The Invaders (1967 -1968)

Watched the whole series last year. I liked the first season more as it gets fairly repetitious, but it's certainly fun.

I was a young teen when it came out and I thought 'awesome, a TV series about a alien invasion' and was disappointed that it was more of a drama then sci/fi. I watched a few episodes then gave up. I probably should see it again through adult eyes.

From what I recall it was more of a 'on the road' genera. The hero traveling from place to place, getting involved in peoples lives, which was popular at that time, like:

Route 66
Coronet Blue
The Fugitive
Run for Your Life
Then Came Bronson
The Immortal

Mad Magazine did a satire of the show.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/32188771/The-Invasioners-Mad-Magazine#scribd



I thought P.E.T.A. meant People Eating Tasty Animals

First saw it and have recordings of a several episodes from about ten years back when Channel 5 started showing the show in the wee-small of the morning.

The Invaders had an interesting premise, and some fine episodes. Larry Cohen also created Coronet Blue, which lasted only a handful of episodes and never really got going, but it had an interesting sense of mystery.

Roy Thinnes was basically a solid TV level talent; one feature that shows him to good advantage is the 1969 Gerry Anderson science fiction film, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, which has kind of a silly premise and some weak spots but is often remembered fondly.

The late 70s mini-series From Here to Eternity can't compete with the classic 1953 film, but it's a fairly solid melodrama with an interesting cast.

Guilty pleasure: Satan's school for Girls (1973) is truly, truly, truly awful, but there are some creepy bits, and I have a soft spot for Pamela Franklin.

I LOVE The Invaders.
Most of the QM shows were good.

And if an invader was killed, or even die, he/she would disintegrate, so there would be no proof.

But throughout it all, my motto was "Dignity! Always dignity!".

I like the episode called the experiment guest staring roddy mcdowall a good episode

The Invaders may be the first TV show I can recall watching. My parents watched it when I was about four or five, and what stuck with me were the opening credits, with the Invaders' spaceship zooming toward earth, and David Vincent in his car, waking up to see the spaceship landing, and then the way their bodies would glow and disappear when they were killed. Spooky.

A few years ago, I found the DVDs available through Netflix and did a watch of the series. Typical Quinn Martin approach--you mention The Fugitive and that is no accident--and, as others have noted, it was a formula that held few real variations although a number of episodes were intriguing, and it's always fun to spot the guest stars. One of the Season Two episodes, "The Enemy," features a nurse (Barbara Barrie, later of Barney Miller) just returned from a tour of Vietnam and some rather equivocal comments about the war, which were unusual for 1967 from what I can gather. I won't say anything more about the series because you may still be watching it.

Before The X Files, even before Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The Invaders told the paranormal tale with Roy Thinnes's David Vincent the lone voice in the wilderness trying to convince anyone who would listen that there was unusual trouble afoot. So, it's no surprise that Thinnes cropped up on The X Files, as did Darren McGavin from Kolchak. I remember Thinnes in the 1975 film The Hindenburg as a Gestapo agent, but the film itself, despite a fine cast and direction by Robert Wise, exhumes a bit of hot air about a conspiracy to destroy the zeppelin. Oh, the humanity.

If you can find The Invaders' DVDs, by all means do so. Thinnes does an interview that is rather fascinating, but more importantly he does intros for just about every episode. They are short, but they are quietly hilarious. It is hard to tell whether Thinnes is being sincere or is just pretending to be sincere, but they do deserve to be viewed. Make no mistake--he is proud of his work, but there is just something in his manner that seems to pull your leg just a little.

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"The past is never dead. It isn't even past." -- William Faulkner