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No matter how bad your day might get, just be grateful that you’re
not a character out of a Quinn Martin series… picture yourself
as a balding, bloated William Conrad (a.k.a. private detective Cannon),
a gigantic man that has become one with his equally gigantic
Lincoln Continental and whom is in serious jeopardy of keeling over any
minute due to his morbid obesity and addiction to fine foods. Or imagine
being Karl Malden, having one of filmdom’s most hideous noses,
and walking “The Streets Of San Francisco” with a young Michael
Douglas in tow - ooh, I get chills just thinking about that one! But
of all the tortured protagonists in the Quinn Martin legacy (don’t
get me started on The Fugitive), the grand
prize winner would have to be Roy Thinnes, the hero of the science
fiction television’s cult classic, The Invaders.
One dark and lonely night, while attempting to find his way home, architect
David Vincent (Thinnes) takes a wrong turn and finds himself at an abandoned
diner in the middle of nowhere. Badly in need of a strong cup of
coffee, a half-awake Vincent is astonished at the sight of a flying saucer-like
object landing directly in the field in front of him. Reporting
his “unusual” sighting to the local authorities, Vincent
finds that nobody believes him… and that he will be treated as
nothing more than a delusional paranoiac from anyone he tries to confide
in or seek the help of.
 Between the government-instilled Cold War trepidation that every American
was experiencing, the ever-increasing demand for new and original television
entertainment, and the fact that practically half of the country was
seeing flying saucers on a nightly basis, it’s no wonder that The Invaders hit home. Its two season stint on the
ABC Network from 1967 to 1968 brought us 43 episodes that ranged from
dynamic, heart-pounding drama to silly, chuckle-inducing fun and helped
to inspire numerous film and television concepts in the future, including
Chris Carter’s The X-Files (in which
Roy Thinnes would appear in three Anthology episodes as Jeremiah Smith).
Unlike The X-Files however, The Invaders does not benefit from having a story arc of
any kind: all of the chapters here are stand-alone ones (much like the
Quinn Martin Production The Fugitive -
which ended its four-year run the same year The Invaders premiered)
with our hero finding himself at a new location at the beginning of
the episode, still searching for some sort of proof that will make the
rest of the world believe.
 The Invaders - The First Season brings
all 17 Episodes from the sci/fi drama on 5 discs. Guest stars include
such familiar faces as Jack Lord, Michael Rennie, Roddy McDowall, Suzanne
Pleshette, Jack Warden, Dabney Coleman, Burgess Meredith, and even Peter
Graves to name a few.
When you’ve had it up to your neck with crappy science fiction
shows, give The Invaders a shot - chance
are, you won’t regret the purchase.
Presentation
It’s so good to have The Invaders on
DVD and, while I imagine CBS/Paramount did their utmost to preserve and/or
restore every chapter of this Science Fiction TV classic as best they
could, the quality varies from episode to episode (the “Beachhead” Pilot
on Disc One is the major culprit: it looks like it may have been culled
from a video master and, when one compares it to the extended version
on Disc Five, it becomes apparent that it has been slightly time compressed). Seeing
as how there was no such thing as High Definition widescreen TV back
in 1967, every episode is presented in it’s original 1.33:1 ratio.
 I guess the inclusion of the Special Features must have drifted over
into the Languages/Subtitles budget since the only audio track available
is an English Mono Stereo one (which is rather nice at that). Sadly,
there are no Subtitles, but the discs are Closed Captioned.
Extras
If you’ve been getting a bit frustrated with the lack of Special
Features on a lot of the recent TeleVintage Shows released by CBS/Paramount,
you’ll be delighted to know that each and every episode is introduced
by none other that Roy Thinnes himself! The amusingly somber Mr.
Roy (with a unflattering bow tie) gives us a brief episode rundown (Spoiler
Alert!) and the occasional bit of trivia.
Disc Three is blessed with an Audio Commentary on Episode 10 “The
Innocent” by series creator Larry Cohen, who is entertaining
to listen to, but provides little in the way of factual information
as Cohen was not directly involved in the production of this particular
episode (or very many episodes for that matter). Either way, though,
it’s a fun listen.
 All of these goodies lead up to a larger assortment of Bonus Features
on Disc Five starting of with the Extended Version of the Pilot Episode “Beachhead” (60:47),
which was dug up from the vaults and cleaned up a bit for this DVD release
(actually, I recommend you watch this Pilot over the one on Disc One
as the quality here is far superior… and it isn’t time-compressed
like the version found on the first disc, either). Next up is an
Interview with star Roy Thinnes (27:24) in which the mumbling monotone
actor discusses his work, his casting in the role, his personal opinions
on UFOs, etc. The last bit of Extras on Disc Five include three
original Promos for Season One (2:26).
Disc One also features some Promo Trailers for other TV Shows on DVD:
there’s a big bumper for the entire Star Trek television
franchise (note how the voiceover guy says “track” instead
of “trek” - yeah, that ought to get the
fans riled up!), a brief look at Jericho, and a montage
promo for those CSI series, Numbers, NCIS, Medium, 4400.
The Bottom Line
At last you can get rid of those old VHS cassettes… The Invaders are here on DVD.
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