A Shaun Cassidy Site

9/21/06 - Cinematic Happenings Under Development (CHUD): (webmaster's note: you should REALLY click on the link for this review!  Besides the fact that this is (IMO) the best, most honest review of the show I've seen, the captions under the pictures (which have been deleted here) are 'worth the price of admission.'  I have been laughing since I read this! -- Annie)

STUDIO: Warner Home Video
MSRP: $59.98
RATED: NR
RUNNING TIME: 907 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• Missing scenes
• "Invading the Mind of Shaun Cassidy" featurette
• Gag reel

The Pitch

Even extraterrestrials are retiring to Florida.

The Humans

William Fichtner, Eddie Cibrian, Kari Matchett, Lisa Sheridan, Tyler Labine, Alexis Dziena, Evan Peters, Ariel Gade, Aisha Hinds.


The Nutshell

During a hurricane that slams Florida, a bunch of lights emerge from the ocean and rain down in the waters surrounding Homestead. Several people, including Dr. Mariel Underlay (Matchett), go missing, only to wind up the following morning near the water, completely naked and with no memory of how they survived. Mariel is the wife of Sherriff Underlay (Fichtner), and ex-wife of Everglades park ranger, Russell Varon (Cibrian), who himself is married to local news reporter Larkin (Sheridan). Russell and Varon share two kids, Jesse and Rose, and Underlay also has a daughter, Kyra. Rounding out the family is Larkin’s conspiracy theorist nut brother, Dave. In the following days after the hurricane, the two families start noticing changes in the behavior of those who went missing, including Mariel. Soon other clues like lights in the waters and a piece or two of some strange animals turning up around town portend that something about Homestead is definitely off. Pretty soon, Russell discovers that the Sheriff definitely knows what’s going on and things are really weird when the military gets involved. Eventually it’s discovered that Homestead is the beachhead for an impending invasion of creatures, possibly alien, that abduct people in the water and make perfect hybrid copies of them, with the possible purpose being to either offer the next step in evolution, or worse, extinction.

The Lowdown

It’s not a surprise to me that Invasion was cancelled after one season last year. It was part of a crop of TV shows that sought to cash in on the Lost phenomenon of the serialized mystery / sci-fi / alien drama that included Surface, Threshold, and others that ultimately got the axe. What is surprising to me is that the show made it the entire season because, quite honestly, the first eight episodes or so are a crushing bore. Considering that another show that didn’t last the season, Night Stalker, started out much better and only made it to six episodes - on the same network mind you - it shows how fickle the Nielsen gods can be. The first third of this season is setting up the show for the hoped-for long haul, but peals the onion layer by layer just a bit too slowly. For a supposed alien invasion, there ain’t much alien nor invasion to be seen, only innuendo and hypothesis.

But then something even more surprising happens, a one-armed deputy gets taken by one of the creatures, you see him being replaced and the show kicks it up a couple of notches and suddenly you’re riveted as the situation becomes more clear: the people of Homestead and beyond aren’t who they used to be and the minorities aren’t just Cubans or Black people, but humans themselves. Up until then I half considered stopping around episode 8 or 9 and faking the rest of the review. But if I had, I would have missed out on the conspiracy that works on several levels. First of all, the people who are changed don’t necessarily realize it at first. Part of the annoying story build up is that you know that Mariel is one of them, but she doesn’t know it and you know her husband knows something is going on, you just don’t know what. Invasion was trying way too hard to establish the mythology at an X-Files pace and I think that audiences, yours truly included, have reached a critical short attention span faze in our development where we have to have the answers ASAP, and Invasion wasn’t providing them. I submit that if X-Files had started now instead of 13 years ago, it might not have made it out of the first season.

Kudos should be given to the show runners who probably realized this and then got the show going to present some interesting elements of their mythology and where the show was trying to go. On one hand you’ve got the microcosm of the two interconnected families, the Varons and the Underlays, and how they’re dealing with the changes in their family and community. Then in the backdrop, you’ve got the conspiracy of the hybrids slowly but surely taking over the town. On another front, you’ve got the military, who know about the whole thing and are using Homestead for a petrie dish to see what the invaders are planning. The most interesting thing that Invasion posits is whether or not the invaders are indeed alien, or another form of sea life that we’ve never encountered before. And whether or not this is a Cambrian explosion – a sudden leap forward in evolution – or an alien apocalypse. Also debated is whether or not it’s necessarily a bad thing to be replaced. The hybrids possess several abilities that us mere humans lack, including a form of hive mind, the ability to stay under water for long periods of time, and advanced healing abilities. But they’re still essentially the same people, knowing everything and generally feeling everything that they felt before they were changed.

