'Invasion' of the Plot Snatchers

The new ABC TV series Invasion premiered with scenes from a killer hurricane—only three weeks after Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and while Rita was bearing down on Texas. Depending on your level of cynicism, that's either terrible or fantastic timing. (The opening episode had in fact been filmed months before those real-life storms.)

Invasion isn't a natural disaster show per se, though. It's actually one of several series this fall cashing in on the popularity of the monster hit Lost. CBS’ Threshold and NBC’s Surface are other major contenders in this category, but Invasion has the edge with its enviable position of having Lost as its Wednesday night lead-in. That perhaps explains its better ratings. It certainly can’t be the writing.

Spooky Storms
This made-for-TV hurricane wasn't energized by the warm waters of the Gulf. It was manufactured by aliens, who use it as cover for an invasion that came in the form of cascading lights as the eye of the storm passes over the Florida Everglades. Young Rose Varon (Ariel Gade) saw the lights when she was out trying to rescue her cat. Seems Sheriff Tom Underlay (William Fichtner) also saw them—although he won’t admit it.

And strange goings-on have been going on ever since the storm passed. Rose’s dad, Russell (Eddie Cibrian), a Florida park ranger, finds a wet suit-clad Air Force parajumper in the ruins of his ranger station. The unconscious man has unnatural bite marks across his body that look suspiciously like the marks Dave Groves (Tyler Labine) sustained while investigating post-storm weirdness in the swamp.

Doctors blame alligators, but gators don’t leave behind mysterious little spheres with protruding spikes. Besides, it's hard to say whether the doctors can be trusted. The sheriff’s wife, Dr. Mariel Underlay (Kari Matchett), got lost in the storm and was found the next day completely naked and unconscious, floating on a hummock of swamp grass. The same is true of a Catholic priest and the manager of the local TV news department.

None of these people seem quite the same after their misadventures in the storm. The ever-perceptive Rose notices this before anyone else: Giving Mariel a hug, Rose comments, “Mommy, you smell different.” (See what I mean about the writing?)

What’s That Smell?
Despite its obvious effort to be like Lost, this show doesn't quite smell like Lost. The characters are not nearly as interesting; with the exception of little Rose, it’s hard to care about any of them. It’s also hard to keep track of who is related to whom and in which way. Mariel is Rose’s mom, Russell’s first wife and the sheriff’s present wife. A TV reporter named Larkin Groves (Lisa Sheridan) is Russell’s present wife, Rose’s stepmom and sister of Dave, whose chief job, it seems, is to be a lay-about who spouts paranoid theories. (As is so often the case in the genre, the most paranoid guy just happens to be the one closest to the truth.)

Most unlike Lost, we already know the nature of this mystery: it’s an alien attack remarkably similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The only question is who has been snatched and who hasn’t, and in the end there’s not a lot mysterious about that. At this point, the only question is whether the sheriff is an alien or merely in full government-cover-up mode.

Which leaves us with the matter of content. Viewers of Invasion are subjected to a bit of casual profanity, and Dave is a beer-hound always looking for his next fix. (Must be the paranoia that makes him so thirsty.) More notable is the fact that in the second episode viewers saw full nudity as Larkin and Russell showered outdoors—albeit at a distance and out of focus.

I wish viewers would tune out because of that kind of envelope-pushing and the future it promises for a show that's going to need all the sensationalism it can muster just to survive. More likely, though, they'll merely become disenchanted with a confusing cast and a pretty obvious story line.