The Invaders – The Complete Second Season (1967 – 1968/CBS DVD)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C+     Episodes: B-

 

 

The Invaders should have lasted for several seasons, but like Kolchak: The Night Stalker, the show ended before it should have, but it lasted two seasons and CBS’ new The Invaders – The Complete Second Season DVD set offers the premature wrap up of the series.  For more details on the show, start with our coverage of its debut season and its importance:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7089/The+Invaders+–+The+Complete+First

 

 

The show did not do the ratings ABC had hoped for, so especially considering the budget and potential for a hit, they became more involved than usual (a mistake that would later soon kill The Avengers) resulting in a commercial roll of the dice that did not work.  The episodes, with key guest stars (some back, but in new roles) include:

 

1)     Condition: Red (guest stars Jason Evers & Antoinette Bowers)

2)     The Saucer (Anne Francis, Dabney Coleman & Christopher Shea)

3)     The Watchers (Shirley Knight, Kevin McCarthy & Robert Yuro)

4)     Valley Of The Shadows (Nan Martin, Ted Knight & James B. Sikking)

5)     The Enemy (Barbara Barrie, Paul Mantee & Richard Anderson)

6)     The Trial (Don Gordon, Russell Johnson, Harold Gould & Lynda Day George)

7)     The Spores (Gene Hackman, John Randolph, Noam Pitlik & Wayne Rogers)

8)     Dark Outpost (Andrew Prine, Dawn Wells, Tim McIntire, William Sargent & Whit Bissell)

9)     Summit Meeting (Two Parts: William Windom, Michael Rennie & Diana Hyland)

10)  The Prophet (Pat Hingle and Ray Kellogg)

11)  Labyrinth (Sally Kellerman, Ed Begley & Ed Peck)

12)  The Captive (Dana Wynter and Fritz Weaver)

13)  The Believers (Carol Lynley)

14)  The Ransom (Karen Black, Alfred Ryder and Lawrence Naismith)

15)  Task Force (Linden Chiles, Nancy Kovacs & Barney Phillips)

16)  The Possessed (Michael Tolan, William Smithers, Michael Constantine & Katherine Justice)

17)  Counter-Attack (Ken Lynch, Pamela Curran & Ed Prentiss)

18)  The Pit (Joanna Linville and Charles Aidman)

19)  The Organization (J.D. Cannon and Barry Atwater)

20)  The Peacemaker (Phyllis Thaxter, Alfred Ryder, James Daly and Jan Merlin)

21)  The Vise (Raymond St. Jacques, Roscoe Lee Brown and Louis Gossett Jr.)

22)  The Miracle (Barbara Hershey, Edward Asner & Christopher Shea)

23)  The Life Seeker (R.G. Armstrong, Diana Muldaur, Barry Morse & Barry Cahill)

24)  The Pursued (Suzanne Pleshette, Will Geer and Barry Williams)

25)  Inquisition (Peter Mark Richman and Susan Oliver)

 

 

The guest cast was still top notch and it helped the show overcome some issues with its changes.  The first was eliminating the Horror elements too much, making it too different from the first season to make any connection between the two work.  Then (in a move that would later be inspire the Lance Henriksen hit Millennium, reviewed elsewhere on this site) would be that a group of believers (led by the great character actor Kent Smith as an official with credibility) were confirming what Roy Thinnes’ David Vincent knew: alien invaders were trying to take over the world and replace us with them

 

Unfortunately, too many of the stories had credibility issues and the new ideas and changes never worked.  The genre confusion and madness included getting a dated version of the mob fighting them, the aliens in court trying to frame Vincent, trying to use the officialness of the U.S. Government and even U.N. to make the arc of the show seem like it is progressing and a few other hoots and howlers that have to be seen to be believed.  However, the money was still going into the show and the makers tried to make do with the changes.  Instead, the show was killed and this was the end of the line.  Fortunately, it still has its moments and is worth seeing again, especially since it was never really syndicated.

 

 

As with the previous set, the 1.33 X 1 color image on each of the episodes is often exceptional in its clean appearance, color, use of color and compositions.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono sounds very good for its age, rarely compressed and the music score (including the theme song by Dominic Frontiere, who scored some of the episodes) is great music in any medium.  The last show has some sound issues, but the playback holds up very well considering.

 

Extras include more new on-camera introductions by Thinnes for every episode, a terrific audio commentary by producer Alan Armer on The Peacemaker and an on-camera interview with Thinnes who is always informative.  A 1995 revival attempt with Scott Bakula was a disaster and was made by Fox to go with their X-Files success, but Larry Cohen is trying to revive it as a film as Universal is trying to remake the similarly themed and equally effective John Carpenter film They Live from 1988.  Be looking for more action like this soon and catch this to be ahead of the game.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo