Os Invasores

Quinn Martin uber-producer for television in the 60's & 70's with such classics as the Untouchables, the Fugitive, & numerous other shows tried a science-fiction series.This was a change of pace as most of his shows dealt with crimefighting premises.The Invaders was about architect David Vincent who becomes lost one evening while on an isolated country road.Becoming weary,he pulls off the road into a clearing in order to rest but witnesses a alien flying saucer.As the series went on,he discovers that the aliens are attempting to surreptitiously infiltrate earth's various organizations in government,military,& business in order to conquer us because their homeworld is dying.Since they can look like humans,Vincent never knows who he can trust.This added a creepy paranoia to the show.DV must give up his comfortable life as he launches his one man crusade to convince mankind that aliens are already among us.This was a well written show coming from QM productions.Roy Thinnes is a talented actor but he came off as cold & aloof in the lead part.He never generated the likability & sympathy that David Jansen did in the Fugitive.The spaceships were a cool looking design & the guest stars were excellent.This show belongs in the sf hall of fame.

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!!

"The invaders" is the last great 1960's series and it is inspired by the "Invasion of the body snatchers" concept of conspiracy : science fiction + horror + reality = the fear of the unknown. One of the best show produced by Quinn Martin, including "The untouchables" and "The fugitive". Among the best episode, "The innocent" sums up the paranoiac symptoms at its best when Michael Rennie brainwashes Roy Thinnes in his flying saucer. According to me, the David Vincent character is a blend of Cary Grant, from "North by northwest", and Kevin Mc Carthy, from "Invasion of the body snatchers" : the innocent witness who becomes the new Cassandra, alone against everybody ! The pessimistic message of the series is equivocal : the world is corrupted by the authorities (officials, politicians, army, C.I.A., mafia) or the world is dominated by a claustrophobic mass conformism or the world is on the verge of being overthrown by the emotionless Soviet Union agents (blue collar workers who manufacture weapons and torture to get informations in hidden factories, and businessmen who infiltrate the power and whose bodies turn red when they die). Who knows ? The aesthetic of the show also adds more terror to the stories (the Wayne Fitzgerald expressionist title credits, the dead-serious tone of William Conrad's narration that gives you a cold warning at the beginning and the end of each episode, the Dominic Frontiere's suffocating music and the distorted cinematography). The best brainwashing episodes are : "The experiment", "The leeches", "The innocent", "The dark outpost", "The possessed" and "The pit". One of my all-time favourite tv show (with "The twilight zone", "The outer limits", "The wild wild west", "The time tunnel" and "Mission : impossible"). A word to the wise, don't watch the worthless new series aka "The impostors", you know what I mean. "The nightmare has already begun," and will never end, Mr. Vincent !

I was eight or nine years old when this aired. About all I can recall is that it was frightening and gloomy for a kid to watch, but I often did nevertheless. One thing I seem to recall is that the aliens could kill people by touching them with a device on their palms that looked like a joy buzzer. I remember one episode where a man was sitting at the wheel of a parked car and an alien rose up in the seat behind him and touched the back of his neck with one of those gizmos. Spooky. This must have provided at least a bit of the inspiration for "The X-Files." It also had a motif, if I recall correctly, reminiscent of "The Fugitive." Along with "The Outer Limits," this show really had a terrifying effect on me. I used to have to hide behind my dad's big chair and peek out around it to watch this, and "The Twilight Zone" and "Alfred Hitchcock" as well. I wish TVLand would air a few episodes.

For me this show ranks as one of the 10 best TV shows ever made. It resonates with me even today, and I think Roy Thinnes' performances, especially in the first season, are brilliant in their subtlety. I guess what really hits me about this show is how you have a man, David Vincent, who was living in a very conventional 60's worldview--until the night he makes one wrong turn and ends up having his safe, comfortable little existence turned upside down. Somehow I see a parallel between David Vincent and the title character of another top ten TV show - THE PRISONER. Both Number Six and David Vincent have been dragged into worlds of great excitement and adventure - but both are also modern equivalents of Sisyphus, forever doomed to struggle against overwhelming opposition. Both Number Six and David Vincent are actually tragic characters. The trap of most TV shows - that the status quo must be maintained from episode to episode to keep the series going - proves in this case to be a great asset to the nightmarish quality of the premise. Also, you never truly see who the aliens "are", any more than you find out who's running the Village.

Watch this show along with THE PRISONER. You'll be amazed at how much is going on within the "confines" of conventional TV drama.