There may, eventually, be something in the water

Special Guest Blogger Patrick1971 heads for the bunker...

Invasion began on Channel 4 in the same week that Lost finished; clearly an attempt to pick up on viewers who quite liked a bit of gentle sci-fi. If you had got used to the Lost modus operandi of lots of ponderous glances, ominous silences and getting to the end of an episode and realising that nothing had actually happened, you would be right at home with Invasion. It’s been ticking away for about eight weeks now, and we’ve only FINALLY seen an alien. Which was pretty impressive, and almost worth the wait, but still, eight weeks…

The scriptwriters have plundered from every standard sci-fi book or film known to man. John Wyndham in particular has been a source of “inspiration”. The whole concept of bright lights coming down from the skies and then taking up residence in the water is straight out of The Kraken Wakes, and the possessed townsfolk, who are normal-but-not-quite, have a very Midwich Cuckoos feel. But still, expecting originality from mainstream American television is never going to get you very far, so let’s press on.

First in the cast of characters is Russell. He’s the big all American hero (although, bizarrely, he turns out to be Cuban and came to Florida on a boat as a child. Boat, water, geddit? This will undoubtedly be significant later on). Russell LOVES HIS KIDS. He wants to PROTECT HIS FAMILY. He shouts this loudly and often. He’s some sort of National Park ranger, but this is a pretty flexible role as he can also perform autopsies on dead crocodiles. One of his staff is a shaven haired aggressive black lesbian, currently shamefully underused.

Russell is married to Larkin (eh? They’re calling people after the family in rubbish British sitcom The Darling Buds of May now? Whatever.). Larkin is a gutsy reporter. She wants the truth, even though she might not be able to handle the truth! Is pregnant with Russell’s baby. Larkin thinks that the military might know more about these aliens than they’re letting on (No shit!) so she’s picked up an old boyfriend who’s in the army and got him to escort her around secret military installations without the need for any sort of security passes or anything like that. As a result, her car was run off the road by weirdos. She’s still pregnant, though…but what with?

Sheriff Tom is the real bad guy of the piece. In a masterpiece of subtle characterisation, his eyes go all cold and steely, and his voice soft & sinister, whenever anyone mentions something in the water. This leads to loads of screaming at the television along the lines of “But he’s an ALIEN!” when various dimwit townsfolk won’t realise it. Was the sole survivor of a plane crash and spent lots of time in the water (see what they’re doing here?).

Sheriff Tom is married to Doctor Mariel, who used to be married to Russell! Good old small town interbreeding. This allows for lots of boring “conflict” between the two lead males over who gets to tuck the kids in at night, which in turn means they can spin out a fairly weak story over yet more episodes. Dr Mariel spent the night in the water (note that, it’s important!) during the hurricane when the aliens arrived, and ever since has been spookily taking loads of baths and running her hands under taps. She knows there’s something wrong with her, but hasn’t twigged yet that her creepy husband is in league with aliens and has handed her over to them. Everyone else worked it out 10 minutes into episode 1, so how Dr Mariel was smart enough to get a medical degree and yet not figure this out remains a mystery.

The fifth main player is Dave. If this programme were a US teen frat boy flick, Dave would be the ugly socially inept guy who just couldn’t get laid! And we all know that ugly socially inept guys who couldn’t get laid in college either turn into serial killers or become internet geeks obsessed with conspiracy theories and alien invasions. (As an ugly socially inept geek who can’t get laid myself, I resent this career dichotomy, but what can you do?) Fortunately for the plot, Dave is one of the latter types. He found a carcass of one of the aliens, which mysteriously disappeared, and was also present at the crocodile autopsy when Ranger Russell found a piece of alien inside the croc. Spreading the word about the aliens on his blog (they’re so up-to-date, these scriptwriters, but someone should tell them that you can’t update a blog by speaking into a Dictaphone. Or maybe you can these days? Technology’s going mad, I blame Mrs Thatcher, etc.). This is really pissing Sheriff Tom off, so I think Dave is going to have a closer encounter than he would like with an alien one of these days.

There are a couple of loathsome children straight out of US TV’s seemingly inexhaustible cuteness factory, including two teens (son of Russell, daughter of Tom) who have been sniffing around each other in a nice little bit of crypto-incest. Russell’s little daughter Rose, whose whole raison d’etre seems to be to come up with cloyingly cute nonsense, was able to stand upright in hurricane strength winds to go out and find her cat, though, so she may have more powers than we give her credit for, even though as yet she’s not been in the water.

Invasion’s not so bad as these programmes go. Dave is turning out to be a bit of a hero of the piece, which is unusual, and it’s also quite anti-religion (there’s a great creepy vicar who is even more obviously an alien than Sheriff Tom), again very unusual for a US show. Rumour from the US, though, is that it’s been cancelled mid-season, so we may never know what’s in the water. Except of course we do know, and have known since episode 1!