“How does a nightmare begin? For David Vincent, returning home from a business trip, it began at a few minutes past four, on a lost Tuesday morning.” Thus heralded the opening of the first episode, following episodes would explain further. “The Invaders, alien beings from a dying planet, their destination the Earth. Their purpose, to make it their world. David Vincent has seen them. For him it began one lost night, on a lonely country road, looking for a short cut that he never found. It began with a closed, deserted diner, and a man too long without sleep to continue his journey. It began with the landing of a craft from another galaxy. Now David Vincent knows that the Invaders are here, that they have taken human form. Somehow he must convince a disbelieving world that the nightmare has already begun.” These preceding words to each episode, spoken in sombre terms, set the tone for the series. This was to be serious alien threats to humanity, not light-hearted semi-comical stories like many of the other series around at the time.
The series featured architect David Vincent (Roy Thinnes), and his self- imposed mission to reveal the alien presence on earth. No one believes his stories, and throughout the first season various attempts are made by the Aliens to keep it that way, as attempts are made to cause his “accidental” death. During the first season, stories were fairly straightforward, a strange occurrence in a small town, which would attract Vincent’s attention. He’d investigate, hoping to prove Alieninvolvement, which there always was, but he could never obtain enough evidence of this involvement to convince the authorities.
The Invaders upon arriving on Earth would assume human identities and proceed to infiltrate key positions in local government, organisations, etc. (If checked upon rarely did records of these people exist prior to a few years earlier, though when necessary fake papers, etc., could be provided.) These Invaders were not 100% infallible, and could be spotted by both their inability to blink, and inability to bend their little finger. One other way to spot an Invader, if you could get close enough to check, was they did not have a pulse, though this too could be faked if it was known their pulse would need to be taken, as occurred in at least one episode to my knowledge. To survive on earth all aliens need to re-charge themselves, which they would do with strange equipment hidden in disused and out of the way buildings; it was these sights that Vincent hoped would prove his story, but he was never able to capture one before it was destroyed. The Alien space craft were very rarely seen in the series, though a life-size dummy was made for use in some episodes, the main visual effects were limited to the very effective alien death scenes, where the alien body would vaporise in a reddy orange glow, thus once again leaving Vincent with no evidence of the alien presence.
In the second season the show’s format changed slightly. Vincent was no longer fighting a lone war, but was instead joined by a group of “believers”, and his fight against the alien Invaders became much more an offensive war as to the previ-ous defensive one. Sadly this change of approach by the producers failed to work, and midway through its second season, with 43 episodes having been made, it was cancelled. The series was created by Larry Cohen and is one of the best series of its type to have been produced, though very little merchandise was issued to cash in on its popularity.
