The Invaders

In the late 1960s Science Fiction on British TV consisted of Thunderbirds and little else, since Star Trek had not been aired yet,but before that "The Invaders" established a Beachhead on our late night schedules. Aged 8 , i was soon captivated by the story one mans fight to convince the world that aliens were living among us and had wormed their way into the police,government and military and were planning to take over the Earth! This was not easy; the aliens looked and acted like us but required frequent "regeneration" in transparent tubes otherwise they would die,and burn up leaving only ashes. Whenever David Vincent [played by Roy Thinnes] discovered alien installations he would phone the cops,only for the switchboard operator to be alien! By the time the cops arrived only dust would remain and Vincent waswritten off as a nut. The show had strong parallels with Cold War paranoia communist witch hunts but benefitted from fine writing and sparingly used but impressive special effects.Of the videos available in Britain i strongly recommend #1] "Beachhead"[excellent music,great story and acting from Roy and his beautiful guest star Diane Baker] and "The Saucer/The Enemy"[two superb episodes on one vid!].Also, if you can find it,"The Trial" where a human is tried for murdering an alien.The scene with the alien "parents" outside the courthou astonishing-----10/10.

This was a milestone series in my opinion - the acting was usually above average. Roy Thinnes was excellent - the way he shows his frustration when explaining the aliens is very good. Roy was cast perfectly for this series. I recently was able to buy all the episodes on DVD - just watched "Dark Outpost" - This is one of the best episodes as well as the first one.

If I remember rightly, the whole series doesn't end by driving the invaders off the Earth, when I get to that DVD I'll see of course

Theme music excellent too (Dominic Frontiere I think)

WELL DONE ROY!!

Of all of the TV shows of the past made into movies that stink, maybe, just maybe, some young, serious minded script writer will stumble upon this on late night TV somewhere and produce a script for a motion picture version.

No MTV style quick cuts, no gangsta rap, no tricked up CGI, except as needed. Keep the seriousness of the Quinn Martin original and turn it loose. This was an amazing series, especially for a 12 year old, coming as it did, at the height of series of UFO sightings and reports during that time period.

The whole concept was chilling. This would be a good movie, or even better, a new series, keeping in line with the original.

After more then fifty years I rewatched The Invaders, a show that had me at the edge of my seat when I was young. For that time it was just the bomb when you talked about sci-fi series. The series actually aged well, even though there are a lot of examples of how different cinema was back then, when people were certainly not as demanding as now. For example the fighting scenes that are a bit woody, the stuntmen that don't even look like the characters (in David Vincent's case it's just so obvious), but nobody really cared about that. The Invaders had a great soundtrack, all orchestral but very efficient to bring a suspenseful atmosphere to the show. Roy Thinnes is the star of the show. His nonchalance in any kind of dire situation is just a delight to watch. I enjoyed every single episode, back then but also now. I wish they would remake this show, just to see what they could do with our modern techniques. The intro of the show is something that you will never forget, after fifty years I still knew it by heart. The structure of the episodes are always the same but even then it's never boring, act 1,2,3 and 4 followed by an epilog. It all adds to the quality of this excellent sci-fi show from the late sixties. The only negative thing to me is that the show should have had more than two seasons. The ending wasn't that satisfying in my humble opinion.

The Invaders was a wonderful show. Roy Thinnes played architect David Vincent. One night, he stumbled upon an alien craft landing. Aliens had come from a dying world to take over the Earth. What should Vincent do? Contact the Air Force and get them to kick butt?

Actually, no, Vincent was alone on this one which is what made this show great. The authorities didn't believe him, in fact no-one did. Whenever an alien was killed, he/she would vaporize. At first, there was no way of knowing who to trust; anybody could be an invader, the Invaders could take over anyone. Of course, later on we learned that the aliens had a funny little finger even when in human form.

Like most films and shows of the 1950's/60's, the Invaders was about paranoia. No-one could trust anyone. Vincent could never be sure that potential allies were not really invaders themselves. He tried in vain to convince people but he was fighting a losing battle. The great thing was that he was alone in his battle. It was a great-if depressing-show.

One of the other things worth mentioning is that there are viewers who suspected that Vincent was actually an invader himself and had been placed on Earth and told to try and convince the population of the danger. Apparently, the invaders used him to test the likelihood of their discovery. Is it true? Your guess is as good as mine.