But not everybody is changed in the same way. Some undergo radical personality changes, including a young mother who flips and goes all Natural Born Killers on those around her, including her mother-in-law. She’s also the first to present the possible threat of what happens when a hybrid gets pregnant, a period of time that only lasts three weeks by the way. However, others, such as Mariel, even when they find out that they’ve been changed, behave civilly and still maintain the same family and community ties that they had before. Nevertheless, there still emerges an “us against them” mentality as the town comes to realize that they’ve got some new old friends living amongst them. This is particularly prevalent when the kids return to school and hybrid cliques emerge.

In the center of it all is Underlay, who is definitely planning something with the emergent bad guy of the series, Eli Szura, who is getting together his own little hybrid army in one of the uncharted Florida keys. When a second hurricane heads for Homestead late in the season, all of the things that had been percolating all season long come to a boil and it’s up to the Varons to stop a mass replacement being plotted by Szura and his cohorts. And in typical fashion, the show ends in a fateful replacement that had promised to deliver the next kink in the story should it have been picked up for another season.

I think I could see how the show might have played out if it had continued. It could have steered to legal issues and whether or not the hybrids would have the same rights as humans, which would be applicable to the current immigration situation. And while the question of what happens during a hybrid pregnancy was raised, the replacement that took place at the end of the season could have also gone in a new direction to address what happens when a pre-replacement pregnant woman is taken. To say anymore is to spoil it, but if you watched the show, you know whom I mean. I was kind of not looking forward to doing this review, because I thought that Invasion was going to be some half-baked knockoff of Lost, seeking to cash in on a phenomenon that I understand is already starting to wear thin. Surprisingly, I don’t watch Lost, but I have a friend who goes on and on about how the second season is already dragging the show to unbearable delays in revealing the goings-on. So I didn’t have much hope that Invasion would be any better, and for the first third of the season I was essentially correct. But when the show got going, it did so in entertaining fashion and now I’m sorry that it’s going to remain another mythology that will probably never get resolved, something that’s becoming the norm rather than the exception.

The Package

The show looks good, successfully recreating a hurricane-devastated Florida town and sporting some decent special effects, particularly the creatures. The sound is English Dolby Surround and is also fine. But one thing that continues to irk me is that the subtitles for this and many other discs (particularly Warners’) are in seemingly every language except English. So if there’s anything you didn’t quite catch, you have to look at the subtitles and then find the nearest translation dictionary. There’s loads of deleted scenes for the 22 episodes and they’re presented on the individual episode menus for easy access or as separate features. There’s also a good making-of feature: Invading the Mind of Shaun Cassidy, which ably encapsulates the season. A gag reel rounds out the special features.

8/27/06 - Blogcritics.org

The Lost phenomena might be one of the best things to happen to television. Cookie cutter cop shows (and I really like Law & Order) have dominated the airwaves for far too long. I think people got sick of stories that wrapped up too neatly at the episode's end.

The ABC show Lost (along with Desperate Housewives) helped to reinvigorate the season-long plot-lines that made watching television shows week after week interesting and relevant. ABC tried to use the formula again with Invasion, a show about water-based extraterrestrials infiltrating Homestead, a small Florida town, told through the eyes of the one extended family, and had mixed results.

The show starts with the touchdown of Hurricane Eve onto Homestead, with images and dialogue reminiscent of any disaster flick. But there is no climax in the pilot episode because the show needs to build the tension and the most terrifying thing to happen in a thriller is for it to climax too early. So the first few episodes of the show just wade in the water, trying to establish characters, their relationships, the setting, and the context.

Tom Underlay (William Fichtner), the town sheriff, coordinates the hurricane relief efforts. He's married to the hospital's chief doctor, Mariel Underlay (Kari Matchett). She used to be married to a park ranger named Russell Varon (Eddie Cibrian), and they share two children Jesse (Evan Peters) and Rose (Ariel Gade). Russell is currently married to Larkin Groves (Lisa Sheridan), a local television reporter. Her brother Dave (Tyler Labine) lives with them. Tom has a daughter from his previous marriage Kira (Alexis Dziena). Doesn't this seem like one big happy family?

The family's complicated nature parallels the complicated nature of the town in the aftermath of the hurricane. When strange things start to happen, it's no wonder that no one tries to look for the answers. If problems exist in the home, the town's state and well-being become less important. Everyone is preoccupied with the cleanup and relief work that no one sees the significance of the strange occurrences like the lights that accompanied the hurricane and remain near the water, the townsfolk who are found naked in the water seemingly unharmed by mother nature, and the slow town restoration process — including a town quarantine — spearheaded by the town sheriff.

Dave, with his thousands of ideas as to the invasion's causes and effects, first entertains the idea of an alien invasion. Could the invasion be a military conspiracy? Could Homestead be the starting battlefield? What if Homestead wasn't the first town to be invaded? Is all mankind doomed?

Invasion is also reminiscent to the science fiction film Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. But the dangers aren't as real or immediate. As a television series, Invasion must pace itself in order to achieve a greater payoff for the devoted audience. Slowly (and I mean slowly) but surely the show reveals many tidbits of information through the investigation by Dave and Russell as to the origins of the "hybrids." But I think this pace is a little too slow. Looking at the DVD box set, it is titled "The Complete Series." No doubt the show reached a premature end, but given a whole 22-episode season the stories could have gone somewhere. Throughout most of the episodes, Russell is out looking for clues, and grumbling about trying to protect his family, while his wife is constantly worried sick and his children become to feel thoroughly neglected.

The emphasis on the family and how family bonds give strength is a nice foundation to work the series around. But science fiction needs more story and more suspense. The shift between the investigation and the troubles at home are too abrupt and don't connect as smoothly as I think series creator Shaun Cassidy intended. Although, the town itself and the invasion's ramifications on it are touched upon in the latter episodes through instances like the high school's segregation between the hybrids and the humans. This catches Jesse and Kira into an extremely complicated situation.

The biggest problem I have with the show is that I've never been able to grasp its believability. The idea of ordinary folks like Russell and Dave trying to rise up to do extraordinary things like stop an alien invasion and save the planet seems sort of preposterous and pretentious to me. Maybe I'm reminded too much of the Donald Sutherland version of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (which everyone should, it's a great movie), and it depressed the hell out of me. The odds seem so stacked against the Underlays and the Varons. You want to root for them, but it all seems so hopeless. But that's my problem.

Invasion isn't a great show, but it is mildly intriguing. Its main problem is the pacing. I mean the show is called "invasion" for a reason. I think we all know that at some point the big thing will happen. But the main point of watching is the stuff in-between, which I think ends up being disappointing. The show needed more tension and more alien stuff, but all it had was people talking.

Invasion is presented in a 1:78:1 widescreen format. Special features include some deleted scenes that mostly amounted to nothing significant, a featurette titled "Invading the Mind of Shaun Cassidy," and a gag reel. The gag reel has some pretty funny moments and it looks as though the cast really loves Brokeback Mountain.

8/24/06 - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Shaun Cassidy, former teen idol and strange, warped mind behind ABC's undeservedly short-lived sci-fi series "Invasion" ($59.99, Warner Home Video), notes in the set's DVD extras that "I come from a complicated family."

That about sums up the relationships brewing, mending and evolving among members of two extended families in the aftermath of a horrific hurricane that strikes a fictionalized Homestead, Fla. The storm leaves behind mountains of wreckage, downed power lines and a little something extra in the water.

"Invasion" isn't coy about the strange goings-on; of course it's an alien invasion. And while the mystery of what the creatures are and why growing numbers of Homestead residents don't quite seem to be themselves anymore is intriguing, the real conflict is of the family variety. Creepy sheriff Tom Underlay (William Fichtner) is married to Mariel, a doctor who used to be married to Russell, an Everglades park ranger, who's now married to Larkin, a damsel-in-distress TV news reporter who's the sister of Dave, an Every Man whose conspiracy theories on aliens are hardly wild, although his hair most certainly is.

Throw in Russ and Mariel's kids and Tom's daughter, and the term "teen alienation" takes on a while new meaning. These relationships make the show gripping, but the real punch is provided by Fichtner. Sheriff Underlay does some pretty horrible things and yet ... is he perhaps the hero of this saga? Sadly, we'll never know: ABC canceled the show, leaving Underlay with one last, cliffhanging act. The DVD set's skimpy extras -- a short featurette, deleted scenes and a gag reel -- don't help, either.

