new-school appeal.)

Before this dispatch devolves (further) into academic hokum, it's important to remember that television is a business of imitation. So, egghead theories aside, this season's otherworldly offerings might reasonably be explained with a four-letter word: Lost.

The rookie hit, which won the Emmy for best drama Sunday and returns for a second season tonight (ABC, CTV, 9 p.m.) — gave network execs a few million (green) reasons to search the development skies for new little (green) men.

Imitation, however, can lead to oversaturation. After The X-Files became a phenomenon, shows such as Millennium, Dark Skies, The Pretender and Profiler surfaced and soon the inexplicable seemed rather ho-hum.

Some of these new shows will vanish before their planned mythologies even play out. But each has strengths and weaknesses.

Surface, about an unidentified species of sea monsters, has a Spielberg feel but lacks a compelling lead. Threshold, which stars the wonderful Carla Gugino as a worst-case scenario expert, has admirable pace but is burdened with leaden dialogue and moments that are unintentionally funny.

My favourite of the three is Invasion. Creator Shaun Cassidy understands something quite important: the best alien shows feature compelling humans.

On Invasion, the supernatural conceit is bolstered by the messy, overlapping dynamic between the earthlings: a park ranger Russell Varon (Eddie Cibrian) and his pregnant wife Larkin Groves (Lisa Sheridan), a local TV reporter; Varon's ex-wife Dr. Mariel Underlay (Canadian Kari Matchett) and her new husband, the town sheriff Tom Underlay (William Fichtner); Varon's two children with Mariel, Rose (Ariel Gade) and Jesse (Evan Peters); and, most important, Varon's brother-in-law Dave (Tyler Labine), the underemployed conspiracist who brings irony and levity to the proceedings.

Last year, around this time, I encouraged you to watch a new show called Lost. This year, I humbly suggest you give Invasion a chance.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
vmenon@thestar.ca

[Raja]

Is it just me or have all the recent articles about the show stopped mentioning Alexis Dziena?

[Firestar007]

quarterley, thanks for the article

[Liliya]

Ratings for the pilot episode from Zap2it:

At 10 p.m., ABC's "Invasion" did a serviceable job of holding onto the "Lost" audience, winning the hour with a 10.4/16.

Good news, the premiere did really well!

[ReachOut]

Wow, those are very impressive ratings. Lets just hope they remain this high, and we'll have a hit on our hands for sure.

[Kinsey]

The pilot was great! Can't wait to see more. The official site is really funny. It's set up as Dave's blog. The background with all the beer glasses is a riot.

[EYE97]

I take it from this thread that it is worth watching then? As gripping as LOST?



Cheers
RJ
http://www.eye97.com

[dreammuffin]

I like it so far. It needed to be longer, but it has potential. I taped it, so I think I will watch it again tonight to see if I can understand what is going on.

I hope there are all sorts of different kinds of aliens in "Invasion", and I hope they keep up the mystery and not tell us what is going on right off. I know I will probably be disapointed by whatever the writers show is really happening, so I hope they keep us in suspense so I can use my imagination and imagine my own story.

(Big Roswell fan here, so you know what I want to see )

[Wildfire Girl]

Guess what I just found out?

Invasion is scheduled, according to the Futon Critic, for a DVD release date of .....
8/22/06 (TUESDAY)
· INVASION: SEASON 1*

[JoeDude]

I'm a Roswell fan myself, so Invasion is an excellent choice. I wasn't sure whether they'd get into it since it might of been slow moving or what exactly. I really miss Roswell though.

Has there been any word on when Invasion is returning? I haven't seen it on television for quite some time, and I didn't hear anything about a season finale, so I was rather stumped.

[DanceWithLife]

I was a little behind but I caught up. Thanks for all the bits of news.

[Wildfire Girl]

JoeDude, no news yet, one way or the other, on a second season. But I kinda hope/think that a DVD release is a good sign. Yes?

[Raja]

-- "Invasion," ABC, Wednesdays. Grade: B. Solidly entertaining, well-written and acted, the series never really caught on behind "Lost" when almost everyone believed that was a successful pairing. Still, you can't fault ABC on this one.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...DGM9IMFLC1.DTL

[Wildfire Girl]

Interesting article. Thanks!