The Invisibles

Deep space creatures need humans so they may live. Humans being controlled like addiction. Good cast George Macready, Don Gordon, & Walter Burke. Has a revolting subject of losing control to a evil space alien.

As I watched this episode, I realized how much it had to say about terrorist organizations long before 9/11 ever happened. The unrealistic beliefs the "recruits" had about their rewards, as well as the dispersal of them across the country seemed prescient. Think about the way Al Quieda recruited disaffected men and the way they indoctrinated them to perform their "mission." As usual, TOL was way ahead of its times.

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.

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).

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.