Thar She Blows!
Posted on | October 11, 2005 at 6:13 pm | Comments Off
Enough time has passed and enough episodes watched for me to comment properly on the three new network “alien invasion” shows: NBC’s Surface, CBS’s Threshold, and ABC’s Invasion. There’s a clear winner among the three, at least for me.
After a promising start, Threshold has devolved into something of a police procedural show, as I feared it would. Every week they have to track down the latest escapee from the naval merchant ship that was exposed to the alien influence, and halt the dastardly plan that the crewman is hatching. At least there does appear to be an overall story arc and those small plans from the bad guys seem to be fitting together and leading up to big plans. But mostly there’s just a lot of clue-following and chasing people around the country. The strongest thing going for it is still the cast (especially Carla Gugino and Peter Dinklage), but unless they ramp up the plot elements and the sense of impending doom, and start bringing in some more interesting science fiction elements, I don’t know if I can stick with it. I suspect it’s not doing real well in the ratings (in its Friday Night Death Slot), so that may not be an issue for much longer.
Invasion is moving too slow for me, and I find myself not all that interested in the extended family that the show focuses on (aside from the hot reporter and her conspiracy-minded brother). Also, the whole potential Invasion of the Body Snatchers/Pod People/The Thing theme has been done to death and holds little interest for me. Who do you trust? Just WHO do you trust?? Who cares! Not me. They better have some interesting twist on that planned. This show also has the always-creepy William Sphincter, I mean Fichtner, not straying too far from his stereotypical is-he-or-is-he-not-a-bad-guy role. This is not a plus in my book. Of the three shows, I think this is doing the best in the ratings. But that’s probably because of its Lost lead-in. I believe it’s already gotten a full season order.
The only one I’m really getting into is Surface, and that’s because it’s just kind of old-timey goofy science fiction fun. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, unlike Invasion. You never quite know what’s going to happen next in this story of newly discovered sea monsters (brought to live through cheesy CGI) who can eat small boats whole, and their young, who apparently have a taste for poodles. Parts of it are so absurd, like the two boys keeping a baby monster as a pet in their pool and continually avoiding discovery, that you just have to go along with it and laugh. These creatures apparently come from somewhere near the super-heated earth’s core (where they can withstand and even thrive on extreme temperatures), and yet they need to live in water. How can you not love that, and not want to hear how they’re going to try to explain it? Plus, this show has the most bikinis of the three, as a lot of it takes place near the water. It’s extremely derivative – paying homage to everything from Godzilla movies to Close Encounters of the Third Kind (one of the main characters has a very Richard Dreyfuss-like obsession with his visions). There’s even a government conspiracy to complete things. Actually, all there of these shows have government conspiracies, though in the case of Threshold, the conspirators are Our Heroes. The biggest mystery is trying to figure out the long-term plan/direction for this show. How can it be more than a limited series? Surface also has the most visual effects of the three shows. I don’t hold out much hope for it surviving the season, but if enough people start watching, maybe it will stand a chance. So here I am, spreading the word. It’ s been getting re-shown on the SciFi channel on Tuesday nights for those who miss the Monday NBC one.
Note: Invasion also seems to have sea monsters, but they’re not as fun-loving. Threshold also has people having visions and getting obsessed with them. Aliens are so predictable with their invasion plans.
Latre.