The Invisibles

Spain, Plannetta, and Castle are the outcasts of society. However a secret society called the Invisibles has uses for them. As long as they pass the initiation test.

They will be innoculated and a parasitic alien will bite them and take over their mind. If the crab like creature is attached to their back, they fail the test as they will be deformed.

Their purpose is to take over key figures in government, politics, finance and business. Eventually take world control by infecting key people.

Only Spain (Don Gordon) is a government agent sent in to infiltrate the Invisibles. Only he is suspected of being a spy very early on.

The Invisibles is a very creepy episode, atmospherically made. It is very much inspired by the Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The crab like monster is eerie with its little legs being moved by a motor. The slow movement lets it down.

Gordon is very good as the agent who knows they are on to him and fears that he has no one to trust. At times the story is let down by some unnecessary melodrama. Spain is badly injured but manages to get so far even though he is in great pain.

Don Gordon stars as Luis Spain, a seemingly friendless, disaffected man who, along with other men just like him, are recruited to join a secret organization called the Invisibles which turns out to be run by the state governor named Hillerman(played by George Macready) who has been taken over by ages-old, parasitic tick-like creatures from outer space that need human men as hosts so that they can be placed near high positions of government in order to take over the country's leaders. Spain must find a way to stop them, which wont be easy...Neil Hamilton and Richard Dawson costar as co-conspirators. Memorable looking and sounding creatures are the highlight of somewhat rambling plot, with overtones of both "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers".

I have this series on DVD but now rarely watch discs (I'm lazy), so when I found this free, on demand, streaming on one of the free with commercial streamers (Pluto), I decided to check it out. I've watched many OL episodes over my boomer life but there are a few that remain unseen, this was one of them. I watched it with my wife, over dinner, probably the way most people watched it when it first aired (although now we have mush bigger TVs!). She seemed engaged by it, which is always good. The premise of the story is that extraterrestrials (or maybe demons? Lol) are controlling humans in powerful positions to take over the world for their species. This is a recurrent plot in sci-fi. There are probably films that predate it but the earliest I can think of a film with aliens (not talking about zombies or vampires controlled by others) is the 1953 film Invaders From Mars. Very similar concept of the alien injecting a human in the back of the neck. Roger Corman would also do it in 1956 with It Conquered The World, starring Lee Van Cleef, Peter Graves and Beverley Garland, a must watch if you really enjoyed The Invisibles and have not watched it yet. "It" was riffed on MST3K and its awesome but I enjoyed it by itself as well. Again, this is the alien in the back of the neck injection action, so we can see a pattern here. Of course the most famous alien injecting itself into humans is in the "Alien" franchise which is still making big budget films in 2024. I had to go back and look for Richard Dawson, his role here was so different then his usual cool Limey roles, I forgot it was him! Any fan of George Macready will really like him here, he has one crazy scene that breaks his polished mold into a thousand pieces! Analyzing all the sci fi things he was in, to me, he is like the 1960s version on Lionel Atwill. BTW, check him out in the other OL episode he was in, "Production and Decay of Strange Particles" (which also has a pre Spock, Leonard Nimoy). Everyone will notice Walter Burke, the hobbit looking guy. But what probably makes this a higher rated episode then the average OL is Don Gordon! He pulls it off for my suspension of belief. My rating and my overall entertainment factor is 7 out of 10. Judging by the number of reviews on this one episode (almost 20), its a good episode! BTW, if you look for this on Pluto they have two choices, an episode that is streaming now and one that says watch now, the later choice will take you to the episode list to chose which one to watch. As much as you may want to binge on this series, its probably best to watch it over a long period of time because the show can seem repetitive if one episode is watched right after another (the same dramatic music doesn't help, lol).

This is a pretty good episode with a kind of clichéd plot. As has happened many times in B sci fi movies, an alien becomes one with a citizen for the purpose of domination. In this case a group of "nobodies" is recruited to be impregnated (sort of) by things with legs (that don't actually propel the things). They are shaped like trilobites. One of the young men is an agent sent to infiltrate this operation. Eventually, he becomes the right hand man, working for the governor, chauffeuring his wife. It's all about being chased. At some point, the wife accidentally runs over the guy, breaking his leg and this leads to major complications. Apparently, these intergalactic forces have broad scope and are a substantial threat. One interesting thing was seeing Richard Dawson (Laugh In and Family Feud Richard Dawson) as the guy who keeps an eye on things for the governor. I have to say, however, that the little alien creatures were so silly and so slow, it's hard to imagine them being much of a threat.

A trio of men join a small unit of Alien invaders, who's mission is to infiltrate the top jobs in The Country and take over by stealth. One of the trio isn't all he makes out to be.

I had wondered what was meant by The term 'Invisibles,' I was half expecting to encounter a series of beings that physically couldn't be seen, I think it was more that those infected were hiding in plain sight.

This is yet another quality episode, I loved some of the ideas the had here, I really appreciated the strong horror vibe, and I liked the very strong characters. There were definitely vibes of Invasion of The Body snatchers about this one.

Some of the visuals are pretty grim, seeing Spain and Planetta pinned down and infected, that's pretty nasty stuff. The creatures themselves looked rather good, not too dissimilar to Doctor Who's cybermats.

Don Gordon did a great job as Spain, Tony Mordente was excellent also as Planetta, Neil Hamilton was terrific.

8/10.