8/24/06 - DVDTalk.com

With the success of Lost on ABC in 2004, the 2005 television season saw several similar shows hit the air waves.  CBS had Threshold, NBC broadcast Surface and even ABC tried to capture lightning is a bottle a second time with Invasion.  This latter series had a lot going for it.  It was preceded by Lost giving it a huge built-in audience, had an interesting premise, and a talented production team behind it.  Yet the show never found an audience.  Losing viewers every week, the program was put on hiatus twice during its one and only season and was cancelled after its final episode, which ends in a cliffhanger, was aired.  A small but devoted group of fans tried to get the show resurrected but to no avail.  The entire series of 22 episodes is now being released on DVD and the show seems to play much better in this format than on weekly TV.

In the aftermath of a hurricane, a small Florida town has more trouble than just rebuilding their homes and restoring the utilities.  Something odd has happened to the community.  A number of people disappeared during the storm only to turn up the next day after spending the night in the water, totally nude, and with no memories of what happened.  Park Ranger Russell Varon (Eddie Cibrian) notices that his ex-wife, Dr. Mariel Underlay (Kari Matchett) has changed after her night in the swamp, but her current husband, Sheriff Tom Underlay (William Fichtner) doesn't seem to think that there's anything wrong.  Then again, he went through a similar trauma years ago and seems to be the only one who knows what's happening to the town.  Varon's young daughter, Rose, saw some eerie lights land in the swamp the night of the hurricane, and there is some strange luminous creatures in the water that are definitely not friendly.  These events convince Varon's goofy brother-in-law Dave (Tyler Labine) that all these things are the result of a EBE, Extraterrestrial Biological Entity.  With more and more people start disappearing and then acting very odd when the return, the rational and pragmatic Ranger is starting to think there might be something to Dave's theory.

After watching this series, it's easy to see why it lost viewers every week: it starts off slow.  I mean really slow.  A three-toed sloth would want them to speed it up.  The plot unfolds at a glacial pace.  At the end of the first disc of four episodes, viewers haven't learned anything that wasn't evident at the end of the pilot.  The first half dozen installments seem to mainly deal with Russell and his bitchy ex-wife arguing over visitation rights.  Yes, something happened in the water that changed Mariel.  She now gets hypnotized looking at running water and loves to take baths.  The third or fourth time they show these events makes you want to yell "Yes!  We get it!  Tell us something we don't know!"  With a show named Invasion viewers are expecting something to happen in the first episodes like, oh, I don't know....maybe an ALIEN INVASION!  People aren't tuning in to a show called Invasion to see if the Sheriff's daughter is as much of a slut as she seems to be (she is) and how the mixing of two families is going along.  If I had been watching this show on a weekly basis I'm sure I wouldn't have continued watching after the second or third episode.

It's a good thing that I waited for the DVD set, because that would have been a mistake.  It does take the show much longer than it should to get going, but once it does, this turns out to be a pretty good program.  Around episode 9 things start to pick up and the mystery, that had been stuck in neutral for about the first third of the season, starts getting deeper and more interesting.  The pieces start fitting into place and what's going on becomes more clear, and more immediate.  It's almost like the show's creator's said "Okay, we'll give you a program that you'll enjoy, but you have to earn it.  You have to sit through the boring part first."

Even after the story picks up, the program isn't perfect.  It tends to veer off into soap opera territory a bit too much dealing with the personal friction between the main characters, but that is minimized to some extent.  The acting wasn't nearly as good as it could have been either.  William Fichtner only hits one note is his portrayal of a small town sheriff, and Kari Matchett is fairly unconvincing in her role as chief of staff at a hospital.  Eddie Cibrian does much better as Russell and Lisa Sheridan gave the best lead performance as Russell's new wife.  Tyler Labine only had a supporting role, but every time he was on the screen the show was entertaining.  He played the looney conspiracy buff with uncanny accuracy.

All 22 episodes of Invasion are presented in this set.  The shows are spread across six single sided DVDs, which come in a fold out case.  I'm not a big fan of these fold out books, it takes much too much room to unfold them, but this one is worse than most.  The discs come two to a page, with the top disc partially overlapping the lower one.  It's really a pain to take a disc out in order to access the one beneath.  If they had packaged these in double disc thinpak cases, the series would have taken up about the same amount of room, but it would have been much easier to access the shows.

Audio:

8/23/06 - Underground Online

Given the similarities to a 1956 film, Invasion could easily be short for Invasion of the Body Snatchers: The TV Series. This ABC series, which came from the mind of Shaun Cassidy, doesn't center on little green men that declare war with spaceships and rayguns. Instead, a waterborne species comes to Earth in a hurricane and "makes landfall" in the town of Homestead, Florida.

While the show relies heavily on an alien offensive theme, Invasion is about much more than the orange lights living in the water since all of the main characters belong to one big dysfunctional family. Russell (Eddie Cibrian) was married to Mariel (Kari Matchett), and they had two kids, Jesse (Evan Peters) and Rose (Ariel Gade). Russell and Mariel recently divorced, and now she is married to Tom (the great William Fichtner), who has his own daughter, Kira (Alexis Dziena). On the other side of this bizarre family tree, Russell has married Larkin (Lisa Sheridan) and they are expecting a child of their own. Add to that, Larkin has a brother who lives with them, played by Tyler Labine. Even more, Tom is the town sheriff, Mariel is one of the head doctors, Russell is a park ranger, and Larkin is a hard-nosed reporter. Like I said, it's one big happy family.

The beauty of Invasion comes from the fact that the characters approach the same event from different multiple angles. The aliens arrive during Hurricane Eve, a fictional hurricane that devastates the Florida coast. The initial wave of invading aliens definitely finds Mariel, though she doesn't turn into a zombie or a green-skinned lizard. As we see, she's still the same person but now she seems to be oddly pre-occupied. As the story progresses, it's the same in several other cases around town. The storyline intelligently combines several interesting layers with the alien invasion, the family dynamic, the alienation of the children as their parents divorce, and the trust or mistrust the townsfolk place on each other.

Invasion knocks it out of the park in terms of audio and visual quality. The aliens in Invasion are skiddish creatures, so it makes sense that we don't see too many close-ups. The dialogue is precisely clear, even when several hurricanes (that's right, there's more than one) slam into the town. The video transfer is picture-perfect for a new series just landing on DVD, and the special effects are masterfully spliced into the live-action sequences. To say the least, Invasion is a technical treat.

Adding to an already great 22-episode run, the 6-disc set offers a fairly light (but entertaining) dose of special features for fans of the series. The "Invading the Mind of Shaun Cassidy" featurette takes us on a 23-minute ride into the characters of the series as told by the actors. The cast interviews are augmented by interviews with Cassidy as he explains the fact-based premise of the series - and the science fiction. Each disc features a scattering of deleted scenes, though the cuts are few and far between, while the gag reel offers a hilarious look back at the show through missed lines, prop malfunctions, inside jokes and pranks throughout the filming of Invasion.

Invasion took off on a highly promising premise and, as it was explained in the filmmaker commentary, the fan base was quick to respond to the series (17 million people watched the pilot episode alone). With the series now on DVD, sci-fi fans can also look for several guest appearances from the Star Trek universe, including Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko on Deep Space Nine) and Armin Shimerman (Quark from Deep Space Nine). Other notable guest stars that brought this series to life were Six Feet Under's Tina Holmes and James Frain, the man who so cleverly portrayed Paul Raines in 24. With a great cast, clever storylines and cool guest list, Invasion is the best show not to be renewed for the Fall 2006 season. On DVD, the series lives on as a well-rounded and quality package.

Review by Kyle Braun

Show: A
Look: A-
Sound: A-
Extras: B-
Overall: A-

8/22/06 - Zap2It.com

INVASION. All 22 episodes on six discs; out today from Warner, $60.

ABC's tantalizing tale of "body snatchers" in the wake of a devastating hurricane is also a savvy study of today's fractured family life and social structure. Meaty bonus feature explores the show's making/themes with smart remarks from creator Shaun Cassidy, stars and crew. Even the kids are sharp. Other extras: deleted scenes, gag reel. (Spanish/French subtitles.)

8/19/06 - MonstersandCritics.com

Drawing on traditional science fiction themes and plots, Invasion has enough mystery to keep viewers watching early on, but quickly runs out of steam halfway through the season. The complete series is now available in a six-disc set that also features deleted scenes, a gag reel, and a look at the series’ creator Shaun Cassidy.

The series premiered on ABC as part of the 2005 fall line-up, and ran until May, 2006. It was one of three “sci-fi” themed shows (along with Surface and Threshold) that premiered on the three big networks in 2005, but failed to capture an audience before getting the cancelled slip.

The DVD’s special features are enjoyable, and I would highly recommend watching the various deleted scenes for some of the episodes. Many times, the scenes add crucial information to the series, and you have to question why some of them ended up on the cutting room floor. The gag reel is also fun to watch, but I would wait until after watching the entire series since there are a couple of spoilers in it.

Invasion was created by Cassidy (who also brought us the short-lived television series American Gothic and Roar), and featured a great cast of character actors – including William Fichtner, Eddie Cibrian, Kari Matchett, Lisa Sheridan, Tyler Labine, Alexis Dziena, Evan Peters and Ariel Gade.

The series “borrows” its basic plot from the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers storyline, and expands it “X-Files” style to include government cover-up and the classic skeptic and believer buddy duo. It even throws in some family drama with the show’s main focus being on a two families (The Varons and the Underlays) made up of divorce parents and their new spouses that have to work together to discover what is happening. The series strength lies in its ensemble cast – most notably that of William Fichtner.

Plot wise, the series is fairly straight forward and follows the strange events that occur in the town of Homestead, Florida, following the landfall of Hurricane Eve. It seems that not only did Eve leave a wake of destruction, but also stirred up some strange glowing “fish” in the water. These fish seem to be having an affect on the locals.
 
As the series continues, park ranger Russell Varon (Cibrian), a divorced father of two who is expecting a third child with his new wife, begins to question the safety of his children with their mother and her new husband Sheriff Tom Underlay (Fichtner). Underlay just doesn’t seem to be on the level about what he knows, and Russell’s ex-wife just doesn’t quite seem to be herself since they found her naked in water after the hurricane.

As Russell, his reporter wife and her conspiracy spouting brother begin to investigate what is going on, they discover this is much bigger than they ever could have imagined, and that they are facing a fight for the survival of their family, community, and what might ultimately be the whole human race.

Like I said, Invasion has been done before, but the series benefits from the strength of its entire cast. Fichtner is great in the show, and you are never really too sure what he is doing for most of the series. He is the perfect actor for the part, and adds just enough air of mystery to the plot without letting it get too cliché.

Tyler Labine’s performance as the goofy brother-in-law Dave Groves adds enough comedy to the series to keep it from getting too dark. He also gives the audience someone they can relate with when the science gets too much.

Cibrian and Kari Matchett (who plays his ex-wife Dr. Mariel Underlay) both give strong performances as parents wanting to keep their family safe, and forced to work together despite being divorced and remarried. I thought this blending of two families was an interesting aspect to add to a “traditional” science fiction show. At times the series seems to focus more on the family dynamics than what is happening in the water.

Even though I enjoyed the series, Invasion does have some faults, and some viewers may lose interest in it before popping in the second disc. It is clear from the first episode that this is going to be a series that provides more questions than answers (something made even more clearer when the last episode ends), and this style of show may be starting to lose some of its appeal.

Like Surface (which I also reviewed for the DVD set), the series suffers from dangling story elements that go unanswered thanks to cancellation. At times, its focus is lost in favor of side plots that do little to add to the overall enjoyment. Still, science fiction fans will want to give the show a chance, and won’t be too disappointed with the overall story - thanks mostly to the show’s ensemble cast.

*The following episode descriptions do contain spoilers. Readers may want to skip this portion of the review. (Webmaster's note: I have deleted this section due to space constraints.  If you would like to read these descriptions, please click on the page link and read it from the original source.)

Invasion is an extremely good show, but also has some problems that can easily cause viewers to lose interest before finishing the set. The series more than once “jumps the shark,” and the plot tends to get a little too large to maintain its main story. Also, viewers will probably be more than a little disappointed with the cliffhanger ending at the end of episode 22. Since there is no second season coming, the questions go unanswered, and we are forced to imagine where the series was headed.

With that said, I would still recommend Invasion to any science fiction fan. If you enjoyed the series when it aired on television, you will want to check the DVD set out thanks to the deleted scenes. It also gives you a chance to catch any plot points that you might have missed watching it week to week. The series is also worth giving a chance if you never got into it when it aired on ABC. 

Invasion is now available at Amazon. It is available for pre-order at Amason UK for a Sept. 4th release. Visit the DVD database for more information.

8/18/06 - Miami Herald